Wheaton College-Norton Top Questions

I think that Wheaton is almost perfect. The size seems extremely small, but provides a close-knit community filled with familiar faces. There are yearly traditons such as "The Head of the Peacock", which is a boat race across Peacock Pond in which students make teams and create boats out of non-traditional boat materials. There is generally a great deal of school pride, which can be seen especially on the night of "Lyon's Pride" which is the first evening that new freshmen have moved onto campus. The upper classmen fill the chapel and decorate it with their class colors. Everyone comes to the chapel wearing their class colors, and cheers as the new freshmen enter the chapel, chanting to them as they are innitiated into the Wheaton community.

The school is ok in terms of size, you make good friends and it is big enough to not know everyone's name still. But sometimes it really seems like a high school because many high schools have around 1550 students, and cliques form inevitably. Many of the sports players only hang out together, and many sports guys tend to only date sports girls. No college town really, it is really tiny and there is nothing to do. Enough stuff happens on campus, or you have enough homework, though, to keep you busy on the weekends. There always seems to be a lot going on though, buildings are nice, people are generally nice.

Small, but perfect size for me. Not much do to in the surrounding area, but easy access to Boston and Providence. If you're involved, you'll find everything you need and more at Wheaton.

Norton, not a college town, one bar. but growing, very easy to get to boston or providence if you want to be in a city. shopping malls/more restaurants are being built in the towns next to norton like mansfield, easton, taunton. frequent complaint about wheaton is the cafeteria food or public safety

Coming here I thought my school was too small, but now I am happy that it is the size it is. However, that makes it very cliquey and political. The administration for different reasons can be horrible - they are sexist at times (watch out for Academic Advising - the Deans are cruel people and do very unethical things, such as writing letters of rec that speak to a student's false employment history). You have to create the experience for yourself, do not allow Wheaton administration to hurt you and your standing. The faculty is awesome, they can be trusted. People are generally impressed that I went to Wheaton. A lot of times we are confused with the Wheaton in Illinois which is highly religious and basically the opposite of our school (we are LIBERAL). Most of my time is spent on campus, but any chance I can I leave to go to the mall or the movies, etc. The surrounding town is tiny and VERY boring. Also, Student Life has been cracking down on drinking (which means more off campus drinking which means more drunk driving), so I would say that is the biggest controversy on campus right now. That is also what students complain about mostly. Also, the food here is terrible. I got off the meal plan Sophomore year and I have been able to survive without it, although at times it is difficult. Spring weekend and senior week is so much fun - we have a good time together at Wheaton and our class is very close. It was a very sad thing to leave. There are good and bad things about every college, but it really comes down to what you make of the experience. Wheaton was very difficult at times, but my last semester made it all worth it.

There are a lot of good programs at Wheaton, but there are also some questionably bad professors. They're easy enough to weed out but the problem comes when they're teaching a required class. The school, which has a population of roughly 1,600 (1,560 or so), certainly seems a lot like a high school sometimes and I regularly hear people complaining about the size of the school. At other times, though, it's fantastic to be able to walk around and see people that you know everywhere or for someone who knows you to let you into a dorm for which you don't have a key. In the Northeast, Wheaton has a great reputation (which is mostly but not entirely deserved), but once you get farther West (I'm writing this from NM, for example), the name is much less likely to be recognized. One of the greatest drawbacks of Wheaton is the lack of student space. The library and the dining hall (which is not particularly nice nor comfortable) are really the only two common areas on campus, seeing as there is a housing crunch of sorts which has forced the administration to place students into rooms that were previously study lounges. In one of the main freshman quads, for example, there are 2 lounges for 11 floors. The inability of freshmen to interact with each other and take part in the full "college experience" is truly damaging. The town, Norton, is barely a town at all. There are a couple of pharmacies within walking distance, but that makes up the entirety of the town. There is pretty respectable public transportation, which allows (given a couple of hours either way for travel) for students to make their way into either Boston, MA or Providence, RI, both of which generally have incredible concerts and fantastic food. The Wheaton administration is a lot like many other college administrations, I feel. They claim to be very open to student feedback, but are not incredibly responsive to many of the demands made of them. They will agree to things that they can see would be easily and cheaply (the college is not rolling in cash by any means) changed, but will entirely ignore any requests that they view to be against their mission in any way. The largest controversy on campus is the severe strictness of the alcohol policy, which has gotten increasingly more restrictive over the past several years. It does seem, however, that things will be relaxed and there is _massive_ student activism regarding the issue.

