One the Road with Betsy Woolf: Huskies and Bantams

HUSKIES:

The University of Connecticut at Storrs is not just about Huskies basketball, although you can be sure that our tour included a visit to the storied Pauley Pavilion, where basketball history has long been made.The UConn Men have won 6 national championships and have appeared in 7 Final Fours. The UConn Women own 12 national championships and the most Final Four Appearances of any men’s or women’s college basketball team. Best of all, the home games for these teams are free to students.

It was a return trip to this rural campus, an hour and a half from Boston and two and a half hours from New York City. UConn features 10 schools and colleges, all of which are direct admit for undergraduates except for Education and Social Work to which students apply starting sophomore year. Students can also apply to law, medicine or dentistry programs at the same time as applying to the university, and if accepted, they are guaranteed admission to those programs.  About a quarter of students enter UConn undecided or through the ACES program, its Academic Center for Exploratory Students. Forty-five percent of first years join learning communities; we were told that they also get the best housing! As for housing, around 12,000 students live on campus, and living on campus is required for first years.

This year, UConn received over 61,000 applications, an increase from the prior year, and it will increase its class size, bringing in a class of 4700 students.

New for the coming application season is a move to Early Decision (November 1). There still is a regular decision deadline of January 15th, although the application deadline for law, medicine and dentistry is November 15 and priority consideration for merit scholarships means applying by December 1. ED applicants should receive decisions in mid-December. Competitive programs include engineering, business, exercise science and nursing. Admission is need blind. Testing remains optional and recently, fewer than 30% of applicants submitted test scores.  The average GPA for accepted students is 3.6/3.7 and for those who submit scores, the middle 50% is 1310-1460 SAT and 29-31 ACT.

A visit to Downtown Storrs, a relatively new hamlet, revealed a CVS, a couple of pizza parlors, a cafe, a puppetry museum (part of the School of Fine Arts) and apartments.

BANTAMS:

On the way back to New York, I made a return visit to Trinity College, an open campus in Hartford, the home of Mark Twain. In contrast to the over 21,000 undergrads at UConn, Trinity is a quieter place of just over 2200, most of whom live on campus all four years (there is a new apartment-style townhouse community on campus). Trinity’s strong sports programs include men’s squash and basketball, as the Batnams won their first NCAA Division III national champuionship in 2025. The squash team holds the record for the longest unbeaten streak in any intercollegiate sport in the nation’s history; it has been national champs 15 times.

Trinity is one of the few small liberal arts colleges with an engineering program; the program is ABET certified. All Trinity first year students take a first year seminar of around 12-15 students with topics that can include meditation or travel through the Middle East. Neurosceince is a popular and growing major, and a significant number of students study in the fine arts and engineering. The school also requires all students to have co-curricular experiences, such as internships, peer mentoring, working as teaching assistants, and research. The Liberal Arts Action Lab is a semester-long program at Trinity’s downtown campus in Hartford in which students work with partner organizations on local projects in such areas as school nutrition, energy efficiency, arts education, and documenting neighborhood history. The Trinity/ La Mama Performing Arts program is a semester program for 8 to 12 theater and dance students who live and study in Manhattan and intern with arts organizations and attend performances.

Submitting standardized test scores is optional at Trinity. An interview is recommended and the college does consider demonstrated interest. The early decision deadline is November 15th and students hear back in mid-December. Trinity also has a second round of ED with an application deadline in mid-January, as well as regular decision. Around 40% of the class is comprised of students accepted through early decision. The middle 50% GPA hovers around 3.7-4.0 and the middle 50% SAT from 1340-1470 and ACT from 29-33.

The campus is about a mile from downtown Hartford which is home to restaurants and the Bushnell Performing Arts Center, the Connecticut Forum and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Bushnell Park offers ice saking and a jazz festival.