Westmont College — Local services in Montecito

Transferred out of here after two years. The school is good if you are looking for a summer-campy feel or are a religious studies major. I do not recommend this school if you are looking to major in Computer Science, especially. Very weak program. The top professor has left and has been replaced by a professor I have heard very poor things of.

DO NOT be fooled by preview days. Any student will tell you that Chapel and the DC especially are improved on those days to appeal more to prospective students. If you go here, expect to not eat several meals of the week because the DC is so bad. Weekend food consists of limited hours and meals made of leftover meat and flavorless pizza.

Chapel is repetitive and was mocked heavily during this years Spring Sing. Most students go on their phone. They'll play new songs and make chapel significantly more interactive on days previews are there, and tell you that chapel is ALWAYS like that.

Dorms suck beyond comprehension. The only nice dorms are Clark E, H, and GLC. Moving into my freshman dorm there was missing paint, dents in the wall, popped out screens, a broken light shade (that was left broken all year despite work order requests).

They pick poor students to "represent" the college. Several RA's I know are very bad students, frequently skip class, get poor grades, but are somehow chosen to serve as role models to freshman.

They hire recent graduates to teach classes. Personally, I wouldn't want to pay this much in tuition to be taught by a student that took the class that previous semester, instead of someone who has been studying the given field their entire career. You know -- typical college professors.

Yes, the staff is nice and several professors are extremely qualified. Specifically, Dr. Richter (RS). I am not bashing on the staff.

Overall, leaving this school was the best decision I have ever made. I have absolutely no regrets and am...

There's a reason this was the highest ranking Christian school in the latest US News and World Reports rankings. It's a fantastic Christian school, a fantastic liberal arts school in general, a genuine college community.

Everyone I know who went there left Westmont as a gloabal-thinking, critically-minded, erudite individual. This isn't a place where kids go to college to party, skip classes, or sit in a 100-300 person lecture hall. I never had a class over 45 students and most of my classes were more like 10-20. The professors here are brilliant men and women, many of whom could easily be teaching at prestigious research institutions but who instead chose to contribute to the wonderful, thoughtful liberal arts program at this school. I loved every minute of my Westmont experience. I'm a better person for it, and I have better friends and mentors from my college years because it's truly a community that cares - about their peers, about the world, and about asking smart questions about life, faith, and our own imperfections.

This is not a Bible-thumper college. It's a high quality liberal arts college that hearkens back to the foundations of Christian renaissance style education. It's a very challenging school academically. If you are lucky enough to get in here and have the means, don't think about it twice. Go. I had a full scholarship to USC and chose Westmont instead. It's turned out to be the best decision of my life.

The gorgeous Montecito location is just a...

I transferred out of Westmont after one semester, but I really wanted to like it there. Like others have said, if you don't fit the stereotype of people there, you will struggle to make lifelong friends. Sure, everyone there is really nice, but that's about it. If you are an adventurous, spontaneous person who is afraid of being average (not in the academic sense, rather in your approach to life) you will have a hard time fitting in at Westmont. People there are very similar to each other, it's hard to describe the exact personality but everyone is very sheltered/homeschooled type kids. For me it was an extremely boring and mundane experience where every day felt the same. 90% of campus events are some new kind of bible study thing (seriously).

Academics wise, it's okay... If you are a STEM major, DO NOT GO TO WESTMONT. Especially engineering, the program is a joke compared to other colleges. My high school had far better engineering. Don't make the same mistake I did...