<p>My daughter was recently offered admission off the wait list and I have several questions.</p>
<p>First, what are the largest cities that the students sometimes visit? Do they have a way to get to NYC and is there a bus that would run to there? </p>
<p>What do the students do on the weekends and do they often meet and hang out with students from the other schools?</p>
<p>Most importantly can someone tell us about the dance program offered between the 5 schools and how does this work? Our tour guide didn't know about this but the information says it is the 2nd largest? How hard would it be to participate fully using the other colleges
dance classes?</p>
<p>My daughter really wants to share a room, is this possible or do the students have to have a single room?</p>
<p>One last question. How hard is it to make friends? She loved the difference in the students that really stood out in our tour!</p>
<p>Thanks. Hopefully ALF you can provide me with some answers.</p>
<p>Boston and NYC are both 2-3 hours away. Both can be reached by Peter Pan Bus ([Peter</a> Pan Bus](<a href=“http://www.peterpanbus.com/]Peter”>http://www.peterpanbus.com/)), which periodically offers good online discounts to college students.</p>
<p>There are tons of things to do on the weekend across the 5 colleges and the rest of the Pioneer Valley. Each college has performances, concerts, shows, readings, etc. throughout the week, and there is a free bus service between all of the colleges. It seems that a lot of Hampshire students tend to be mostly involved on their own campus, but our Son had several friends from MoHo (Mt. Holyoke) and UMass that he hung out with on occasion.</p>
<p>All I know about the dance program is that the 5-College Dance Consortium Department is located at Hampshire ([Five</a> College Dance Department : Welcome](<a href=“http://www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/dance/]Five”>http://www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/dance/)). We have been to a couple of performances, but they were too avant-garde for my Philistine sensibilities.</p>
<p>About 10% of the housing rooms are doubles, and my impression is that they are not in high demand, so it should be easy to get a double room. In the dorms, each hallway has about 9-10 single rooms and one double room.</p>
<p>Based on both of my kids’ experience, it is very easy to make friends. Both of them started out by making friends with several kids in their dorm hall, and then branched out from there. Usually, a bunch of friends get together during their first year and ‘bid’ on one of the 6-10 person on-campus housing apartments (‘Mods’) for the next year. There is this wild ‘Lottery’ period, when students combine their housing points (mostly based on seniority), and the group with the highest number of points gets first choice of the various apartments. That group of friends seems to become quite close as they share a living space.</p>
<p>Thank you for the information! For some reason we couldn’t find the dance info but now that my daughter has read it, she is very excited. </p>
<p>One more question. I read somewhere that many students complain and are unhappy but I know not to believe everything I read. I want my daughter to have a great experience and love her school. Do you find the students to be happy with the school and program? Our tour guide even told us that they he had a “love hate relationship” with the school.</p>
<p>Thank you for your time and any other info you have will be appreciated.</p>
<p>I too have heard several students talk about their love-hate relationship with Hampshire. One thing they talk about is the bureaucracy. Because the college uses written evaluations instead of grades, and the 3 Division system, a lot of forms need to be filled out by students and faculty to document the completion of each Division, and there are lots of deadlines to remember.</p>
<p>Also, Hampshire attracts a lot of activists. but I have heard some students say that there is too much talking, and not very much actual ‘doing’. And, there is some cynicism centered around watching a group of mostly white privileged kids talking about taking on the white privileged segments of our society.</p>
<p>Most of all though, I think Hampshire tends to teach students to question authority and think critically, so it should come as no surprise that they are more questioning and critical than the typical student. Students tend to be more involved in issues of governance than at other colleges I have seen. For example, right now Hampshire is proposing moving part of the Admissions office into one of the main buildings (right now it is located in a house at the edge of the campus, far from anything else). A group of students are demanding to know why this change is occurring, and why they were not consulted in advance. I don’t know the merits of the decision, but it strikes me that this is the sort of thing that would not cross students’ radar at other colleges. </p>
<p>Finally, it appears to me that the ‘Hate’ part of the equation for most students is rarely about classes or their education, and more about the details and some of the social scene. The ‘Love’ part seems to be centered more around learning, courses and great teachers.</p>
<p>There used to be a very active online forum of Hampshire Students on the Live Journal social networking site ([Hampshire</a> College](<a href=“http://community.livejournal.com/hampsters/]Hampshire”>Hampshire College — LiveJournal)), but over the last couple of years, it seems that most of the students have graduated or moved to Facebook. Still, if you pose a question there, some students will no doubt respond to you. That would probably be better than listening to a parent who only has 2nd- or 3rd-hand info.</p>
