<p>Both seem to have a "jocky" reputation, and the heavy drinking associated with rural/cold. What non-academic distinctions can be drawn?</p>
<p>amherst is in a great college town, amherst, ma. It was actualy just ranked the top college town in north america, i believe. bowdoin is near a pretty decent town i think too though. bowdoin will be colder since it’s in maine as opposed to massachusetts.</p>
<p>I visited Bowdoin and didn’t get a very “jocky” feel for the campus. I did an overnight for 2.5 days, living in the dorms, socializing, going to class, eating, etc. and found that most of the students were fairly ‘normal smart’ kids.</p>
<p>Thanks for the thoughts. What about the “preppy” reputation of both schools? (What kind of preppy, and is it different at one than at the other?)</p>
<p>i find it funny that amherst has a jocky reputation, too. i understand the arguments that are tirelessly made about these schools and their sports scenes, but knowing both athletes and non-athletes and each school, often you’re hard pressed to tell off the court or the field who plays a sport and who doesn’t. in the grand scheme of colleges, both amherst and bowdoin seem to me to be intellectual. perhaps compared to swarthmore they are less so, but that’s like saying obama is less liberal than dennish kucinich. while true, it doesn’t mean obama is conservative by any stretch of the imagination.</p>
<p>i think Bowdoin definitely has a less preppy vibe than Amherst which is the definition of WASP. Bowdoin go there.</p>
<p>Amherst+ Smith +Mt Holyonke =87% female .</p>
<p>Is there any particular reason why Amherst shows up often on top 10 PHD productivity lists, while Bowdoin does not (at all, for women in humanities)?</p>
<p>pb - I eliminated Haverford in part (note the “in part”) because 70% of the students played sports of some kind and they were proud of that. I am physically active (e.g. through dance) and open to Bowdoin’s “outdoor” possibilities, but I hate competitive sports both as participant and spectator.</p>
<p>"I eliminated Haverford in part (note the “in part”) because 70% of the students played sports of some kind and they were proud of that. "</p>
<p>Ha, so did D1, exactly the same.</p>
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<p>That is a misguided reason for scratching Haverford off your list. By any measure, Amherst is a vastly more varsity sports oriented college than Haverford. Amherst is one of the top five Division III sports powerhouses in the country. It has the two teams most cited as negatively impacting both admissions and academic culture – football and men’s hockey – neith of which Haverford has. </p>
<p>Haverford does have a high percentage of students on varisty sports team because it’s enrollment is so small (33%), but that percentage is lower than Amhersts. Haveford’s athletic budget is a fraction of Amherst’s.</p>
<p>To eliminate Haverford for athletic emphasis only to turn around and even remotely consider Amherst or Bowdoin doesn’t make any sense. It’s not even close.</p>
<p>“To eliminate Haverford for athletic emphasis only to turn around and even remotely consider Amherst or Bowdoin doesn’t make any sense.”</p>
<p>D1 eliminated those others as well.</p>
<p>gonna put my 2 cents in here:</p>
<p>remember that Amherst is in the 5-college consortium, with other small liberal arts colleges very close by (Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Wellesley?)</p>
<p>Bowdoin, on the other hand, is all by itself… which gives it a more singular identity, IMO</p>
<p>although a large % of the student body at Bowdoin is on a sports team or describes themselves as “athletic,” I never sensed a “jocky” vibe during the multiple times I visited the campus or talked to people about the school. Then again, I never considered Amherst to be full of athletes either, so who knows. Williams is the school, I think, where nearly everyone does sports and goes skiing every weekend, and there’s a specified day during the fall that everyone is supposed to go hiking on the nearby mountain. </p>
<p>Another thing to consider (which is shallow but whatever) is that the boys at Bowdoin are much cuter than the boys at Amherst! </p>
<p>Do you want to be in the mountains of Massachussets or on the coast of Maine? That’s a HUGE difference. There is a certain “Maine culture” that comes with Bowdoin… they have a big lobster bake at the beginning of every year, people tend to go to the beach even if its cold, etc…</p>
<p>Once you visit both campuses, you’ll definitely feel a difference. Academically they are pretty much equal, although I would venture a guess that people study harder at Amherst.</p>
