<p>"For the serious musician, the consortium is not as good as it seems. Because music requires so much practice time, my S felt he would not have the time to travel to other campuses to benefit from their offerings."</p>
<p>Well, we can only speak from experience. The Five College Consortium sponsors an opera program, to which my d. was the paid research assistant attached (starting her first year), and prepared the first score of the first opera ever written by a woman, in 1626. It was performed with musicians (and faculty) from all five colleges, headed by a Five College Professor, founder of the Folger Early Music Consort (whose office was at Mount Holyoke), on the Smith Campus, with 2300 people attending three performances. Faculty from around the U.S. came in for the event. Williams has nothing even close. (And this doesn't even include the chance to participate, as either player or singer, as a paid member of the Commonwealth Opera.)</p>
<p>The Baroque ensemble she is part of met on both the Smith and UMass campuses, again coached by the head of the Folger Consort. Early music Renaissance choirs met at Smith, Mt. Holyoke, and UMass. Composers consortium brought composers from all over the world.
So while I agree wholeheartedly that Amherst's music department is much, much inferior to that of Williams (indeed, Amherst is the weak brother), the combined resources of the Five Colleges far surpass those of Williams, including the Berkshire Symphony. I'm sorry your s. felt the way he did - because he was poorly informed: the Consortium is BETTER than it seems. But the Williams music department is indeed terrific.</p>
<p>mini, what do you mean "Amherst is the weak brother"? Perhaps in the arts (unless you were speaking specifically about the music programs?) but that could hardly be considered the case in general.</p>
<p>Mini: I have no doubt that the Consortium offers more opportunites that Williams does, and s had no doubt either. He would be interested in the ensembles your daughter is in. He just didn't think with the time it takes him to practice that he would have time to travel from campus to campus. I think it's quite possible that he is neither as talented nor as focused as your daughter.</p>
<p>I was a fan of Amherst; s preferred Williams. Maybe he lacks the confidence to move from program to program. </p>
<p>I think I mentioned the problem of time for practice in first post. I would never suggest that Williams has more than Consortium; just more than Amherst.</p>
<p>Thanks for clearing this up for later readers.</p>
<p>"mini, what do you mean "Amherst is the weak brother"? Perhaps in the arts (unless you were speaking specifically about the music programs?) but that could hardly be considered the case in general.'</p>
<p>Weak brother - meaning that, within the Consortium, it has either the weakest or next to weakest programs in art, art history, music (both music history and in performance), languages (especially Romance languages), and in a host of the Five-College Certificate areas (already posted, and including some of the sciences), they have the least in the way of resources, faculty, and courses. But that's exactly what the Consortium is for.</p>
<p>I wasn't aware that Williams languages were stronger than Amherst's, but Amherst is a much smaller school. I wouldn't say that necessarily makes it weaker, but art has never been its strong point.</p>
<p>Williams is more rural, nestled in a beautiful (but boring, I'd say) Berkshire village. Amherst is in a more lively college community, in a less beautiful (but more fun) setting. Amherst also has Bueno y Sano and Antonio's...;)</p>
<p>Williams is stronger in the arts, if you disregard the strengths of the 5-college consortium offerings.</p>
<p>Williams also has a reputation for being a bit preppier and sportier, Amherst a bit more liberal and humanities oriented. I can count the number of Williams students I know on both hands, so I can't really speak to this.</p>
<p>I plan to study physics .You may want to look at Swarthmore College in PA. they have a strong physics program. John Mather the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics got his undergraduate degree there In addition to Mather 4 other Swarthmore grads have been awarded Nobel prizes since 1972. </p>
<p>Like Amherst and Williams, Swarthmore is a small LAC.</p>
<p>"I wasn't aware that Williams languages were stronger than Amherst's, but Amherst is a much smaller school. I wouldn't say that necessarily makes it weaker, but art has never been its strong point."</p>
<p>I would never have argued that Williams languages were stronger than Amherst's. I think when evaluating language departments, one should examine the number of upper level electives, the number of majors, the number of faculty teaching upper level electives (and hence offer strong faculty advising), the availability of language tables and halls, the number of individuals who attend study abroad programs in which the target language is the only language of instructions, film series, etc. Languages are one of those places where, size (or at least robustness) really does matter. I doubt that, on the whole, either school would rank in the top 40. (This has also been reflected in the smallish number of research (i.e. non-teaching) Fulbrights awarded to students at either school, relative to some of their peers.)</p>
<p>Williams' program in astrophysics is really topnotch (and there are alums working in the field all over the world.) The Five Colleges have an international reputation for radio astronomy.</p>
<p>Is it true that Amherst is not very strong in the sciences? My daughter wants to study Chem and maybe Bio, I'm concerned about that comment since she liikes Amherst.</p>
<p>No longer can you say that Amherst's Languages are as weak as they once were. There has been a definite move to bring in stronger faculty, and the German dept. is wonderful with its TA program from Goettingen U. Ilan Stavans is a famous name in Spanish circles - albeit a controversial one for his "Spanglish Dictionary."</p>