<p>You also might look at other college review websites such as <a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/23lenoh[/url]”>http://■■■■■■■.com/23lenoh</a> , which contains opinions and reviews from students, and the love-hate thing comes up there. They also have ‘Best of’ and ‘Worst of’ lists that seem fairly accurate.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. My daughter has a huge decision to make about attending Hampshire. I am also so confused as to what I’m feeling. On one hand the schools seems great but on the other hand there seems to be so much complaining that it seems silly and a waste of time. This college is expensive and I want her to enjoy her college years and not spend time fighting about whether an admissions building should be moved or not and if admissions should’ve contacted the students. There are WAY too many more important issues in this world! When we visited my first thought was that the admissions building was too far away, and I’m glad they are moving it.</p>
<p>On the other hand the school is perfect for my daughter’s personality. She would love to have the academic freedom that Hampshire offers. The dance program is perfect, and the ability to attend the other colleges are what she wants. I don’t think she wants to be angry for four years though.</p>
<p>Could you please do me a huge favor and read the students’ reviews on this website and tell me if any ring true. They are harsh and scary but we need to know the truth.</p>
<p>Here it is-<a href="http://www..com/MA/HAC_comments.html">http://www..com/MA/HAC_comments.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www..com/MA/HAC_comments.html%5B/url%5D">http://www..com/MA/HAC_comments.html</a>
I am not able to list the site. It is students review dot com</p>
<p>Yes, I’ve seen that site before, and I agree that some of the comments are definitely scary. There are clearly a number of disaffected students there who are not happy with Hampshire. I don’t know what to make of these comments except to wonder how representative they are. I periodically go to ratemyprofessor dot com to see what students say about teachers who work for me, and the comments are unduly harsh there for people that I know very well. I wonder if the most prolific correspondents are the ones who have the most to complain about. </p>
<p>We too were kind of worried about how well our kids would fare at Hampshire, with regard to drug/alcohol use, unrestricted academic freedom, unconventional classes, etc. Things have turned out well beyond our wildest dreams, so we are very happy for our kids. </p>
<p>However, Hampshire definitely has a relatively high 1st-year dropout rate, and that speaks to the notion that this college needs to be a good match with the student in order for things to work out well. It seems to me that the most successful students are self-directed, decisive and persistent. Students who sit around waiting for someone to tell them what to do are going to be sorely disappointed. I reflect on myself and realize that when I was of college age, this would have been a really bad choice for me. I was very happy to go to a university and follow the rules for satisfying the listed requirements for a particular major. So, your kid would need to look at herself and ask if this would be a good environment for her.</p>
<p>As for your difficulty in typing in the address for a site, apparently College Confidential has some sort of screening filter that prevents you from typing in the address of a competing website! That was why I used the ■■■■■■■ address in my reference to the ******* web site. In the future, if you go to ■■■■■■■.com, you can convert a long web address to a short one that also manages to hide the name of the site from filters like the one here.</p>
<p>My son will be attending Hampshire in the fall. This seems like a good match for him, but his one big question is the general reputation of Hampshire after graduation. Will everyone say oh - you graduated from Hampshire… what a slacker, pot head school. Is this true?</p>
<p>Are the statistics for grad school acceptance from Hampshire true?</p>
<p>The stats that Hampshire touts regarding the proportion of their graduates that get accepted into grad schools appears to be true. Yes, Hampshire has a slacker/toker reputation, but last week I attended several Div III (4th year) project presentations given by graduating students and came away impressed by the scope and depth of their work. Many of those students exhibited the writing, organizational, analytical and research skills that I tend to associate more with Masters-level theses than Senior-level projects. I should think that many grad schools already know this about Hampshire, and if they don’t, a student can submit his/her Div III project as part of their application materials.</p>
<p>You’re welcome! Yes, I think my daughter is wonderful too, and I’m glad to hear that she helped your daughter figure out her plans for next year. Maybe your daughter might even find herself in the dorms where my daughter is a housing Resident (i.e. R.A.). </p>
<p>I’m still basking in the glow of attending the graduation of our son from Hampshire last week!
[Graduation</a> Photos | Facebook](<a href=“Redirecting...”>Redirecting...)</p>
<p>As you can imagine, very few students actually wore traditional regalia (I think I counted three students).</p>