<p>interesteddad - My other main reason for eliminating Haverford was a feeling that political dissent would be stifled by the Honor Code. But wrt athletics, I think of Haverford and A/B’s athletic emphasis as different creatures. At A/B, varsity athletics is prominent and annoying–but you can easily enough avoid that crowd, or so it seems. Haverford takes a more egalitarian approach to athletics, with more people participating but a smaller effect on campus culture; but on any given afternoon (there’s a certain time period in which no classes can be held, IIRC, so that sports practices don’t conflict), I don’t want to be hanging around alone or pressured into a pick-up game because all/most of my friends are playing some kind of (intramural) sport.</p>
<p>Massachusetts or Maine? Bowdoin wins on location. I grew up in Newfoundland and still hold an inordinate fondness for seafood and rock beaches.</p>
<p>Visiting would be the best solution, obviously, but for now let’s assume that I won’t be able to visit either. (I actually did visit Amherst last summer, but the campus was eerily deserted, so all I learned was “Amherst is pretty.”)</p>
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Haha, Wellesley’s near Boston. The Five Colleges are UMass, Hampshire, Smith, Mt Holyoke, and Amherst.</p>
<p>Whoops - so Wellesley’s not in the group. Still, you’ve got 2 women’s colleges, one “alternative” type college, and a state school in addition to Amherst. So rather than the area being, like, Amherst’s domain, it’s characterized by a bunch of different college kids. In Brunswick, Maine, Bowdoin kids are the only kids, and it’s pretty much their town.</p>
<p>I’d like to add that Brunswick is a super-cute town with great coffee shops, ice cream places, bakeries, a natural foods store and good italian/indian restaurants 
Also, it’s just a short drive to Portland, which offers a lot.</p>
<p>
Annual expenses for intercollegiate athletics, as per the US Dept. of Education’s EADA site:</p>
<p>Bowdoin: $5.0 million
Amherst: $4.5 million</p>
<hr>
<p>Haverford: $2.7 million
Swarthmore $2.5 million</p>
<p>Schools like Amherst, Bowdoin, or Williams, have the highest rates of participation in intercollegiate sports of any schools in the US – in the 35 to 40% range (total for men and women). At small LACs like Amherst or Bowdoin, the football team alone (roster ~ 70 guys) is nearly 10% of the total male student enrollment. If you want to avoid athletes, you may have the wrong idea if your short list includes Amherst or Bowdoin.</p>
<p>Most people would cite Haverford and Swarthmore – which have both given up football – as LACs where athletics is deemphasized.</p>
<p>Corbett - Would you then say that Amherst and Bowdoin (and Williams et al) have a “culture” of athletics? At Haverford, it seemed like intramural athletics was a normalized part of the culture and definitely in the majority. I mean, if all your friends are at sports practice at the same time, because that time slot was specifically set aside by the college, it must be pretty lonely. Does that apply to A/B/W as well? I’m not as familiar, since Haverford is significantly closer to me geographically. I have visited a people-less Amherst (which really doesn’t count) and taken a tour at Williams. The 70% figure at HC was part of the tour spiel.</p>
<p>
Yes.</p>
<p>Most New England LACs are in small towns – sometimes very small towns – where the opportunities for outdoor recreation are great, while the opportunities indoors are limited. So they tend to attract people who like to play outdoors – e.g. athletes. </p>
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<p>But even if so, that’s a distinctly lower level of competition than schools where varsity athletics is a normalized part of the culture. A Williams-Amherst football game or Bowdoin-Colby hockey game draws thousands of spectators. It’s normal to attend these events if you go to these schools. How many people go to watch Haverford intramurals? </p>
<p>If you like LACs, but find Haverford too athletic for your tastes, then you might want to consider (1) tech-oriented schools (e.g. Caltech, Mudd), or (2) schools that were formerly women’s colleges (e.g. Vassar, Skidmore), or (3) schools that are still women’s colleges (e.g. Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke).</p>
<p>^ Thanks!</p>
<p>My problem: I like the culture of former/present women’s colleges, but I really want a gender-balanced school.</p>
<p>“If you like LACs, but find Haverford too athletic for your tastes, then you might want to consider (1) tech-oriented schools (e.g. Caltech, Mudd), or (2) schools that were formerly women’s colleges (e.g. Vassar, Skidmore), or (3) schools that are still women’s colleges (e.g. Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke).”</p>
<p>…or Oberlin…</p>