<p>With the May 1st deadline to pick a school bearing down on me rapidly I'm kind of starting to worry alot about my choice. I've narrowed my choices down to Carleton and Williams but feel really torn between the two. I visited both schools and enjoyed both visits but didn't really feel a "click" with either one. I am undecided about my particular major, but have considered both a premed track or poli sci/ international relations. Any information that could help me decide or opinions?</p>
<p>Both are great, really superb schools with more similarities than differences. Both will provide academic challenges and more opportunities than you will be able to explore in four short years. Some would say they have somewhat different cultures or âfeel,â but thatâs something you need to judge for yourself, and youâve already visited both. The Twin Cities are less than an hour from Carleton, and Williams has the mountains and all the outdoor activities they offer. Carleton is on a trimester system, and Williams (I think) has semesters. You canât make a bad choice here. Good luck!</p>
<p>With your interests, Iâd have to say Carleton seems like a great choice. Carleton is well-known for both its hard sciences and poli-sci departments, and both biology and poli-sci are extremely popular majors here (rank 1 and 2 respectively in popularity, I believe). I think, given that, you would fit in very well here.</p>
<p>The differences between the two schools are primarily, in my view, one of location and personality. Academics will be great at both and probably indistinguishable in your areas of interest. ButâŠ</p>
<p>Williams is surrounded by heavily forested terrain, beautiful hills and great hiking opportunities. Good quality skiing is readily accessible in Vermont to the north, less so the south, if thatâs of interest. Williamstown is adorable and precious but tiny with no meaningful city escape available given itâs Berkshire isolation.*</p>
<p>Carleton offers a bucolic setting but more limited hiking choices than at Williams. The one exception is next door, attached at the hip to 1000 acres of a breathtakingly beautiful well utilized arboretum complete with prairie, forested rolling hills, rivers and even the bald eagle pair or two avoiding brethren crowds on the Mississippi out east. Cross country skiing and running in the arb over 15 miles of trails is heavenly, but forget serious downhill skiing in Minn. <em>Northfield is a great historic town of 20,000 and easy hwy access to Minnie/St. Paul clubs, concerts, restaurants, theater and museums when you feel the need for something completely different.</em></p>
<p>Personality wise there are a lot of overlaps but athletics are more a part of Williams than Carleton. The one exception is Ultimate which pervades the Carleton psyche. Williamsâ students as a group are somewhat more traditional in make-up, Carls somewhat more playful and<em>individualistic. Williams feels, surprise, more New England, Carleton more midwestern, âMinnesota nice.â</em></p>
<p>Certainly no right or wrong here. Two great choices. Just somewhat different strokes for folks. If you have very specific questions or concerns let them fly. Nowâs the last chance to ask. Good luck!</p>
<p>If you want to mingle with a significantly smarter crowd, itâs Williams by a length. Also, much larger endowment, better rated academically, and cold as heck.</p>
<p>sounds like a â â â â â </p>
<p>[Top</a> College SAT Scores - Compare SAT Scores for Top Colleges](<a href=âhttp://collegeapps.about.com/od/sat/a/sat_TopColleges.htm]Topâ>SAT Score Comparison for 30 Top Liberal Arts Colleges)
[Top</a> College ACT Scores - Compare ACT Scores for Top Colleges](<a href=âhttp://collegeapps.about.com/od/theact/a/ACT_Top_College.htm]Topâ>ACT Scores for Admission - Top Liberal Arts Colleges)</p>
<p>Trolling? Could be. Whatever the reason for the fly by visit by âNew Memberâ PolarBearVsShark he does score some points for his moniker.</p>
<p>The facts:</p>
<p>Carleton/Williams: Median ACT scores identical, average SAT section scores within 10 points of one another, statistically a dead heat. âSmart crowdsâ very certainly at both. A bit more pre-professional at Williams, more PhD prone at Carleton.</p>
<p>Carleton/Williams: Williamstown is, Iâd agree, cold, but Carleton (unfortunately) wins this âcold as heckâ contest by an average of 5 degrees. Maybe surprising to some, Carleton (fortunately) easily wins the sunny days per year contest. And, fortunate or unfortunate depending on your fondness for the powdery stuff, Williiams wins snow accumulation per year handily with, again probably surprising to some, about double the usual snowfall Carleton sees.</p>
