Admission & Aid
Why Whittier
There are literally hundreds of reasons to choose Whittier College, but we're not going to list them all here (after all, unraveling the mystery is half the fun of being a student). Nor are we going to claim these are the "Top Ten" reasons. But, all-in-all, we think you'll agree they're pretty impressive.
10 (Darn Good) Reasons to Choose Whittier College
10. Whittier saves you money on trips to Hawaii.
9. Front row seats on attempts to use snake venom as laundry detergent.
8. How do you say "power lunch" in Spanish?
7. Halfway between Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium is a great place to be.
6. Be the life of the party by knowing what kebapcheta is.
5. Two words: Star Power.
4. When you play sports at Whittier, you play.
3. You can explore more than just how to find a seat in a class of 800.
2. Attending a break-out session has nothing to do with skincare.
1. Reading is a contact sport.
And, Of Course, a Bonus Reason:
Lions and Tigers and Bears are fine... but being a Poet, now that's classy.
Whittier saves you money on trips to Hawaii.
With the yearly Asian/Pacific Islanders' Night and the annual Aloha Series (which transforms the Shannon Center for the Performing Arts into a meeting place for lovers of Hawaiian music), Whittier goes "Waikiki" a few times a year.
Front row seats on attempts to use snake venom as laundry detergent.
Professor Devin Iimoto's chemistry experiments bring new meaning to the phrase "cleaning up campus," and in his snake venom studies, he uses undergraduates to do the kind of advanced laboratory research reserved elsewhere only for grad students.
How do you say "power lunch" in Spanish?
Take a Jan-Term trip to South America (in a paired class of business administration and politics) and find out. One recent trip took students to the business centers of Argentina and into the middle of a presidential election in Chile.
Halfway between Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium is a great place to be.
You can catch a day game in Anaheim and a night game at Chavez Ravine. Whittier is pleasantly ensconced halfway between L.A. and the O.C., which means a day at Disneyland and an evening at Universal CityWalk is just another Saturday.
Be the life of the party by knowing what kebapcheta is.
That's just the sort of thing you might learn at a Faculty Master's house, an on-campus residence where professors live and sponsor academic and social events for students. By the way, kebapcheta is Bulgarian kebab—and a recent Faculty Master event was a Bulgarian-Greek cook-off.
Two words: Star Power.
Whether it's physics professor Glenn Piner's experiments with quasars, a star-gazing party in the Anza-Borrego Desert, or the fact that the Hollywood Bowl is just a short drive away (not to mention the majority of the country's film and television studios), no matter how you cut it Whittier's in the middle of some major "star action."
When you play sports at Whittier, you play.
An NCAA Division III school, Whittier fields competitive teams in baseball, basketball, cross-country, football, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming/diving, tennis, track & field, volleyball, and water polo. It doesn't stop at graduation; many Poet athletes have gone on to coach or play for pro leagues in football, baseball, lacrosse, and others. In fact, one of our own was recently drafted by Major League Baseball's Houston Astros. (Go Tom Vessella '07!)
You can explore more than just how to find a seat in a class of 800.
Our students engage in meaningful self-directed research. In the innovative and acclaimed Whittier Scholars Program, students create a course of study that allows them to explore their specific interests and career goals—devising majors such as the Business of Competitive Sports, Border Studies: Mexican-American Relations, Music Marketing and Socio-Cultural Promotion, Nonprofit Organization and Function, and Health in a Culturally Diverse World.
Attending a break-out session has nothing to do with skincare.
Whittier students regularly work on professional research projects, conduct social or scientific experiments in conjunction with local agencies and organizations, and present and publish papers at national academic and research conferences around the nation. (Just ask Dipesh Bhattari '06, who worked among an astrophysics research team that included members of NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory.)
Reading is a contact sport.
Our students engage literature head-on, reading the important works and then meeting the writers who created them—like novelist Isabel Allende, columnist Arianna Huffington, sci-fi mage Ray Bradbury, playwrite Beth Henley, poet laureate Bill Collins, and novelist Dave Eggers. (And though not writers per se, the Reverend Al Sharpton and filmmaker Morgan Spurlock have added much to campus discourse.)
BONUS REASON:
Lions and Tigers and Bears are fine... but being a Poet, now that's classy.
All those other school mascots are about being furry and having claws. ("Ooh, I'm so scared.") Well, that's fine for them. But Poets tell it like it is, win hearts, and always know what to say—even when they're dominating on the field. Fear the Poets!
