<p>Hello guys, I am an international student, planning to attend one of those colleges. Will you guys give me some input about them? I am especially biased toward Bennington now, since I haven't heard any negative things. So if you know please be honest with the bad things.
About me- I am liberal minded, want academic rigor and friendly professors, I will go for science with a bit arts.Also I do care about graduate school placement rate and after graduation employment rate. So please if you have some knowledge concerning this factor on these colleges do share.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Hi Benn
I answered your PM so you’ll see that my D applied to Bard and Hampshire as well as other schools.</p>
<p>We visited Connecticut College and she did not like it. Her opinion was it was much more mainstream than the others (“too much like my high school”) and she didn’t get as much a sense of engagement from the student body. Of course, it was snowing and bitterly cold the day we visited, so that might have had something to do with it! In relation to the other schools, the students are a bit preppier.</p>
<p>Bard is really isolated, if that matters to you. No nearby town to speak of. NYC is not too far by car or bus, though. The students are very intellectual and bit more urban/hipster than Hampshire. Academic rigor is high. Check out the freshman course requirements! I know that Bard is actively recruiting science majors right now to build up their STEM departments, they have lots of posters up in the Admissions office about that.</p>
<p>Hampshire is MUCH more laid back while still having good academics. Students who last there (there is a pretty low rate of return after year 1, I think because some kids are misled by the laid-back attitude and mistakenly think it’s going to be easy and they can just get baked all day and not work) tend to be very passionate about what they’re studying, and quirky. You basically make up your own major and people do some very unusual things. You really need to be very self-directed, there is much less structure than other schools. </p>
<p>In your PM you mentioned game design and animation, both of which you can study at Hampshire. In fact, Hampshire College earned the #5 spot on the Princeton Review’s 2014 list saluting the 25 best undergraduate schools to study video game design.</p>
<p>You can probably get a good feel for these schools by reading through the posts on the individual forums (fora?)
On the left side of the page, Click Colleges and Universities, then by alphabet.</p>
<p>Are you applying for next year? Maybe wait to see acceptances before you pick. First build your college list.</p>
<p>Those are all really nicely regarded liberal arts schools. Bennington is really tiny. Some might think too small. I like Hampshire because if it’s unusual structure and also because it is in the 5 college consortium. I knew a student who attended and he took classes at Smith and UMass Amherst some semesters. It just gives you more options. If you are exploring something in depth and there is a more advanced class at another college you can take it. And it seems like there is a lot of mentoring by faculty there. Those colleges are all good. Some people will know good points and some people will think some aspects are bad that you might actually like. Read everything you can about them.</p>
<p>Probably Bard is the most well known. You will be able to get to grad school from any of those. Your grad school admission will be based on your transcript and your research and the rest of your application. It won’t be based on which of these colleges you went to. In a way, grad school admit rate is just a reflection of students who want to go. They don’t measure who applies and doesn’t get in. Just a percent of the student body. Some prefer to work first. Likewise employment prospects are more a function of your major and to some extent getting internships. I don’t know employment prospects in your country as well as you will. Getting a visa here is difficult with an undergrad degree I thought.</p>