<p>^^Gotta luv the tags.</p>
<p>This thread is degenerating very quickly.</p>
<p>Datboyjj: I cannot see how you are researching schools. You are about to make one of the most important decision of your career and you are asking general questions on CC. I have no problem with CC - I have used it myself - but when it came to choosing schools I can assure you, no amount of information is enough information. So, I’d suggest you stop igniting fights with anonymous online posters.</p>
<p>johnwesley: The Williams parents are not criticizing the OP’s thread because they are just killing time. They are criticizing it because they are familiar enough with the process to expect a little more seriousness in dealing with it. Maybe you think it is okay to go around with the bare minimum of information, something which you are clearly encouraging, but apparently these people don’t. If you want to help the new generation of college students, refrain from your spiteful comments on rival schools’ forums and try actually helping. I don’t see you contributing anything constructive in this thread.</p>
<p>mythmom: Your advice is clearly unappreciated. I think there is absolutely no need to bother yourself with giving it again in this particular post.</p>
<p>Because I was once wondering, and because I don’t ■■■■■ for the hell of it, I’m leaving you with some links.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1003924-how-rural-williams.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1003924-how-rural-williams.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1350349-divide-between-athletes-non-athletes.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1350349-divide-between-athletes-non-athletes.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1238801-whats-best-thing-about-williams.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1238801-whats-best-thing-about-williams.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1237269-pressure-drink.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1237269-pressure-drink.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1000604-drawbacks-going-williams.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1000604-drawbacks-going-williams.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/994212-workload-williams.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/994212-workload-williams.html</a></p>
<p>talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/917951-social-life-williams.html</p>
<p>I am also sending you some bare urls with PM because this way they’re inaccessible. I think.</p>
<p>I dont ignite the fights. they bring it to me. I simply just ask general questions and then ask specific questions based on the answers.</p>
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<p>CC has a process? I get it. And, you’re on the nominating committee! Listen, I think before you get all judgmental and everything, you should at least take a look at this person’s posting history. So far, none of you people (and, I mean that in the nicest possible way) have been able to see past the fact that the OP posted the same thread on the fora of five different LACs (Amherst, Middlebury, Pomona, Wesleyan and Willams) as if that were a crime of some sort (oh, the horror! He’s interested in other schools!)</p>
<p>Nevertheless, once you get past that youthful indiscretion, you’ll see that they’ve actually been doing quite a bit of research on a wide variety of institutions over the past three or four months, including one Duke vs Vanderbilt thread with 102 responses. And, have we forgotten that Williams, Wesleyan and Amherst are numbered among the least known, most obscure, least understood institutions on the planet?</p>
<p>Add the fact that the OP is an African-American and, assuming nothing else about their SES, I am extremely impressed by their “seriousness”.</p>
<p>Datboy, I think the problem with posts like your original query that they lack context and shift the burden of work to the answerer. For example, what’s Williams like? is so open ended that the responses would be so general to be totally meaningless to you. The most successful quests for information come with some context of who the questioner is, what you seek, what you like/dislike. In other words, Here’s who I am: Would I be happy at Williams?</p>
<p>Many of the students and parents who responded on this thread have a lot of information to offer, but first we want to know the context, who are you? what do you want? Then we’d be able to respond intelligently, thoroughly and specifically. </p>
<p>I don’t think what you’re getting is aggression but rather puzzlement.</p>
<p>I guess the 1st reply (of mine) kind of ignited this whole argument which is not beneficial to OP for his purpose. So, let me reroute the thread to its original path with these semi-secret feedbacks (only available to students) that students made for other students about their instructors. At Williams, we call it Factrak. Each division is represented by two departments, each by 2 anonymous professors of my choice (randomly chosen if I never take courses in the department); I will pick the latest feedback for each prof.
