Sixty-two prospective students stayed overnight at the University on Thursday, Nov. 10, and Friday, Nov. 11 as part of the Office of Admission’s free WesExplore Fly-In program. The prefrosh, all coming from first-generation, low-income (FGLI) or historically underrepresented backgrounds, were hosted in the residences of current University students, allowing the prefrosh to experience campus and interact with current students.

Planning the program involved creating a process that allowed as many prefrosh as possible to come and be welcomed by current students.

“Prospective students had to apply to the program via Wesleyan’s admission website,” Admissions Intern Maxwell Maveus ’26 wrote in an email to The Argus. “While we would love to welcome everyone to campus, we had a limited budget to pay for everyone’s transportation.”

The matchmaking between students and prefrosh was also managed by the Office of Admission.

“Hosts and pre-frosh were paired based on the preferences of the prospective student,” Admission Intern Nya Santeliz ’25 wrote in an email to The Argus. “So for example, if a prospective student’s preferences were Academic Interests, Extracurricular Interests, and Geographic Origin we would find a host from the sign-up list that best matched that student’s preferences.” 

Students who hosted a prefrosh expressed a variety of reasons for applying to the program.

“There were two main reasons [why I wanted to host a prefrosh],” Greg Joblove ’26 said. “The first one was [that] I just wanted to reduce the monotony of the weekly life here. I thought it would be fun to have someone to break things up, and to kind of reflect on my own time here. And the second reason is, I had no idea what college was going to be like…so it’s definitely a resource I wish I would’ve had, and I had to make sure I was in a position to help a prefrosh.”

The visiting students saw performances by a capella group Notably Sharp, the Latin and Ballroom Dance group, and FXT dance troupe the night of Thursday, Nov. 10 as part of their introduction to life at Wesleyan. In addition, the student hosts showed the prefrosh around the campus. 

“We went and saw a volleyball game and we went to Summies late night, so it was the real Wesleyan experience,” Joblove said. 

This was the first time since before the pandemic that the program, previously known as the Transportation Assistance Program, was held in person. During 2020 and 2021, it was held online. Unfortunately, due to travel issues caused by Hurricane Nicole and illness among students, only 62 of the planned 74 participating prefrosh made it to campus. Those who were able to come nonetheless enjoyed their time at the University.

“WesExplore allowed me to experience firsthand the vibrancy of the student body and many organizations on campus,” prospective student  Tina Li said. “Everyone I met was so kind and excited to be at Wes, and overall, the program made me a lot more confident in applying.”

On the whole, the current students who hosted prefrosh expressed positive experiences with the program. 

“I did enjoy hosting a prefrosh,” said Joblove. “I think [my prefrosh] had a lot of fun and I certainly had a lot of fun, and it was fun for my friends to meet him and kind of accept him as our own, so it was a great time and I think it gave him a real clear perspective.”

Spencer Landers can be reached at sklanders@wesleyan.edu.