<p>I agree that there is not a dramatic difference between the caliber of students at each school, and you should go where you feel most comfortable (if it truly is a toss-up, then Williams, but otherwise, the differences are not so substantial that you should turn down Carleton). </p>
<p>I will note, however, that there is a slight edge to Williams in terms of the student body that isnât reflected by the standardized testing. Carleton (which is the only top liberal arts college I can think of that gives paid scholarships to National Merit Scholars) places a higher emphasis on standardized testing relative to Williams, while Williams places a higher priority on other factors, such as diversity and academic performance in high school. This is reflected in the fact that 92 percent of Williams students in the class of 2015 came from the top ten percent of their class, while only 78 percent did at Carlton; that is a substantial difference</p>
<p>Just as significant is that Williams has 37 percent students of color in the most recent entering class (fairly evenly split between black, latino, and asian students), Carleton, only 23 percent, and about half of those I believe are asian (Williams basically has double the population of underrepresented minorities that you will find at Carleton). Williams also had substantially more first generation college students (17 vs. 11 percent). All of these groups (other than asian students) have, on average, lower SAT scores, lowering the overall Williams scores relative to Carleton And more importantly, I think that added campus diversity represents an important factor in Williamsâ favor. </p>
<p>Iâd also note that Williams has nearly triple Carletonâs endowment, for schools of comparable size. This does make a difference in terms of resources available to students on campus, from everything to class size, to hiring new faculty, to facilities, to research grants, etc. etc.</p>
<p>Ephman, Iâm wondering if you can cite your sources. Iâm looking at the Williams CDS, and the numbers donât match up. Just curious. I donât think we can know that Williams places more emphasis on school record just because the percentage of top 10%ers admitted is higher. Weâd have to know what that is in relation to the percentage of top 10%ers who applied. Additionally, the fact that fewer than a third of all Williams freshmen even submitted a class rank seems to make it less likely that class rank is a major factor. (CDS 2010-11, C10). Thatâs compared to 43% for Carleton (CDS 2010-11, C10)</p>
<p>PolarBear has posted twice on the Carleton board, once about Bowdoin and now about Williams. Not sure why.</p>
<p>Anyway, OP, youâve got two great choices. Can you explain what you felt lacking at each place, why you didnât click? Maybe we can address that.</p>
<p>I used the most recent class profile for both Carleton and Williams (here is the Williams one):</p>
<p><a href=âhttp://admission.williams.edu/files/2010/01/2015-Profile3.pdf[/url]â>http://admission.williams.edu/files/2010/01/2015-Profile3.pdf</a></p>
<p>In all events, the student bodies will be, overall, indistinguishable intellectually, there is certainly not a âsignificantly smarter crowdâ at Williams as one poster claimed, and there really is no wrong choice here. I tend to group Williams, Carleton, Amherst, Bowdoin, Middlebury and Haverford together as schools that generally attract very similar types of students, with some differences here and there, but basically, the experience wonât be radically different at any school in that group.</p>
<p>Thanks, Ephman! I really donât know much about Williams at all. :)</p>
<p>Current Carleton sophomore here; back when I was applying to college, Williams was my dream school (applied ED). Honestly, if you donât have a compelling reason to choose Carleton, go with Williams. Although Carleton is a wonderful place and I wouldnât trade my time here for anything, I feel as though the intellectual caliber of the students here is far lower than I expected. I donât think that this would be the case at Williams (Ephmanâs posts are spot on). Carleton is a great place and will prepare you intellectually for any postgraduate activity you desire, but that said, you will mix with a smarter crowd at Williams. And thatâs just that.</p>
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<p>Drought, out of curiosity, what is your thought (that this wouldnât be the case at Williams) based on? As cited above, the SAT scores donât seem to be that different (0-20 points for 25/75th percentiles). Not that the scores are the only/the main measure of âintellectual caliberâ or anything, just one of the most easily accessible ones. 
