B AT E S T H E
S E A R C H E R
Stories and detailed information about a community of passionately curious, happily intense, stubbornly modest people who can’t stop searching for what’s next.
B AT E S C O L L E G E Lewiston, Maine
Do we have all the answers? No. We’re here to keep asking, keep searching, keep discovering enough to know there’s more to discover. We don’t know what the future will bring. But if you come to Bates, you’ll help build it.
FAC T S 2,000 students
110 student clubs, open to all
20 students in the average class
160 community partnerships through the Harward Center
10-to-1 student to faculty ratio 100% of faculty hold highest degree in their field
0 fraternities and sororities 5-week spring Short Term
100% of students complete a capstone or thesis
109 acres on Lewiston campus
60% of students study abroad
600 acres in Bates–Morse Mountain Conservation Area
31 NESCAC Division III teams
24,000 alumni
BEN HUGHES, Atlanta, Ga.,
philosophy
Up for Anything L E AV I N G H O M E , G O I N G D E E P — A N D G E T T I N G R E A DY F O R W H AT ’S N E X T How has Bates surprised you? “Bates was my big adventure. I’d always lived in Atlanta, and I felt I needed to experience a different part of the country. So just the idea of coming here was surprising. Then Bates offered me the most complete financial aid package — a critical part of my decision-making process. Now that I’m here, I’m amazed by the opportunities I’ve found.” Are the classes easier or harder than you’d expected? “They’re just challenging, in the right way. I took a Short Term class about the Civil Rights Movement, and it fundamentally changed me. I rarely left that class feeling satisfied with a position I’d held before I came in. I haven’t reached concrete conclusions about a lot of the issues we discussed. But now I know how necessary it is to consider the implications of holding one belief over another. That experience will stay with me for the rest of my life.” What are some of the opportunities you’ve taken? “I went on a Fall Semester Abroad trip to Vienna. I hadn’t planned on doing it, but it felt like a chance to give myself another kind of challenge. And I was part of a group of Bates students who went to Atlanta recently to meet with alumni and visit Benjamin Mays High School — Mays was a Bates alumnus and a mentor to Martin Luther King. It felt like a meeting of two worlds: the home that made me who I am and the place that’s shaping who I’ll become.”
GET A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW O F B AT E S :
bates.edu/aerial-video
The Transformer M A K I N G A RT — A N D M A K I N G C H A N G E — AT 14 ,0 0 0 F E E T Why is art important to you? “I think of myself as an activist for the social good. A photograph can inform and transform your thinking; it can change the way you see the world — and that changes the way you act in it.” Can you give an example? “I did an independent research project in a remote community at 14,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes. I lived with the Q’eros, an indigenous people, and took pictures of what I saw. I also gave cameras to five families, to allow them to document their own lives. My goal was to make art — but also to promote cross-cultural interaction and mutual understanding. And then we started the school.” How did that happen? “At dinner the night before I left, I asked the elders how I could thank them for their hospitality. They suggested that I buy them soccer shoes. I said I could do better. They said what they really needed was a school. After a year of fundraising — including selling my photography online — and working with local officials, anthropologists and community members, we opened a school in temporary quarters. I was awarded a Davis Project for Peace grant to construct the official school building this summer.” That sounds so practical. “My education has been very practical; I’ve got powerful tools that I can use in a hundred ways. But Bates teaches you that tools without a purpose aren’t worth much. The Bates ethos is about discovering a purpose.”
HANNAH RAE PORST , Madison, Wis., studio art and Spanish
Make Your Way MAJORS
AC A D E M I C S
African American Studies
We have 35 majors. Some are surprising (neuroscience, rhetoric), many are interdisciplinary (American cultural studies, environmental studies), many are also offered as minors. All are designed to throw you headlong into the skills, practices, certainties and mysteries of at least one field; they’re also designed to lead to great things, including but not limited to graduate or professional school, enlightened leadership and making your own way in the world.
American Cultural Studies Anthropology Art and Visual Culture Biological Chemistry Biology Chemistry Chinese Classical and Medieval Studies Dance East Asian Studies Economics English Environmental Studies European Studies French and Francophone Studies Geology German History Interdisciplinary Studies Japanese Latin American Studies Mathematics Music Neuroscience Philosophy Physics Politics Psychology Religious Studies Rhetoric Sociology Spanish Theater Women and Gender Studies
The Bates curriculum offers many options. You can design your own major. You can take our Dual Degree Engineering Program: three years at Bates, plus two years at a top engineering school (Case Western, Columbia, Dartmouth, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Washington University in St. Louis). You can also minor in the following: Asian Studies German and Russian Studies Greek Latin Teacher Education Most students take two General Education Concentrations (GECs — rhymes with “treks”), a group of four courses that add up to a sustained exploration of one theme. They’re like mini-minors.
