Mary Blendermann

Mary Blendermann and the Three Bears

Written by Breana Noble

Then, Goldilocks was feeling tired after her long adventure. She saw three chairs in the living room of the house in the woods. The first one was too hard. The second was too soft. But the third was just right.

Finding the perfect college was kind of like that for freshman Mary Blendermann. She applied to Liberty University, a college with 12,600 residential enrollees, and Patrick Henry College, with around 300 students, in addition to Hillsdale College, with its 1,400 students.

Hillsdale was a happy medium between the larger Liberty and dwarf Patrick Henry. After hearing from some of her friends who chose bigger or smaller colleges, Mary is loving her decision.

At Hillsdale, Mary finds a balance between social privacy and the ability to form close relationships.

“I go to the same buildings every day. I see the same people every day. But there’s sort of that aspect of social privacy,” Mary said. “There are enough people where not everyone knows your business and everything about your life, but it’s small enough to keep up with the same people. It’s a good social life, and the size contributes to that in a good way.”

It’s not just the size of the school that contributes to Hillsdale’s vibrant social life, though. Hillsdale students in general genuinely care about their peers and make an effort to reach out to one another.

“People are both willing to talk with you and good at realizing when you need space, which I really appreciate. A lot of the freshmen have just been great as well. I’ve made a lot of friends,” Mary said.

The smaller scope of the college allows for small class sizes, which means more one-on-one time with the professors. Mary shared how impressed she was that all of her teachers knew her name within the first few classes of the semester. Their dedication to helping and educating their students also made an impact.

“For Western Heritage, I brought my paper in to Dr. Stewart twice,” Mary said. “Both times he was willing to go over it and say, ‘You need to fix this.’ He’s really genuinely trying to help me do better.”

Mary is eager for the more intensive, discussion-based upper-level classes, even though she also finds the idea of them a tad intimidating.

“I walk past those seminar classrooms all the time, and they have like four students and a professor,” Mary said. “I’m pretty excited for that level of personal attention; it also kind of freaks me out that my professor could be focused just on me and three other people.”

The size and dedication of Hillsdale’s student body also means that there are many organizations and clubs to join. Mary currently works for the school’s TV station, participates in the Hillsdale Hepcats Swing Dance Club, and frequently goes to the A.A. Milne Society’s readings of Winnie-the-Pooh by college faculty. She is also beginning to get involved in the forensics team.

Mary is interested in American Studies, which combines the studies of American history, literature, and politics in order to grasp a better understanding of the nation’s culture. She has aspirations of becoming a congressional staffer or working for a political think tank. Hillsdale provides an abundance of special programs for students like Mary. The Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program (WHIP) and the George Washington Fellowship Program, for example, allow small groups of students to prepare for jobs like the ones Mary hopes to pursue in the future.

“It’s such an amazing segue into what I want to do,” Mary said. “In the George Washington Fellowship, you get paid to research and write about political topics, which is exactly what I want to do. It just seems like an awesome opportunity, and WHIP is a requirement for that program.”

Already, Mary has met students who are participating in these programs through her extracurricular activities.

“That’s another benefit of a small school,” Mary said. “You connect with people in more than one place.”

Fortunately for this Goldilocks, Mary won’t be running from any bears soon. Although it’s been a little difficult living twelve hours away from her family in Maryland, Mary has found her home in Hillsdale.


Breana Noble is a freshman at Hillsdale College with a desire to study Politics and Journalism.  She is writing for “The Collegian” newspaper at Hillsdale and works as an assistant in the Hillsdale College Athletics office.  Breana is also involved in swing dancing, the Young Americans for Freedom, the College Republicans and the Nest Bible Study.