A. Division 1 (Language):
1. English:
- 300 lv: Don’t count on her to respond to your emails, show up to office hours, or lead a fruitful discussion. She is approachable, nice, and definitely knowledgeable about the material, but her lack of organization skills completely cloud these merits. Perhaps if you approach her on a good day in office hours, you will catch a scintillating moment of brilliance, but in my opinion, it’s not worth it. I went into the class excited about the reading list, and I came out completely disappointed.
- 200 lv: I took the memoir workshop with *** . On the one hand, I always enjoyed coming to class. Professor *** is witty, energetic, and great at leading discussions and I was never bored. The readings we got were so interesting that it was hard to believe they were homework (I sometimes would do them as a way to procrastinate for other classes). She definitely challenged me as a writer and a literary critic. On the other hand, there were times when I felt extremely limited by her narrow definition of “memoir” and forced to write something that was exactly what she wanted. She is extremely opinionated. I often felt as though her comments, though extensive, were more of a psychoanalysis than constructive criticism about my writing, which left me confused about what I should do to edit. And there were days when our class discussions felt more like gossip than anything of intellectual value and I left feeling frustrated (though admittedly entertained). The workload was very reasonable, really just 20 pages of writing the whole semester and about 10-30 pages of reading per class. She was always willing to meet outside of class (and her dog is very cute), but she talks a lot and sometimes its hard to interrupt and ask the questions that you came to office hours to get the answers to. All in all, it was a fun class, but I can definitely see how you might find Shepard to be a frustrating prof.
2. Spanish:
- 200 lv: so lucky to have had two classes with her at williams. best professor i have had at williams. truly phenomenal.
- 100 lv: I came into Professor <em>'s Span 104 class from 103 with Prof. </em><em>, and it was such a difference; 104 was definitely less challenging than 103. </em> speaks pretty rapidly and is always quick to correct you whenever you make a mistake in speaking, which I really liked, I thought it was helpful. clearly enunciates everything and sometimes will not correct you when you make small mistakes, which is nice of him but not so great for really mastering the spoken language. In terms of class format, I really liked how *** has a lot of class discussion and conversation; every class we broke up into groups multiple times to discuss an question or work on a problem set. *** is also very accessible and quite helpful. I wasn’t such a fan of how his quizzes were always focused on the most recent material, and were never comprehensive. The homework exercises were pretty useful, though always very easy. We had 1st draft essays once every other week, which you were given a grade on and then had to rework to a final essay that was regraded higher according to your improvement. In summary, *** 's class sometimes felt a little more like high school than college Spanish, but because all the students (unlike high school) are actually engaged and interested in the material, I do feel like I learned a lot and improved my Spanish. </p>
<p>B. Division 2 (Social studies):
1. Political science:
- 200 lv: You won’t get terribly excited about Professor <em>, but you won’t be disappointed, either. She picks interesting readings, is interested in what you have to say about it, and makes attempts to foster class discussion. Her lectures are not terrific, and yes, I sometimes wished an hour and fifteen minutes could pass a little faster. But they’re no total bore, either. Outside of class, she’s nice, accessible, and takes her time for students. A solid class all around.
- 200 lv: Professor </em> is a fantastic professor. Before I took his class, I used to feel embarrassed and ignorant when global politics came up in conversations with my friends or family. I never felt like I had anything useful to say about nuclear weapons. Iran/Israel, the Arab Spring, etc. I didn’t understand the background of the issues and I wasn’t able to use theoretical or historical examples to formulate my arguments. <em>'s class taught me how to formulate my own convictions. </em> is a pro at leading class discussions-- he makes students feel confident and appreciated and challenged all at the same time in his informal lectures. In office hours *** will play devil’s advocate, but this was for the most part a good thing. He ended up making his final optional, which was nice. Only two papers for the class, though, which was tough because your first grade determines so much of your final grade. Overall, though, I strongly suggest you take a class with <em>! Great guy!
