Amherst vs Williams

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Sup, I'm a Chinese international in an international school in Shanghai.</p>

<p>I can't decide between Amherst and Williams. I want a diverse environment, filled with super smart people (because that's pretty much what international schools are like) - Swarthmore sounds perfect, right?</p>

<p>Right...except I have a terrible work ethic. Everything I've heard about Swarthmore workload is that it's massive, and there is no way I would succeed there.</p>

<p>So now, it's between Amherst and Williams. Amherst seems a bit more diverse, with Williams having a reputation as a white preppy jock school. Yet, Williams regularly tops the list in schools with the smartest students.</p>

<p>So I'm torn. Any suggestions/comments?</p>

2

<p>butterandjam, the student bodies at Williams and Amherst are very similar and both schools are equally academically rigorous. You would need a serious work ethic at either. Students at Williams and Amherst take their academics as seriously as Swarthmore students do, but they’re just not as theatrical about it.</p>

<p>Neither Williams nor Amherst is White and preppy as it used to be, but neither achieves the level of diversity as an urban college would. Both have active sports cultures, but non-athletes do fine as well.</p>

<p>The major difference is that Amherst is somewhat smaller, but it is located in a lively small town and is part of a college consortium. Williams is very rural and insular. </p>

<p>My son is a Williams graduate. He’s a White American, but he also attended an international school in Asia. He loved Williams and would go there again in an instant, even though it was a lot less diverse than his highschool.</p>

<p>Any reason why you can’t apply to both?</p>

3

<p>^ Thanks for the input.</p>

<p>I’d like to apply for both, but unfortunately there are just so many unis my school is letting me apply to.</p>

4

<p>Do not think for one minute that Williams and Amherst are easier than Swarthmore. Students without a strong work ethic will struggle at all three.</p>

5

<p>Choose Williams if you are especially interested in the sciences. Choose Amherst if you think you would benefit from the advantages of an open curriculum where you have more freedom to choose your classes. Both are great schools and draw a similar caliber of students.</p>

6

<p>Ditto to what electronblue said. Don’t think you won’t work hard at any of these schools!! There will be plenty of super smart people at alot of schools. These three don’t have a monopoly on them.</p>

7

<p>Ditto what others have said. If you want to get by without working hard, NO top-tier liberal arts school is for you. Class participation is expected in almost every class, and you’ll have tons of reading / papers / problem sets / lab work, far more than at many larger universities where PERHAPS you can slide under the radar and cram a bit more easily. </p>

<p>Swarthmore arguably attracts a slightly more academically intense student body than W or A , but the average hourly work loads at all three (along with Midd and Bowdoin) are roughly the same, not so much of a difference, certainly, to be a major point of differentiation. </p>

<p>Williams is also not a white preppy jock school anymore (hasn’t been for many years), and certainly not relative to Amherst. They are really quite similar in terms of student body composition: both feature outstanding athletics (Williams has a slight edge, but only very slight, overall, and in team sports the two schools are basically even at this point) and they are also roughly equal in terms of economic diversity (Amherst has more Pell grants recipients, Williams has more first generation students, both are near the top for both categories among LA schools) and racial diversity (Williams class of 2015 is 37 percent non white domestic students, plus 7 percent international students, Amherst is a bit higher but in a smaller student body, has less total students on campus in each category). </p>

<p>The biggest differences between the schools are location, campus feel, facilities, size (350 student difference may not seem like a lot, but at a school of around 2000, it matters), five college consortium at Amherst, and Winter Study and tutorials at Williams. In terms of the student body, though, put 50 random Williams and Amherst kids in a room, no way you will be able to guess which went to which school at better than a 50 percent rate of accuracy. </p>

<p>I also wouldn’t make a big deal about Williams’ distribution requirements. The vast majority of students are going to take at least three classes from each THIRD of the curriculum anyway. If you really, really, really hate, say, math and science, and are desperate not to take any classes in that area, then it would be an issue, but otherwise, they are really not very onerous.</p>

8

<p>Both Williams and Amherst take their academic reputations very seriously. The student bodies are similar at both. D is at Williams and the students are very serious about academics. You just don’t see as much “quirky intellectual” as you do at Swarthmore. If you don’t have a good work ethic, stay away from the top LACs.</p>