What is life at Wellesley really like?
The Wellesley community welcomes you with over 130 student organizations that put on hundreds of events each semester, a rich variety of cultural groups, and traditions that date to the College’s earliest years.
Do What You Love or try something new.
Student Organizations
From the ASTRO Club’s astronomists to Yanvalou’s dancers and drummers, our student organizations, or orgs, have something for everyone.
Choose from sports, arts, social justice, health and wellness, community service, cultural connections, hobbies and games, farming, local adventures, student government, academic extracurriculars, pre-professional, and residence hall fun.
If you can’t find the right group, head to the Office of Student Involvement, which helps students start and run new orgs as well as plan off-campus trips and on-campus concerts. And they make sure our hallowed traditions—like Lake Day and Hooprolling—continue from year to year.
Education can be a Spiritual as well as an intellectual journey.
Religious and Spiritual Life
At Wellesley, you’ll find many religious and nonreligious traditions. We support your spiritual growth and can help you connect with a community, within or without a religion.
We invite you to any of the weekly programs hosted by the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (ORSL) or student orgs. If you wish to seek counsel, you can meet with a chaplain for confidential, nonjudgmental conversation about spirituality and life. ORSL also facilitates communication between students and professors to arrange for accommodations during religious days of observance.
Houghton Chapel, a central venue for College ceremonies, concerts, and lectures, anchors our community’s spiritual space. Its Multifaith Center is a place for prayer, meditation, study, worship, and regular gatherings. The Jewish Life Lounge is centrally located, to create community. To ensure that students have access to prayer and meditation space whenever they need it, a prayer and meditation room is located within the Science Complex.
We’re committed to Inclusion and Engagement
You belong here–and you deserve to feel accepted and embraced. Through advising, advocacy, mentorship, and programs, we support your personal and social growth and discovery.
Slater International Center
The focal point for international activities on campus, Slater welcomes all students, whether you come from abroad or want to expand your understanding of other places and cultures. With a kitchen, dining room, multi-use room, and large living room, Slater hosts a range of events. Its staff help international students and scholars, through programs, advising, referrals, and services related to immigration, employment, and academic, social, and cultural adjustment issues.
Acorns House
Acorns House provides students of Latinx and Asian descent a place to gather and receive social, emotional, and academic support. Acorns also sponsors enlightening cultural activities for the College community. Our many Latinx- or Asian-affiliated student orgs offer further opportunities for engagement.
Harambee House
Harambee House is a place where students of African descent can meet up and receive social, emotional, and academic support. The umbrella organization for the six student orgs dedicated to supporting and engaging students of African descent, Harambee (Swahili for “working together”) also offers enlightening cultural activities for the College community.
LGBTQ+ Programs and Services
Wellesley offers members of the LGBTQ+ community abundant resources and forms of support, as well as LGBTQ+ events and celebrations. You can meet with mentors and advisors, drop in to a support and discussion group, talk to Q-Connectors and/or counselors trained in handling LGBTQ+ issues, and join any of our LGBTQ+ student organizations.
Office of Student Success
The Office of Student Success (OSS) supports first-generation, underrepresented, and underserved students. OSS’s offerings include the First Gen/Low Income Network, the Long-Term Laptop Loan Program, and WellesleyPlus, a program to assist first-generation and under-resourced first-year students. OSS partners with offices across campus to help you develop a deep sense of community and belonging, while benefiting from advising, counseling, academic support, mentorship, and career development.
Celebrate A Wellesley Tradition Rolling hoops. Giving flowers. Singing class songs (loudly!)
Wellesley has changed a lot since these traditions were first celebrated. Flower Sunday dates to 1875. At their core has always been joy and unity, but each generation marks the traditions in its own special way.
During hooprolling, seniors wear their graduation robes and roll wooden hoops down Tupelo Lane. The winner earns the distinguished honor of being tossed into Lake Waban and is proclaimed the first in the class to achieve success and happiness (however they define it).
Stepsinging takes place after convocation, on the last day of classes, and at reunion. Clad in their class colors, students attempt to out-sing and out-cheer the other classes.
The halfway point of the Boston Marathon is at Wellesley. On Marathon Monday, students line the road waving homemade signs, offering runners high-fives, and cheering loudly. Originating at the first Boston Marathon, in 1897, the “Scream Tunnel” can be heard a mile away, giving a much-needed boost to the runners.
Tree planting is a sophomore class tradition. Each fall, sophomores plant a tree and tie written wishes to its branches. A stone marker notes the class year. All classes are fond of their trees, which are living monuments to their time on campus. Every class since 1879 has planted a tree, and most of them are still alive.
New England’s snowy winters create perfect conditions for traying, aka speeding down Severance Hill on a dining hall tray. Today, to save water, our dining halls don’t use trays, so we use sleds—but it’s still called traying.
Flower Sunday, the College’s oldest tradition, celebrates community and love as we welcome our newest students. “Big sibs” give flowers to their “little sibs” at a multicultural, multifaith service with songs, music, poetry, and dance.
One day in the fall, you’ll wake up to a surprise announcement that it’s Lake Day and classes are canceled! The day is yours to hang out, enjoy on-campus carnival rides and games, walk all the way around Lake Waban—or do nothing at all.