Connecticut College - Conn College

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Connecticut College Summary

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Connecticut College, or Conn, is academically rigorous, with a beautiful but insular campus.

Gossip travels quickly among the fewer than 2,000 undergraduates, but the school’s size also allows for personalized academics and strong student-professor relationships. Classes are small and professors almost universally know their students’ names. There’s a club for every student: those who can’t find the activities they’re looking for create their own organizations. (Conn’s also an athletically-inclined campus, with 75 percent of students participating at the club or intramural level.) The campus is aesthetically astounding—think picturesque season changes with students dotting green lawns—but Conn is far from everywhere. New London, the nearest town, is a drive away (just a few minutes, but a car’s necessary), so students crave contact with the outside world. The social culture revolves around the Thursday/Saturday drinking scene, and though there are non-drinkers on campus, there’s a rift between those who imbibe and those who don’t. The student body is white, liberal, and upper-class—but despite a lack of diversity, most students cite that there’s mutual respect.

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Connecticut College Review

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Connecticut College’s academics and culture reflect its small size. At a little over 1,600 undergrads, with no graduate schools, Conn offers a lot of individualized attention from professors. “Conn’s small size lets students and professors interact on a more personal level,” a sophomore writes. This means attention not only in the classroom, but outside as well. “Professors here are very instrumental in engaging students with the class material. Professors get to know students; whether your class has 90 students or 6, your professor will know your name and your academic habits. It is not uncommon to go to a professor’s house for dinner or babysit their kids or meet up with them after class,” one junior writes. Most students are passionate about Conn’s academic offerings, small class sizes, and liberal arts curriculum (Conn has distributional requirements in areas from Mathematics and Logic to Creative Arts to Philosophical and Religious Studies). And, as a bonus, Conn offers an unusual course option: free music lessons. “Due to an endowment, students can take any type of music lesson for no charge. I take lessons on both violin and viola with an awesome teacher!” one freshman reports.

Conn is notable, too, for its student-run Honor Code. "The thing I like the most about Conn is the Honor code and how students are given a lot of responsibilities and allowed to run their own lives. Administrators take a back seat and the Student Government is very prevalent on campus,” a freshman writes. As a result of the Honor Code, students are permitted to schedule their own final exams rather than take them on the college’s schedule.

Despite the academic benefits of being small, Conn’s size has its downsides. Students find it’s hard to walk around campus without running into someone you know—and who knows something about you. “In a small school, gossip can spread, and that's when you get into trouble,” one sophomore reports. A junior writes, “Everybody knows everything about everyone.”

Another con: the surrounding town of New London, Connecticut. “New London is an almost dead town with very little opportunity for college students,” writes one junior. Not only is New London boring, but it’s far enough away that getting there requires a car. As a result, students tend to stay on campus. Most undergrads party twice per week—on Thursdays and Saturdays—and relax on Fridays. “Parties occur on Thursday and Saturday nights. Friday is more of a chill night. Some people do homework, some hang out in Cro watching Friday Night Live (every Friday student life brings in a musical guest). Some students spend Friday night playing board games and drinking tea or eating various baked goods in the Coffee Grounds, while others rest up for a Saturday afternoon athletic event,” an alumna writes. Parties center on alcohol. As a sophomore reports, “I used to not drink and it was really hard. I started because it was so hard to find things to do without it. I often say ‘Conn Coll finally got to me....’ Then again, there is a very strong community of non-drinkers, but it is very much excluded from the rest of campus—the fact that I didn’t fit in with the non-drinking crowd was a major reason why I began drinking.”

Conn’s students are “predominately white, over-tanned, and skinny as hell,” as one senior puts it. Many students report that the campus is skewed toward the wealthy—not surprising, given Conn’s high tuition—and wish Conn was less homogenous. “There is a definite lack of diversity on this campus, and the students are predominately white and very wealthy. Diversity has gotten better in the past few years, but a lot of work needs to be done. A lot of the students have come from small private schools or boarding schools and are sheltered to a degree. However, there are very intelligent students here who do want to make a difference in the world,” one sophomore writes. One freshman reports, “Conn is very aware of different social groups on campus, almost too aware. They are pointed out all too often and exaggerated. I don't know how other students feel, but as a student marked ‘of color’ (I'm from Venezuela but I couldn't be less ‘Hispanic’), it drives me insane.” But other students argue that the white and preppy stereotypes don’t hold. “People say that Conn isn't diverse, but I think we are more so than people recognize. I think all groups are accepted, and as a student of color I feel very comfortable at Conn,” writes a junior.

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Conn College Quotes

Damon
History

I can count the number of republicans I have met here on one hand.

John , CT
Art And Art History
Freshman

Connecticut College's student body has a few distinct subcultures within it. For starters, there are the Indie music kids, whose primary social interaction is endless discourse about the latest album by the latest obscure band....Secondly, there are the jocks - proof that we do, indeed, have sports teams.

Brooke
American Studies
Senior

Connecticut College is neither the most racially, nor the most socio-economically diverse community on the planet. Yet it is a very accepting community. The kind of student that would feel most out of place at Conn is one who is openly prejudiced. I would say the student body is predominantly left winged and generally they are politically aware.

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