Bates, Colby, Colgate, Hamilton - strongest in History/Poli Sci/IR and in Neuro/Bio and Comp Sci?

We ave twin DD’s who were accepted to these schools, as well as to a couple similarly ranked Midwest schools, but as they would rather stay in the NE these are the schools they are likely picking from, unless they get into some Ivies they have applied to or waitlists which so far include Middlebury for both and Wesleyan for Neuro DD.

Aside from fit which is key and is something they have each felt through visits at each one, how are these four schools, as well as the waitlist schools, viewed with respect to their relative strength in these two different areas of focus?

Historically, Bates has not been known as a school for Computer Science. They’ve never had a CS major, for example. However, Bates is currently in the process of launching a “Digital and Computational Studies Program”, so this may change in the future.

History, political science, neurology, and biology are common LAC majors, and are probably good at all of these schools.

I think Colgate is the only one of these schools with a distinct IR program, although Hamilton and Colby may address IR in their Government majors. Note that Colgate is significantly larger than the other schools on this list; Colgate has nearly 3000 students, while the others have less than 2000.

For biology and CS in combination, your daughter may want to research the bioinformatics offerings at her respective choices.

Colgate and Hamilton would be excellent for both history and political science.

Bates’ political science program appears to be strong.

Hamilton students can code, here finishing first in a programming competion against 38 other teams, including two from Middlebury:

https://cs.hamilton.edu/ccscne/

@merc81, can you provide any insight as to the relative strength of the neuroscience programs at each of these schools, including Mdddlebury and Wesleyan as DD2 is waitlisted as these as well?

For neuroscience specifically, Bates could arguably be the strongest from your greater group in that their psychology courses seem to be particularly supportive of this inter-disciplinary field. Hamilton and Middlebury would offer both excellent facilities and programs for this interest as well. However, I’m not suggesting that the other choices may not be equivalent in these areas to the aforementioned, or perhaps better in particular aspects with which I’m unfamiliar.