When Bill Jack '08 gives campus tours, prospective students want to know why he chose Bates. "I’m from Bowdoin, Maine," he says. "Why on earth would I go to school just 25 miles from home?"

He has his reasons. When Jack, now in his second term as student body president, first visited Bates for an overnight, "the people were welcoming," he remembers. The small class sizes also impressed him, and professors connected with students even in larger classes. Jack, a political science major, sat in on a class in international political economy, where the professor fully engaged 50 students, and a Spanish class with 25 members, where the professor made time for students to pair up for an exercise. She even invited Jack to join in.

Some admissions deans, says Jack, suggest that the ideal Bates student is a "pointed" person — the gifted oboist or the one who has taken a lot of AP exams. Other deans want well-rounded people — students who do various things well. A veteran of many Student Activities Fairs, Jack finds that most students, pointed or rounded, want to get involved in everything.

He exemplifies that desire. A member of The College Key, and chair of both the Executive Council and Trustees' Advisory Committee, Jack says "it's just part of my inner being to be part of the institution and have a stake in what happens." Despite all his activity in and out of the classroom, though, Jack offers this sage piece of advice to incoming students: "Just relax."