<p>Which one's better for undergraduate education? how much more far behind is Williams in terms of prestige?</p>
<p>Harvard professors for graduate school tell me the following schools prepare their students as well anyone else:</p>
<p>Williams
Amherst
Davidson
Grinnell
U Chicago
Carleton
Swarthmore</p>
<p>Get the idea? If you need small nurturing environment -- go to Williams. If you can take care of the education on your own and want the larger environment -- go ivy. If you need something in between -- look to U Chicago as it is now over 4000 undergrad.</p>
<p>I'm surprised Wellesley isn't on that list</p>
<p>Williams is a fantastic school, and you should definitely go there if you think it's a good fit. I'd agree that the academics at those small liberal arts schools give you superb preparation. At the same time, Williams doesn't have the name recognition of Harvard even in the U.S., let alone the rest of the world. If you are planning to go on to graduate school, however, this is really not something you need to think about very much.</p>
<p>wellesley is a piece of **** school and needs to stop trying to ride the coattails of schools like amherst, williams, and wesleyan</p>
<p>Both are great schools - but <strong>entirely</strong> different environments.</p>
<p>I'm a senior @ Harvard, my younger brother is a sophomore @ Williams. He turned down Harvard to go to Williams (partially because of sports - he could play at W but not H).</p>
<p>Harvard has a very urban/suburban campus. The general philosophy on campus is "We'll make more opportunities available to you than you can ever imagine - go out and grad what you'd like!" From my experience, the range of classes, extracurricular opportunities, speakers, scholarships, etc has just been unmatched. At the same time, no one is going to hold your hand and tell you what you should be applying for. Advising (while often-bashed) is actually pretty thorough - IF you reach out to your assigned adviser to meet or ask questions (they're not going to show up in your dorm room!). Many students at Harvard let academics take a back seat to The Crimson or a startup they're launching or a Model UN conference they're running.</p>
<p>Williams is <em>incredibly</em> rural - a good 1.5-2 hrs to the closest airport, and ~3 hrs from Boston (and significantly more by train/bus). It's also very small - when visiting my brother, it seemed like most everyone in his year knew him, if not most everyone on campus! I feel like I know most everyone in my House at Harvard, but that's less than 1/12 of the student body. Williams is dominated by athletes (my brother calls non-athletes "nonners" in a semi-derogatory way! Harvard has some athelete/nonathlete segregation, but the non-athlete numbers are much higher). And I'm not sure if I'd say that Williams holds your hand, but many professors do things like take attendance (pretty much unheard of at Harvard).</p>
<p>Some of the criticisms of Harvard ("doesn't care about undergrad education" "classes are huge" "professors don't interact with undergrads") are relatively valid with regards to concentrations like Government and Economics (even still - proactive students in these departments get to rub shoulders with world-class faculty). My take is that if you enter a small concentration at Harvard (Statistics, Linguistics, Philosophy, etc) - you'll get very much of the small college feel.</p>
<p>For undergraduate education, Williams indisputably.</p>
<p>For "soft" factors such as prestige, location, financial aid, Harvard wins hands down.</p>
<p>Harvard is the most well-known school in the world, in academia and among laymen.
Cambridge+Boston destroys Williamstown's isolated, rustic beauty.
And, Harvard's endowment is obscenely huge, that it would offer you the most generous grant award out of any college you apply to.</p>
<p>In terms of prestige, cf. my observation supra. Williams commands a presence among academic scholars and top employers. Joe the Plumber will look at you with a blank stare, though.</p>