Wesleyan is a small liberal arts college in Middletown, Connecticut. The school calls an over 300-acre historic campus home, and it’s conveniently located between New York City and Boston. Wesleyan is extremely undergraduate focused, with 3,000 undergrads and a much smaller graduate student body, and it is a place where undergraduate students have access to exceptional resources and access to extraordinary opportunities. There are 45 majors across 46 departments, and each program shares a progressive perspective. Wesleyan says that they challenge “students to explore new ideas and change the world,” and they really mean it. There is a high level of engagement and mentorship between students and faculty at Wesleyan, and there are more than 900 individual tutorials and private music lessons.
If you care about making a difference, Wesleyan may be the perfect place for you. There is a deep commitment to social justice issues on campus, and frequently conversations around increasing equity close to home and around the world. There are 275+ student groups, and 4.6% of the Class of 2027 identify as transgender, nonbinary, or gender queer.
Wesleyan has become a very popular college, and their acceptance rate is steadily dropping. Right now, about 17% of students who apply are offered a spot in the first-year class.
If you want to go to Wesleyan, you need to really strategize on how to make your application as compelling as possible. A big part of that is thinking outside of the box of the standard school year. Yes, you can apply to college with just a transcript, a list of school-year activities, and some essays. But you need to do more than that if you want to go to a college like Wesleyan. In short, you need to put your summers into play.
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What does Wesleyan want to see from your summer?
We’re going to dig into specifics, but first let’s look big picture. Wesleyan isn’t a cookie cutter school, and they aren’t all that into cookie cutter students. They want to know that you’re following a path that is genuinely yours, not one you’ve been directed down (or are even being dragged down). So, take these recommendations, and make them your own. Show Wesleyan who you are through what you do. Perhaps most importantly, though, you need to be engaged with social change in some way. For Wesleyan, we advise using one phrase as your ‘umbrella’ as you plan your summer: “think global, act local.”
Now, let’s get more specific.
Bump Up Your Academics
There are no required courses or course distribution to be considered for admission by Wesleyan, but they do recommend a fully-diversified course load — and that is what they care about most when reviewing an application. They want to see that you’ve explored across subject areas, and not just focused in on the stuff you’re naturally good at or instinctively drawn to. As a liberal arts college, they care passionately about cross-disciplinary learning, and they want to see that in how you approach your high school experience. So, we highly recommend exploring what you are passionate about from a new angle or through a fresh approach during the summer. This could mean taking a summer course at a local college, taking an online course (preferably an accredited course linked to a university), doing independent research with the goal of publication or presentation.
Our favorite approach, though, is to do a mix of the above plus an internship with a professional who works in the field or arena you are interested in during the summer before you apply to college. This could be with a business owner, a professional within a larger organization, a non-profit, or an academic. You could also do an internship the summer after your freshman or sophomore year as well, but the summer after your junior year is the most important. Having that fresh, recent experience at the top of your activities list makes for a strong showing.
Wesleyan cares a lot about “individual achievement and promise,” but something they don’t care a ton about are standardized tests. Wesleyan has been test optional since 2014, and so they don’t require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. That said, most successful applicants to Wesleyan do submit standardized test scores. About three-quarters of accepted and enrolled students for the Class of 2026 submit SAT or ACT scores, so we recommend scores if you can meet or exceed the recent medians below:
SAT:
ERW 750
Math 760
ACT:
34
So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we recommend using some of your summer to study, take practice tests, and get some official scores under your belt. It may not be the most fun way to spend the warm months, but it will pay off if you give it focus.
Lean into Your Interests
Parallel to your academic pursuits, you need to take these words from Wesleyan to heart: “Have the courage to follow your interests wherever they may lead.” If you do an art, pursue it as far as you can. Put together a body of work, and share it with the world through an online portfolio or a local show. If you are a writer, work on pieces you can submit for publication. If you are a scientist, embrace discovery and depth by taking on an independent project that connects to your community. And if you are a little bit of everything, put them together. For example, you could pick a short stretch of a stream near you to write about, draw or paint, and study the ecology of. If that sounds obsessive, that’s the right idea. Go deep.
You also need to find a way to fit volunteer work into your summer. Wesleyan cares a lot about giving back locally, and they like commitment. Working with a non-profit on a regular basis (even just once a week) over a long period of time, such as the course of an entire summer, illustrates that you are community-minded. For example, you could take on a weekly role at your local food pantry, you could volunteer for an arts center as part of their summer camps or programming, or you could mentor a younger person through a buddy program. What we advise most, though, is keeping your perspective local. Wesleyan is deeply passionate about community, and they expect to learn more about you through how you serve your community at home.
Keep Your Goals in View, Including the Big Ones
Last, but certainly not least, we recommend writing one or two audacious goals on a piece of paper right after reading this post that you can work towards over the summers between now and before senior year. That may mean you have one summer, and that may mean you have three or more, to accomplish these goals. We like goals such as securing a certain type of internship, completing a research project for publication by a particular journal open to high school students, or showing your work at a local gallery or display space. You goal(s) may seem absurd at first, but as you work towards them methodically, facing challenges and setbacks, you’ll find that you’ve gone further than you could have imagined when you first wrote your goal on paper.
Wesleyan likes students who dream, and who strive. We dare you to use your summers to do both.
If you’re considering Wesleyan but aren’t sure how to get there. We can help.