<p>I just came across this article…Is this true? Is there really a huge social divide? </p>
<p><a href=“http://bowdoinorient.com/article/8849”>http://bowdoinorient.com/article/8849</a>
This was dated last December. </p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>seconded^</p>
<p>No, absolutely not.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on how you’re defining “divide”? According to my son, athletes definitely hang out together, socialize, eat, attend the same parties, tend to pair up as roommates etc. If you consider the fact that during season teammates are required to spend at least 20-25 (outside classroom) hours together - often not including game/travel days - a week, and off-season just slightly less…the companionship makes sense to me. Having said that, my son also says that he has lots of non-athlete friends, mostly from BOC and kids from his major. Bowdoin…and a good chunk of NESCAC school I think, host +/- 60% college athletes. My feeling is if a non-athlete comes to the school with a resentment of their athlete peers, a conceived notion that they are exclusive an clique-ish…than that’s exactly what you will find. If you show up open to meeting friends and participating in events across the board (and field) you’ll have a wonderful experience. </p>
<p>Bowdoin is actually ~35% athletes, the second highest NESCAC, but all except Tufts are within 5 points of each other. So figure the average NESCAC is 30-35% athletes.</p>
<p>As the 5 smallest schools, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, and Trinity would all have basically the same percentage of athletes. Conn college is a bit of an outlier because, although it is small, it does not offer either baseball or football.</p>
<p>@torasee I don’t think it affects your point but you might want to check enrollment numbers at Amherst.</p>
<p>And really, Williams is only slightly larger than the Maine schools, Hamilton and Amherst and I think smaller than Trinity, so it would have roughly the same percentage of athletes on campus. The most notable outliers are Tufts and Wesleyan, which are bigger schools than the others.</p>
<p>correct, Bappy, major faux pas on Amherst as it is the smallest NESCAC in terms of numbers. Here are the official enrollment numbers (full-time undergraduates) for 2013-14 in ascending order:</p>
<p>Amherst: 1785
Bowdoin and Bates: 1791
Colby 1820
Conn College: 1877
Hamilton: 1905
Williams: 2045
Trinity: 2214
Middlebury: 2477
Wesleyan: 2899
Tufts: 5116</p>
<p>Due to the small size of student bodies at most NESCACs, athletes will be a noticeable percentage of the student body at all NESCACs except for Tufts and, to a lesser extent, Middlebury and Wesleyan.</p>