As the spring semester kicks into full swing, transfer and exchange students alike are further assimilating into the unique and rigorous New College way of life. These students, who joined the community at the beginning of February, are the first who were marketed to by the school’s new promotional material. The colorful and comprehensive teasers have been in development since 2010. As new students feel out the community, it has become clear that their expectations of New College and the reality of life on campus do not exactly match up.

“I don’t know,” first-year transfer Kay Eskins said. “I was under the impression that the school was on the beach. In the new material people are also given the impression that the campus is a lot nicer looking than it actually is. I thought I was going to have classes in – and live in – buildings that looked like College Hall.”

Eskins, who transferred from the University of Illinois and never had the opportunity to tour the campus before enrolling, emphasized that though the promotional material does leave room for prospective students to gather impressions about New College that are not entirely accurate, none of the statements made about campus or student life are explicitly misleading.
“Everything in all of the material I saw was correct, but just some things were emphasized that aren’t really that big of a deal – like professors playing ping pong in Ham,” Eskins added. “I also didn’t realize that all of the departments were as small as they are which I wish I had known.”

In response to a disparity in the expectations of incoming students and the reality of life at New College, Director of Enrollment Mitch Finer pointed out that though the new promotional material has been painstakingly crafted the only way to truly anticipate the nature of New College is to experience it firsthand on a tour or visit.

“What everyone thinks before they come here is always going to be different from what their experience ends up being,” Finer said. “New College is a unique place.”