CKQ: College Profiles - Whitman College

Each quarter, The College Knowledge Quarterly features a different U.S. College or University for families to get to know a bit better. The aim is not to tell you about a school you know (or at least you think you know) well, but to introduce you to a school you may have not considered a viable candidate before. In this edition, we are going to venture to the Pacific Northwest, which houses a number of unheralded, but very good schools. This quarter, I am pleased to feature Whitman College.

Whitman is located in Walla Walla, Washington (isn’t it just fun to say?!) which is in the far southeastern part of the state. While it is a great distance from Seattle (4.5 hours) and Portland, Oregon (4 hours), the town of Walla Walla (population 30,000) gets better year-round weather than the aforementioned cities and has grown a wine and restaurant culture in a town that gets along well with the school and its student body.

The school hosts approximately 1,500 undergraduate students who place a high value on service to the community and learning in the classroom as a means of accomplishing the first mission. The academics are tough and well-rounded, ending in an oral defense and a senior thesis or a comprehensive exam (similar to what I did to earn my MA degree).The college doesn’t suffer from the need to satisfy many different missions, like you would find at a large research university. They generally want to solve one – “helping undergrads contribute to the world,” as their president, Dr. George Bridges, was once quoted as saying. The mission is perceived as being well fulfilled, as roughly half of all Whitman alums contribute back to the school financially (one of the higher rates in the entire country).

The school is mainly populated by intelligent, ambitious, liberal-thinking students with lofty goals. All students start off in the same place: taking a full-year course called “Encounters” which is an introduction to the liberal arts and the academic construction of knowledge. With TA’s basically non-existent, students have access to a wide variety of bright and motivated instructors who enjoy spending time with their students outside of class. Driving home this idea, the student to faculty ratio at Whitman is a miniscule 9-to-1.

Further, nearly all of the research on campus is done in conjunction between professors and undergraduate students, culminating in an April day when all classes are cancelled for an event called the Whitman Undergraduate Conference, where many students display their research findings in posters, presentations, and the like. It is a big deal and many students participate each year. This type of activity leads to students who are hungry to learn and research, which explains why Whitman students frequently go on to achieve doctoral-level degrees (top 50 in the U.S., per capita).

The focus on free-thinking and research has led many students to success at the highest academic pursuits, namely as winners of many Fulbright, Watson, Truman, and Udall fellowships and scholarships.

These perceptions and accomplishments have given Whitman students a sense that they represent the ‘cool nerd’ in the grand scheme of things. Students tend to see themselves as having strong opinions, diverse, outdoorsy and environmentally aware.

School administration keeps red tape to a minimum and is considered a value add to the student community – an uncommon trait to be sure. They have a reputation for being a caring bunch and the students recognize it.

Admission to Whitman is on the fence between selective and non-selective (52% of applicants were admitted last year) and grades and test scores are commensurate with such a level (roughly 3.75 GPA and a middle 50% ACT of 26-31).

As you can probably imagine, the draw to be a student at Whitman stretches across the globe, with two-thirds of the undergraduate population coming from beyond the state of Washington.

One other important tidbit for this year’s application class at Whitman: the school is working on becoming more transparent about their financial aid offerings, especially with such uncertainty in the standardized testing world. Students are invited to submit academic and financial information to the school in advance of the actual application to get a good estimate of what the actual aid package will look like – even for an ED applicant!

The school offers a total of 52 undergraduate majors, 35 minors and operates on the semester system.

Whitman offers two rounds of early decision applications (Nov. 15 and Jan. 15) and a regular

decision deadline of Jan. 15.

For more information, please visit www.whitman.edu.