I havenât been at Williams for any sort of a prolonged time to speak to this, so would appreciate your input.</p>
<p>YeahâŠif youâre going to make a statement like that, youâre going to need to provide more details.</p>
<p>Uh, evidence: as Ephman stated, the fact that Williams has more URM students, more first-gen students, and a higher proportion students in the top 10% of their high school graduating class while still holding an advantage over Carleton in the test score category seems to indicate that Williams has a âsmarterâ student body. Also, Williams has an acceptance rate less than half that of Carletonâs.</p>
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<p>Williams is more selective, and the students have higher SAT capabilities. The academic calibre of students admitted by Williams is more on par with Dartmouth and Pomona, than with Carleton; Carleton is significantly less selective. Williams has a very large endowment compared to Carleton. The average Williams graduate will graduate with about half the debt of Carleton graduates, due in part to better grants from Williams. These are the facts.</p>
<p>Congratulations! Youâve successfully drawn me into my first CC argument in over 3 years (not to mention my first visits to college data websites in almost the same amount of time).</p>
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<li>Test scores. I checked the CB website, and SAT scores for Carleton and Williams stack up as follows:</li>
</ol>
<p>Carleton math: 660-760
Williams math: 650-760 (wait a minuteâŠ)</p>
<p>Carleton critical reading: 660-750
Williams critical reading: 660-770</p>
<p>If youâre going to argue that these miniscule differences represent a significant gap in the âintellectual caliberâ of the students, go right aheadâŠjust donât expect many people to buy it. If thatâs the case, youâll also have to concede that Carleton students are better at math than Williams students; our 25th percentile is 10 points higher. Must be all of those additional URMs and first-gen students dragging Williams down (seriously?).</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Class rank. 56% of Carleton students and only 26% of Williams students submitted their class rank (sources: Carletonâs Class of 2014 profile and Williamsâ 2011-2012 Common Data Set). Iâm skeptical of any comparison using data that includes only 1/4 of Williams students.</p></li>
<li><p>Acceptance rate. After a point, the number of applications a school receives isnât the best predictor of the caliber of the student body. Harvard has an acceptance rate that is only a little more than 1/3 of the acceptance rate for Williams; do you think Harvard students are therefore significantly smarter? (Also, Carletonâs acceptance rate is 31% and Williamsâ acceptance rate is 17%, which is not âless than half,â but Iâm nitpicking). Since test scores are apparently so important, doesnât the fact that the differences in SAT scores are so minuscule suggest that Carleton is the more self-selecting school? </p></li>
<li><p>Endowment. What does a schoolâs endowment have to do with the intelligence of the student body? Iâd understand taking it into consideration for financial reasons, but I donât see how it relates to the quality of the students.</p></li>
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<p>Drought, your post is troubling. I sincerely hope this was not your intention, but a statement like âthe intellectual caliber of the students here is far lower than I expectedâ implies a sense of personal superiority that does not align with the general atmosphere of respect and humility that I have come to expect at Carleton.</p>
<p>To the OP, who has already made his or her decision by this point, and to any other prospies browsing this thread: both Williams and Carleton are outstanding schools, and both were at the top of my list when I applied. My decision came down to campus culture, but there are many other valid points of comparison (your financial aid package, diversity, location, academic departments, calendar type, etc.) aside from this pointless argument about intelligence.</p>
<p>Iâve been wanting to post something for a couple of months but didnât know exactly what I was trying to say so I havenât. This thread gives me an opportunity to try to express my thoughts as it dovetails nicely with the conversation here.</p>
<p>I have a junior ds looking at colleges. Earlier this year, we flew out to California to look at Pomona and CMC. Pomona was a school I REALLY wanted ds1, my Carl, to apply to, but he never did. He had so many great choices that it was fine, but Pomona, just from the literature, always felt like the one that got away. So, it was great to finally get to see the school and CMC with ds2 (we loved both, BTW).</p>
