Visiting The College That Would Have Been Hogwarts

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Last day of high school junior year. By the gates, there will be stressed students who almost grew out of adolescence but is not yet an adult. They will pass a busy summer specked with infinitesimal moments of fun. The heat waves will carry a certain restlessness: one year into IB, a few months after AP, a half term of A-levels, and five months until the college application deadline.

This summer, I am that student.

I attend the Beijing City International School (BCIS) and intend to study in the United States, with a focus on small private universities and liberal arts colleges.

I will be a creative writing major with a minor in communications and media. I love the arts and journalism and everything in between. in classic post-covid fashion, I am going to visit schools with my dearest dad.

Join me as I take you on my college visit tour across the US.

My school list:
Little Ivy Leagues:
Williams College, Amherst College, Pomona College
Women’s Colleges:
Scripps College, Smith College, Wellesley College, Mount Holyoke College
Ivy Leagues:
Brown University, Dartmouth University
Liberal Arts Colleges:
Middlebury College, Bates College, Hamilton College, Kenyon College
Private Universities:
Tufts University, Chapman University

A rainy morning car ride to Gambier, a small town in Ohio - I thought, God, if only it was London. Suddenly the endless country blurred into a beautiful Harry Potteresque college campus. Before I knew it I was at Kenyon College.

I know what you are thinking - who on earth wants to go to school in Ohio? Even Columbus, the biggest city in the state - but still a small town - is an hour and a half drive away from it. Surprisingly, Kenyon College is one of my favorite schools I ever visited in the United States.

We all know Oxford is the filming place for Hogwarts in Harry Potter, but did you know the filming crew almost chose Kenyon College? Every building on its campus is a testament to European architecture - mysterious, academic, and poised. The Old Kenyon residential hall is the oldest standing Gothic erection in America. The libraries and dining halls are a combination of Hogwarts, a stained-glass church, a 19th-century historical mansion, and a tasteful art gallery. 

Kenyon is also spacious and luxurious, occupying 1,000 acres of nature that encloses Gambier. A road called "the middle path" runs through campus from beginning to end. Lining it is lush green trees and trim grass meadows that look like a vacation forest in summer, an oil painting with bright red, yellow, and orange leaves in autumn, and a silver snowy photo in winter. Undoubtedly, Kenyon is one of the most aesthetically pleasing campuses in the US.

Kenyon College is also known as the writer's college. English, public speaking, foreign language, and creative writing infuse its curriculum. Every niche of writing can be found here, from science and nature writing to poetry, each taught by accomplished and caring professors. Even biology courses force students to listen to a tree and launch a creative writing piece about what they heard. This intense amount of writing is usually challenging for freshmen, who often get a C on their first paper and pages of feedback longer than the paper itself. They will learn the Kenyon writing style, improve their draft, and watch it regraded. After four years, graduates become the most uniquely well-read, well-versed individuals to grace the world.

You probably guessed it, but Kenyon is a feeder school for prestigious media or publication companies and literary journals, such as New York Times and Penguin Random House. The powerful and passionate alumni are often handing lucrative jobs exclusively to Kenyon graduates. According to my tour guide, "nepotism sucks, but it gets you really far. It's scary how everyone wants to hire Kenyon students". Best of all, The Kenyon Review, one of the most exclusive literature magazines in the US, was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, a literary critic and professor at Kenyon College. To this day it remains on campus and offers students associate and paid internship positions (more than half who apply get in).

My personal favorite, though, is how close Kenyon professors are with their students, and with it comes the students' personalities. Many students are on first-name basis with professors and call each other lifelong friends. They visit for casual conversations, dinner, advice (academic and non-academic), and pet-sitting or babysitting. Sometimes they sit on a playground in the sun to talk about life for three hours. Other times they get top-tier paid research opportunities that graduate students can only dream of.

It's precious and heartwarming to see the small community truly care for its members. Students, well, are all a little weird - in a good way! They are authentic, genuine, and unapologetically themselves. There is charm and flair in that. They are also kind and collaborative despite the rigorous curriculum. You will see biology students spending hours explaining their experiment to a lost classmate and English students overlooking every essay you turn in to eliminate grammar mistakes.

For some bizarre reason, Kenyon's deep British academic roots and whimsical students made me think of a quote from Marilyn Monroe: imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius. It's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

Kenyon Fun Facts

Don't step on the circular gold emblem in the dining hall. If you do, superstition says that you won't graduate!

Friends, don't walk on both sides of the stature on middle path. If you do you will stop being friends. That's why large crowds of people wait to cross one side.

In the science building there is a basement library. There are three floors, each one more quiet than the last.

There is also a biology, archeology, anthropology and geography curation. Latin labels included.

Other than writing, science is a population major because of the wonderful research opportunities. Psychology is classified as a natural science. So, less memorization, more experimentation.

Introduction creative writing courses are graded on bravery, not performance. Even if you are not the best writer and are nervous about sharing your work with a 8 people class, it's still A+ for effort - as long as you are willing to learn and turn assignments in on time.

One of the best study abroad programs in the U.S. - students can go to London to take any courses in Oxford University and visit literary landmarks in Exeter. All credits transferred. Most who apply get in. If not, all other foreign exchange programs are lovely.

Theaters are huge and beautiful and full of performances that never end there are quite a few on campus.

Housing is guaranteed and paid for all four years. Upperclassmen can live in Gambier town apartments - cue independent living.

Images: Helen Wang

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