Wheaton College-Wheaton Top Questions

Wheaton is great! It's not too small - i was worried about that because my high school was pretty much the same size as Wheaton, but I actually see new faces every day. When I tell people I'm from Wheaton, they are generally nice and have good things to say about the college. Nothing weird. I spend most of my time on campus on my floor, in my dorm, or in the Beamer Center. I love being on my floor (and i assume most people do) because some of my absolute best friends were formed from the relationships made on my floor. Some of my other best friends are guys on our brother floor, so we all hang out together in the dorm. The Beamer Center is great because you can eat together, play games, study, talk, and hang out there with people from all over campus. I really respect Wheaton's administration. It must be really hard to run a school as prestigious and well-known as Wheaton, but I think the President and all of the upper-level staff are incredible. I have been very impressed by their wisdom and consideration for the students and for what would be best for the school.

Wheaton is a good place with good people, but it has many problems. The school is far too legalistic and many of the rules there are just ridiculous and not founded on anything as far as I can tell. The recent forced resignation of Dr. Gramm was a national embarrassment for the school. He wasn't fired because he got a divorce, he was fired because he didn't want to talk about his divorce. Wheaton is too constrictive and puts out a facade of false piety. When you put so many constraints on students well they're in college it doesn't prepare them for the real world when they'll have much greater freedom. All that said, Wheaton has many good qualities. There are several good professors there and the school prepares you well academically. Many of the relationships I've developed there are much deeper than the ones I had in high school. Still I wish the school were less legalistic and constrictive, but I know this short note won't do anything to change that.

The Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College is an entity that causes a great deal of tension among students. Approximately 10{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the undergraduate population is a student of the Conservatory. This being said, the remaining majority of the students view the music school as an academic joke. They do not believe that music students work as hard as liberal arts students, nor do they believe that they are held to the same standards. While it is true that Conservatory students do not have the same strict general education requirements, and while it is also true that they do not spend as much time in the classroom or working on homework, the thing that is not recognized is the considerable amount of time and energy that they are expected to invest in more specialized forms of educational training. The Conservatory is a vocational school that exists to train musicians for careers in the field of music. While 90{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of Wheaton's student body is working to earn a bachelor of arts degree, the Conservatory of Music students are working toward a bachelor of music degree. Music students are required to participate in hours upon hours of rehearsal each week, in addition to personal pratice time for lessons. These lessons and ensembles are actually courses that student earn grades in and take for credit. While a harmonious union of the two worlds seems impossible, the fact that most liberal arts students do not take advatage of the extremely high-level (FREE) musical performances on their campus is telling of their neglect for a concerted effort to investigate what the Conservatory Students truly do with their time.

The best thing about Wheaton is the intentional Christian community. Most classes open with prayer and the entire student body gathers for chapel three times each week. There are continual religious activities: all-school communion, class worship services, and prayer meetings. Even informally, students continually discuss God, the Bible, and theology, and even strangers are often ready to pray for each other. Wheaton students aren't perfect or even close, but most of them are sincere and eager to worship. Wheaton is a small school at around 2500 undergraduates. Most are ready to make friends and genuinely nice people. It's unusual to find yourself with no one to eat with at a meal. One of the most troubling things about Wheaton is a high incidence of depression, eating disorders, and other mental struggles. A lot of this is a result of the high-pressure atmosphere: Wheaton students feel pressured to excel in everything. Help is available for struggling students, though; the counseling center makes every effort to make sure people know that they can come there, and there are support groups for a variety of issues.

Wheaton College is an amazing place. I have absolutely loved my time here. The best thing about our school is the fact that we're one big family. We meet for chapel three times per week and every time you walk to class, you see dozens of friendly faces on the sidewalks. The dining hall is filled with friends offering you a place at their table. I can't imagine what it will be like to graduate next year and be forced to part ways with so many close friends. I spend most of my time in the Beamer Center (student center) on campus. Besides housing the dining hall and post office boxes, there are dozens of couches and chairs to lounge on, areas to study, and places to hang out. I've spent many late nights in the Stupe Cafe studying with friends while eating ice cream or seasoned fries... taking an occasional break for ping pong in the game room, of course!

We like to refer to life at Wheaton as living in the "Wheaton Bubble." It is filled with wonderful, smart, athletic people who don't reflect the general population of the real world. It kinda has a culture unto itself, which isn't a bad thing, but hard to remember when you step off campus. Wheaton has big ties all over the world, but it really is a close community. There is a lot of school pride, especially among alumni, and a lot of alumni live in the surrounding town. There are a lot of families that are closely connected with the school, so its not unusual to have siblings and cousins at school together, and to be second, third or even fourth generation.

Wheaton College is a great place to have that Christian community that everybody needs. The students and faculty are very nice and welcoming and want to see everyone succeed to their full potential.

It is a small liberal arts college that allows you to get your hands into a lot of different things if you are pro-active. The woman on campus are rumored to be smarter than the men since it is harder for them to get accepted, and it shows through the amount of female leadership on the campus. People are very active, the food is good, and the library is full.

The best thing about Wheaton is the community. There is an immediate sense that you belong to a group of people who actually care about you, as soon as you step on campus. Just about everyone will smile at you on the sidewalk, or say hi. The school's somewhat small, and I feel like a lot of people I talk to have never heard about Wheaton, but maybe that's part of the reason for the tight-knit community.

I like that the community is smaller...your friendships are more deep and real. Wheaton is the cutest little town and downtown wheaton is a walk from campus. Everyone is for the most part ridiculously nice and that is pretty great. the friends you make her will be your lifelong friends, no doubt.

Wheaton's size is just right; it's small enough where you can know many of the people around you, but not too small where you never meet new people.

The food gets old. Basically, a cafeteria is a cafeteria after three or four weeks. But it is good, it just gets old. Downtown Wheaton is, well, quaint (read white bread). But the train to Chicago is great, I go to the city all the time.

The school is small enough that news or gossip travels fast and far but big enough that you won't know everyone you see by name. People spend most of their time in their room, the only (semi)private place on campus. When I tell others that I go to this school, I either get a "WOW! That's great!" or "Oh God I hate that motherfucking school. Why are you going?!" The administration can be over-powering and encroach into your personal life if you get caught doing anything wrong, especially sexual. There's a big thing about appearances here, as there is in the Evangelical world at large but here it's concentrated in a nice little you-can-walk-everywhere campus.