<p>While ds2 was in classes and I walked the campus, I couldnât help but make comparisons to Carleton. Carleton has a quad â green and open with some adirondack chairs and people throwing frisbees and lying in the grass studying. Pomona has a quad â beautiful and exquisitely manicured. Palm trees in just the right places, tasteful shrubs (A friend who has lived in California for 20 years joined me on the tour and said thatâs just how California is. Everyone is into looks and presentation). Iâve eaten in Burton and love the pubby-looking part. At Pomona, I ate in Frary with its Orozco fresco. On the tour, I learned that Pomona brought in â â â â â for a concert; Carleton brings in Das Racist (Iâll let yâall debate about which is more musically worthy, but thereâs no denying that â â â â â is a bigger name.). There are lots of comparisons I can draw where Pomona just âpresentsâ as more polished than Carleton. I called my Carl while sitting on a bench and told him that Pomona felt like Carleton on steroids, that I wasnât sure that it did MORE than Carleton but that it seemed to do everything bigger. It was impressive. And I told him that I doubted Carleton would ever rise in the rankings (not that Carls care) as long as part of the rankings are tied to âpeer review.â I think part of why Carleton has the vibe it has is that Carls donât care about the âpolishâ that other schools, no doubt including Williams, have.</p>
<p>And, to tie all these observations to this conversation, I canât help but wonder whether part of the reason some might think that Carleton isnât as intellectual as other top LACs is that the students just donât care about giving off that vibe. They chose to go to a school in the Midwest rather than a bigger-name school on a coast, knowing theyâll get a great education even if they donât get the reflected glory of a bigger name. Iâm not trying to put down Williams or any of the other big-name LACs. As Iâve said before, I donât know anything about Williams and so canât speak to it, but after my visit to Pomona, I wonder if the same dynamic isnât in play here â that there is just some kind of mystique tied to the more well-known LACs that Carleton simply doesnât enjoy. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>I agree with others that the SAT scores between Carleton and Williams really are a wash, so what accounts for the perception that people at Williams are more intellectual?</p>
<p>And with that Iâll end my rambling musings ⊠
Except to say that I think the reason I havenât posted this before is because it makes me feel like the anti-Carl. People there, in my experience, donât talk about rankings and prestige.</p>
<p>Iâve read plenty of posts on the Williams forum complaining that the vibe there is anything but intellectual. Which is not to say that the kids at Williams arenât really, really smart- they clearly are. I suppose its much like dartmouth, which i attended, and which id never call intellectual Never visited Pomona, but the daughter of a close friend recently graduated from there. She had one of those âall everythingâ college careers, prestigious fellowships, etc. Found Pomona not at all to her liking, though (âcliqueyâ âcountryclubbyâ) and was really glad to move on.</p>
<p>This is ridiculous. Among the top 50 or so liberal arts schools, there are far more similarities than differences. I loved being at Carleton of course, but would I have had a hugely different college experience at Grinnell, Swarthmore, or Pomona (all places I considered)? Probably not. Being out in a big university now, I can pick out liberal arts folks from a mile away. But can I distinguish that this girl went to Smith, that guy went to Whitman? Absolutely not.</p>
<p>These schools fundamentally draw from the same pool of high-achievers, who essentially pick their âflavorsâ to pare down their college lists. Simply put, some of these flavors are more popular than others: more people want to live with palm trees or in a big glamorous city than with winters that hit 40 below or in a town 50 miles from⊠Des Moines. Due to that self-selection, youâll find some limited differences in the overall style of the student body. Carleton, Whitman, Reed, and Grinnell pull more of the dirty hippie set; Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan, and Swarthmore attract folks who want that old New England, coastal elite, high society environment; Davidson, William and Mary, and Washington and Lee skew towards a more conservative, southern demographic.</p>
<p>Moral of the story, if you pick one school over another because you expect some huge difference in student body, you will likely be disappointed. That other post about picking between Notre Dame and Carleton? There we can offer some advice, as these are two fundamentally different college experiences. But comparing Carleton to the other liberal arts schools is harder - thatâs why so many people on here emphasize fit. When you pick between some fundamentally pretty similar places, you might as well go with the place that feels most like home :)</p>