“
My department is fantastic — every person has been a mentor to me. I’ve built a lab from scratch, and I’ve got students working for me who can design tapered solenoids and understand the physics behind the honestly ridiculously wide range of topics that my research draws upon. Bates says it values teaching and supports research in many, many ways. A lot of schools say that. Bates really walks the walk.”
N AT H A N L U N D B L A D , P H Y S I C S
Nathan (Ph.D., CalTech) set up the Lundblad Lab in ultracold atomic physics with funding from Bates and from a (rare, for liberal arts colleges) Department of Defense grant.
T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N Dive into the Bates discussion, or just eavesdrop, at our Conversation page. We’ve gathered Bates-related content from your favorite social media platforms in one convenient spot:
bates.edu/conversation
Some recent GECs:
T H E F I R S T-Y E A R S E M I NA R
Archaeology and Material Culture Bridging El Atlantico Chinese Society and Culture Considering Africa Film and Media Studies German in Vienna North Atlantic Studies Producing Culture: Arts and Audience Russian in St. Petersburg Shakespearean Acting
One of the first courses you’ll take, and a model for the work you’ll do in the next four years: You, a professor and a handful of your peers get together and dig into a specialized topic.
A GEC like North Atlantic Studies includes these courses: Class, Inequity, Poverty and Justice Sound Water and Society The Human Body Middle East in Global Context The Arctic: Politics, Economics, Peoples Environmental Geochemistry Vikings Wabanaki History in Maine
S H O RT T E R M Our academic calendar is divided into two traditional semesters and one Short Term in late April and May. In Short Term, students take only one course, on a compressed schedule; they can also take internships or conduct fieldwork; a number of Short Term courses are conducted off campus. The result is a focused investigation of a single topic. A few recent Short Term courses: Experimental Neuro/Physiology Field Studies in Religion: Cult and Community Geology of the Maine Coast by Sea Kayak Monsters: Imagining the Other Practical Genomics and Bioinformatics Roller Coasters: Theory, Design, and Properties
Recent examples: Addictions, Obsessions, Manias Anatomy of a Few Small Machines DiY and Mash-up Culture Latin American Time Machine Searching for the Good Life War and Poetry
T H E FAC U LT Y Our student to faculty ratio is 10-to-1; there are 20 students in the average class; and every student works individually with a faculty mentor on their senior thesis — so not only will your professors know your name, they’ll also know where you’re coming from, where you want to go and how you might get there. Meals or coffee might be involved. Richly detailed letters of recommendation will almost certainly be involved. These are bright, accomplished, high-profile people whose priority is you.
S T U DY A B ROA D About 60 percent of our students study abroad. We offer access to programs in more than 80 countries, many of which are off the standard track (Cameroon, Chile, Cuba, India, Nepal). Our faculty also develop and lead rigorous, crossdisciplinary Fall Semester Abroad trips. Some recent examples: French Identity: Migration, Mutation, Exploration (Nantes) German Literature, Art and Film in the 20th Century (Berlin) Health Care in China (Kumming) Russian Political Economy (St. Petersburg)
So, for example, the FSA on health care in China was codirected by an economics professor and a biology professor; it included immersive language courses, practical training in traditional Chinese and Vietnamese medicine, a rural health field trip, a week of independent travel, and coursework in the economics of China’s health care system and the biology of world health.
THE SENIOR THESIS Our academic program starts with an intensive, often interdisciplinary first-year seminar and ends with an intensive, often interdisciplinary senior thesis. The thesis is meant to make a meaningful contribution to the storehouse of human knowledge; it is also often the first step toward a job or graduate study. A few recent theses: Disputing Development: The Politics of Progress on Kilimanjaro Embodying Music: What Feeling Can Tell Us About Musical Expression Galactic Dark Matter and the Cosmic Microwave Background Quack to Hero: The Character of the Doctor in the 19th Century
R E S E A RC H A N D O P P O RT U N I T Y We do not live in a bubble. Research, fieldwork, internships, civic engagement — we do them all, they’re academically demanding, and they bring us into the world. A few examples: Our Ladd Internship Program matches Bates students with selected employers and provides a stipend — i.e., money — to support them. The Mount David Summit, our annual campus-wide student research festival, features poster sessions, panel discussions and performances.
And our Harward Center for Community Partnerships develops or supports an astounding number of initiatives that combine rigorous intellectual work and hands-on civic engagement (an internship program at major museums for Art and Visual Culture students; a politics seminar on immigration that includes firsthand research at the California/Mexico border; a community-based senior thesis about converting wood waste into fuel). It also oversees the college’s Bonner Leader Program (scholarships for students who serve and lead), and gives grants to faculty, staff and students who think of innovative ways to work with communities across the street and around the world.
