The College of Wooster

Wooster offers an excellent, comprehensive liberal arts education, culminating in a rigorous senior project, in which each student works one-on-one with a faculty mentor to conceive, organize and complete a significant research project on a topic of the student's own choosing. Through this distinctive program, every Wooster student develops abilities valued by employers and graduate schools alike: independent judgment, analytical ability, creativity, project-management and time-management skills, and strong written and oral communication skills. Founded in 1866, the college enrolls approximately 2,000 students.

Where else would almost 1,000 people turn out on Homecoming… to watch a cricket match? Or work all night to fill Kauke Arch with snow? Or treasure an uneaten Tootsie Roll as a badge of distinction and achievement?Students will pack the theatre to see a campus production of “Nocturne” that won top honors at the American College Theatre Festival. And they’ll fill the gym to cheer on a men’s basketball team that has gone to the D-III Final Four three times since 2003.A third of Wooster students perform in at least one musical ensemble, a third compete on a varsity team, and one quarter participate in theatre or dance. In all, there are more than 120 student organizationsfrom which to choose.

The City of Wooster is a vibrant community of 26,000 with a strong, diversified economy, a downtown full of great restaurants and shops, national chains like Starbucks, Panera, Chipotle, and Kohl’s, and easy access to outdoor recreation opportunities. Money magazine has named Wooster one of the best places to live in the U.S., “with a thriving culture and diverse economic opportunities.”

Wooster is committed to creating a welcoming, equitable, and inclusive campus for our all members of our diverse and international community.Students learn best when they study in a community that spans a wide range of experiences, traditions, identities, perspectives, and beliefs. Such diversity is necessary to fully realize our educational purpose, and we actively seek to increase it. Wooster students, staff and faculty come from all over the world, and from rural, urban, and suburban communities across the US.

With more than 150 years of dedication to these principles, we know that realizing them requires determination and continuous action. In a world where opportunity is not distributed equally, creating a diverse, equitable, welcoming and inclusive campus community must be a top priority. Students, faculty, and staff of all races, ethnicities, nationalities, faiths, sexual orientations, gender identities, and socioeconomic circumstances are welcome at Wooster, and we are committed to ensuring equitable opportunities for each of them to learn, work, and thrive.

The Center for Diversity and Inclusion(CDI) empowers and engages the Wooster community by promoting these core values and graduate qualities in many ways, inside and outside the classroom. The CDI staff focus on supporting the intersectional identities of underrepresented student populations within our community through collaboration, advocacy, and education. And each year on MLK Day, classes are cancelled and the campus community comes together for a day of reflection, service, and dialogue.

The College of Wooster has over 13% international students and global nomads from over 40 countries, and we hope more students from across the globe continue to join this amazing group of Fighting Scots! We encourage you to learn more about the application requirements and deadlines for international students at Wooster.

Your journey begins with First-Year Seminar, a writing-intensive course that will exercise your intellect and sharpen your critical faculties. In a class of no more than 15 students, with a professor who’s also your academic adviser, you’ll approach a wide range of texts, questioning and analyzing them to tease out meaning, and then formulating arguments through extensive writing and discussion. Your skills in writing will be enhanced by further Writing Intensive courses and the Writing Center.

To ensure that you’re conversant with forms of inquiry and discourse in a range of disciplines, you’ll select courses in three areas: arts and humanities, history and social sciences, and mathematical and natural sciences. You’ll also gain insight into other cultures through courses in global and cultural perspectives, religious perspectives and foreign language.

Once you select a major, you’ll engage with the scholarship of that field, develop an understanding of its particular methodologies, and prepare to participate in the creation of knowledge yourself. You’ll find numerous opportunities to work with faculty on undergraduate research projects (as early as the second semester of your first year), participate in internships, or study abroad.

Each year since 2002, U.S. News has asked college presidents and deans which colleges provide the best undergraduate research opportunities and senior capstone programs. Only two have made both lists every year: Wooster and Princeton University.

Participating in mentored research helps develop independent judgment, creativity, project-management and time-management skills, self-confidence, and strong written and oral communication skills: precisely the abilities prized by employers and graduate schools.What’s more, in a national survey conducted by Hart Research Associates, 83% of business and non-profit leaders said that students who “develop research questions in their field and evidence-based analyses” are better prepared for success after graduation. 79% said completing a major project that demonstrates acquired knowledge and skills is good preparation for success in the workplace.