Wheaton is a very small school which is similar to high school but it is really what you make of it. The campus is very beautiful and the staff is amazing. In the sociology department, every professor is incredibly intelligent and 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} willing to help even if they're not on campus. The town has very little to do, it is not a college town, but just a few miles away a complex just opened with a lot of places to eat and shop. Two towns over there is Wrentham outlet mall which has a lot of stores and fun things to do. Most students are very involved in campus activities but there is not much to do off the campus.

The school is a little on the small side, but I like that after about 1 and half years I know almost everybody. It adds to the sense of community that can only be achieved at a small school. Wheaton's administration is ok. I'm not a huge fan of the president's attitude towards current students, but he's definitely working on getting to know us better. The professors are fantastic, they are excited about what they do, and really convey that to their students.

The best thing about Wheaton is that it's a small school, but yet there are so many avenues, clubs, niches, teams, groups, etc etc etc to go find yourself. And if there isn't one, there's little stopping you from creating one. Also, the academic curriculum combines an honor code and an emphasis on creating connections between different departments. This creates an atmosphere where we really are treated like adults, instead of kids in high school that need some kind of monitor to watch us take tests, or shove random huge lecture classes down our throats. We can create so much on our own, and the faculty really gives us the attention (it's rare that I have a class with more than 20 people in it), the space, and the tools to create on our own. If I could change anything, I would probably want to make the campus and student body more interested in national politics, both liberal and conservatives alike. I think our school is just the right size. If it were any larger, I would feel more isolated from some big crowd of students, and there would be more partying, which I don't want. When people hear that I'm from Wheaton, I don't really seem to identify any one singular reaction other than "Oh yeh, that's right outside of Boston, right" or occasionally "Oh, is that the one in Illinois", and I then correct them that we're not *that* Wheaton. I spend most of my time on campus strolling through Balfour (the student center), or hanging out with friends in Chase, the dining hall that's open till midnight, every night of the year. Norton, the town ini which Wheaton resides, is definitely not a "college town". We refer to this as "The Wheaton Bubble", because Wheaton is pretty insular, and other than walking to the CVS or using the shopping center to get groceries or Dunkin Donuts, there's nothing for us to do or use in Norton. Wheaton's administration is fine; there might be occasional cliched complaints from the students that somehow the school is hurting the world by claiming we need the school to divest from Sudan, or that we need to stop receiving grants from the Mars company because they're hurting cocoa farmers in South America or something, but generally our Dean and our President are good people. The last controversy I can remember is in the fall, when some of the freshmen and sophomores were up in arms over the Public Safety officers supposedly violating their rights by catching them drinking, but personally I think that the sophomores were just pissed that suddenly it was harder to not get caught drinking or smoking pot. Tough shit, is what I say. Their rights weren't being violated, PS just hired some new officers who happen to be really good at their jobs. There is a lot of school pride, but people express it in many different ways. Some people, like myself, will express it through their club affiliations by proudly wearing shirts like "Wheaton Fencing" or "Wheaton Conservatives". Others will wear team shirts. And lots of people, athletes and non-athletes alike, will wear "inside joke" shirts like Cowduck, "Wheaton Football: Undefeated since 1834", or a shirt listing lots of little lines like a Top Ten list titled "You Know You Go To Wheaton College If..." Unusual facts might be that our school has been used several times in major films as a fake Harvard, since Harvard doesn't allow anyone to film on its' actual campus. So apparently to Hollywood, Wheaton's campus and architecture looks a lot like Harvard's. Also, we were a women's school till 1987. One experience I will always remember is on Freshmen Orientation night, when all of our new class had lined up all around the edge of Peacock Pond at night, each with our own candles in hand lit, and there was this holy sacred feeling with all 400 of us standing there in silence, and then suddenly when the ceremony was over, a group of several guys from behind the pine trees burst out running in Speedos and jumped straight into to Pond, and all of us nearby started laughing, very confused by what had just happened. In terms of frequent student complaints, one is that supposedly "there is never anything to do."

Small school, nickname "Wheaton High" or "Camp Wheaton" everyone knows your business, if you want to blend in, don't come.