ADMISSION AND F I NA N C I A L A I D We’re interested in people who work hard, take intellectual risks, believe that education isn’t confined to a classroom and get deeply involved in some kind of community. To us, the work you do every day, morning to night, matters more than a few Saturday mornings of testing — which explains why we were one of the first colleges to make the SAT (and then other standardized tests) optional for admission. Our entire financial aid budget supports students with demonstrated financial need. Nearly half of our students receive financial aid, and Bates meets 100 percent of calculated need — for all four years.
T H E N A R R AT I V E
 At Bates, students are seen and heard. To see and hear more about the who, what, where, when, why and how at Bates, go to:
bates.edu/multimedia
“
“
The simple way to describe my work is this: My students and I developed books and multimedia materials that promoted intercultural skills, brought them into local classrooms, and assessed their effectiveness. The more complicated way is to say that we conducted the first extended contact intervention in the United States. We’re bridging the gap between research and practice, and between majority and minority youth. My work is driven by the community. I couldn’t do the same work anywhere else.”
K R I S TA A R O N S O N , P S Y C H O L O G Y
Krista (Ph.D. University of Michigan) has received research awards from the Bates Mellon Innovation Fund, the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, and the Bates Faculty Development Fund.
WHERE ARE WE? We’re in Lewiston, Maine, a small city (population 36,500) on the banks of the Androscoggin River. You can see a waterfall from the bridge that connects Lewiston and its twin city, Auburn. People in Maine call the two cities L-A, but they’re nothing like Los Angeles. The very hip city of Portland is less than an hour’s drive, and Freeport with the iconic L.L.Bean campus is just down the road. Thousands of visitors come from all over the world every year to enjoy the spectacular beauty of this state — mountains, lakes and the legendary seacoast, all nearby. Parts of Maine are wild and untouched. Parts are famous and majestic (e.g., Acadia National Park). In general, this is a place with which people fall heedlessly in love. Once you’ve spent four years here, you may want to stay forever.
WA N T P O S S I B I L I T I E S? Three of an infinite number of possibilities at Bates: 1. Get a prestigious fellowship (Fulbright, Goldwater, Udall, Watson) to do research in medicinal chemistry, or agro-energy in rural communities in Brazil, or performance arts in South Africa and Indonesia. More than 20 Bates graduates received Fulbright Fellowships in the last two years. 2. Build on an internship or research project or senior thesis or communitybased project. This is how many of our graduates get their first jobs or second promotions, at places such as: Analysis Group Brigham and Women’s Hospital Barclays Capital Deutsche Securities, Tokyo
Eli Lilly and Company Goldman Sachs IBM IDEXX IMG Artists Institute of Biotechnology, Vietnam Peace Corps RBC Capital Markets Seyfarth Shaw LLP Teach for America 3. Become an expert and possibly a trailblazer. In other words, go to graduate or professional school, as most of our graduates do. Some recent graduate schools: Barcelona Graduate School of Economics Columbia University Cornell University Dartmouth College Duke University Glasgow University Harvard University University of California Vanderbilt University Yale University We have a good list of famous alumni (congresspeople, a secretary of state, CEOs, a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, a pioneering bioengineer, an internationally revered preacher and theologian), but the important thing is what you can say about pretty much all of our 24,000 living alumni: They want to do good, meaningful, often groundbreaking work, and they have the skills and the courage and the spirit to do it.
Being a Bobcat
KEVIN HELM , Norwell, Mass., history, football (inside linebacker) and lacrosse (defense)
“
There’s not a lot of down time. But when you make a commitment as an athlete, you’re helping yourself make a commitment as a student. If I skip a film session before a game, I can’t play at the highest level. If I skip a reading for a class, I can’t participate at a high level. It all works together.”
N E S C AC : T H E N E W E N G L A N D S M A L L C O L L E G E AT H L E T I C C O N F E R E N C E NESCAC member colleges are committed to athletic and academic programs that are robust and harmonious — like teammates, they work in tandem to make the other better. We field 31 varsity teams, nearly all of which compete in NESCAC, arguably the most competitive conference in NCAA Division III. Alpine Skiing (W, M) Baseball Basketball (W, M) Cross Country (W, M) Field Hockey Football Golf (W, M) Indoor Track and Field (W, M) Lacrosse (W, M) Nordic Skiing (W, M)
Outdoor Track and Field (W, M) Rowing (W, M) Soccer (W, M) Softball Squash (W, M) Swimming and Diving (W, M) Tennis (W, M) Volleyball
bates.edu/athletics
A theme, almost an anthem, about openness. CONSIDER:
AND:
We were founded by abolitionists, people who were fiercely principled, daringly countercultural and deeply committed to equality.
We’ve never had fraternities or sororities.
We were the first college in New England to be coeducational from our founding (in 1855). We were one of the first colleges in America to admit students from all cultural backgrounds, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion.
All of our student clubs are open to all students.
S E E YO U R S E L F AT B AT E S Visit us. It’s easy and eye-opening. You’ll check out some classes and eat in Commons. You’ll meet students, professors and coaches. We’re close to Portland and two hours north of Boston.
bates.edu/bates-visit
Come Join Us MISSION
Since 1855, Bates College has been dedicated to the
emancipating potential of the liberal arts. Bates educates the whole person through creative and rigorous scholarship in a collaborative residential community. With ardor and devotion — Amore ac Studio — we engage the transformative power of our differences, cultivating intellectual discovery and informed civic action. Preparing leaders sustained by a love of learning and a commitment to responsible stewardship of the wider world, Bates is a college for coming times. 2 0 1 7 C L A S S S TAT S
TESTING
Class size 502 Acceptance rate 24.2% Yield rate 39.8% Enrolled through Early Decision 49.8% Enrolled through Regular Decision 50.2%
Students submitting some standardized test results 63.3% Average scores for students who submitted tests: SAT Critical Reading 675 SAT Math 677 SAT Writing 676 ACT Composite 31
FINANCIAL AID 2013–14 total grant budget $30,637,891 Portion of the Class of 2017 receiving Bates grants 48% Class of 2017 average grant $38,387
GEOGRAPHIC Middle Atlantic 22% Midwest 8% New England 43.1% Southeast 5.4% Southwest and West 14.2% International 7.3%
DEMOGRAPHIC Male 54% Female 46% U.S. Students of Color 25.4% First generation to college 14%
E D U C AT I O N Public high school 58% Independent high school 42% Average weighted GPA: 3.80 Don’t worry — If your school does not weight advanced or AP courses, we will.
2 0 1 3 –14 D E A D L I N E S Admission Early Decision Round I — Nov. 15, 2013 Early Decision Round II — Jan. 1, 2014 Regular Decision — Jan. 1, 2014 Financial Aid Early Decision Round I — Nov. 15, 2013 Early Decision Round II — Jan. 1, 2014 Regular Decision — Feb. 15, 2014
BA X T E R S TAT E PA R K H
MAINE
S U GA R L OA F M
BA N G O R K
J UNITY
S U N DAY R I V E R
F W H I T E M O U N TA I N G NAT I O NA L F O R E S T
A
I
AU G U S TA
E M O U N T D E S E RT I S L A N D
LEWISTON
L RO C K L A N D
F R E E P O RT
C P O RT L A N D
D B
P O P H A M B E AC H N
Maine, the State A ) L E W I S T O N -AU B U R N
E) MOUNT DESERT ISLAND
Fuel, Fish Bones, Marché The Public Theatre Museum L-A
Acadia National Park Bar Harbor
B) PORTLAND
F ) S U N D AY R I V E R
K) BANGOR
American Folk Festival Stephen King! L) ROCKLAND
Fore Street, Hugo’s, Miyake Portland Museum of Art Port City Music Hall
50 miles of ski trails
G ) W H I T E M O U N TA I N N AT I O N A L F O R E S T
C) FREEPORT
L.L.Bean mothership
M ) S UGA R L OA F
The largest ski area east of the Rockies
H ) B A X T E R S TAT E PA R K
Mount Katahdin
D) P O P H A M B E AC H
Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area
Farnsworth Art Museum Primo
I ) A U G U S TA
State capital J) UNITY
Common Ground Fair
ELSEWHERE
Boston 135 miles New York City 345 miles Chicago 1,115 miles San Francisco 3,235 miles
Bates College is committed to the principle of equal opportunity and providing an educational and work environment free from discrimination. The college prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, age, disability, genetic information or veteran status and other legally protected statuses in the recruitment and admission of its students, in the administration of its education policies and programs, or in the recruitment of its faculty and staff. Bates College adheres to all applicable state and federal equal opportunity laws and regulations.
Bates values the diversity of persons, perspectives, and convictions. Critical thinking, rigorous analysis, and open discussion of a full range of ideas lie at the heart of the college’s mission as an institution of higher learning. The college seeks to encourage inquiry and reasoned dialogue in a climate of mutual respect.
Office of Admission 23 Campus Ave. Lewiston, ME 04240 1.855.BATES55 (1.855.228.3755) bates.edu