2. Economics:
- 100 lv: Downsides: His tests are challenging. Upsides: Everything else. Prof. </em> is an unbelievably nice and enthusiastic man who genuinely wants his students to succeed. This former board member for the Federal Reserve still somehow manages to get himself jumping up and down over interest rates and capital inflows. His understated sense of humor and ability to explain complex ideas makes him one of my favorite professors at Williams. Yes his tests are difficult but that doesn’t make them unfair. He asks that students take what they should know and apply it to more complex ideas. I wish that I could take every class, econ or not, with Prof. *** , and I genuinely believe that everyone should take 120 with him.
- 200 lv: In the end I would say this was a decent class. He was ok at conveying the concepts and at explaining the models, despite being generally unorganized while using old projection slides that are hard to see and not very informative. He does provide you with a course packet with all of the slides however, which makes it very easy to follow lectures in class, and to review material afterwards. My biggest problems with the class were the problem sets and the exams. The questions he asked were often very wordy and broad, requiring a very long answer that would basically go over the entire concept being tested. I thought this was an unnecessary amount of work for problem sets, which often were over ten pages long, with questions needing more than a full page to answer at times. His test questions were of the same format, lengthy and broad, yet he severely constricted the time given to answer them. I don’t think anybody in the class thought they had adequate time to take his exams. The class is definitely frustrating at times, but I do believe I learned a lot from it. Compared to <em>'s class (basing this on conversation with several people in the other class), </em>'s class is more mathematical and less conceptual, less interesting but probably a bit more advanced in macroeconomic models.</p>
<p>C. Division 3 (natural science):
1. Biology:
- 100 lv: Prof. *** is a kind older man who is just a little too disorganized and distracted. We often learned processes in a lot less detail than the other section and got lost fairly unhelpful examples. He also seems to have missed to distinction between writing a term on the board and explaining it. I can’t tell you have many times I went through my notes only to find lists of terms without explanations (which I would have written down had they been there). His tests were challenging but not completely unreasonable. Do not pay attention to the practice tests, the other professor makes them and they are entirely irrelevant.
- 300 lv: “Hands down the best science professor I have seen at Williams: Clear, engaging, and relevant lectures: we learn about antibiotics resistance, gut microbiota, bioterrorism using anthrax, resistant TB, etc. Interesting and challenging readings (mostly from PNAS, Cell, Nature, Science) Caring: bake fresh hot cookies and breads for classes once in a while; assist you tirelessly in caring out your independent project; office hour on demand. Great grading rubric & class format (in my opinion):
each exam consists of analyzing a paper given in advance, analyzing experiments, proposing explications and supportive experiments; I just love that you do not need to remember all details because 1) the exams are not memory-based and 2) if you forget some details you can make them up and provide your own justifications (need to be convincing).
exams, and final are self-scheduled take-home and she is very flexible in granting extension (for exams and paper)
Independent project is what I love the most: students can come up with microbiology-relevant experiment on their own and do it solo or with partners for the independent project. It’s a great opportunity to learn techniques you don’t know yet like qPCR or biofilm formation quantification beside application of old techniques (all depend on the project you came up with)
Poster / mini-review: also another great thing about the class; if you’re busy at the end of the semester then go with poster (choose a renowned microbiologist and present about that person and 2 of his/her papers); if you really want to learn about microbio then go with mini-review (read >4 papers - at least 3 primary researches and 1 review; then do a synthesizing analysis of all of them).
If you lost interest in Biology after BIOL 101-102 and Genetics (202), this is the class that can revive it (as well as helping your grade if your grades were plagued by bad memorization in previous classes like in my case). ATTENTION: Microbiology is only offered every other year so take your chance in Spring 2014.”
2. Maths:
- 100 lv: One of the best professors at Williams. Just an overall cool guy who wants desperately to make math fun, and nearly always succeeds. He can take difficult concepts in calculus and make them seem like 3rd grade math, and his forays into knot theory and other advanced work at the beginning of class were always fun. Problem sets were a mix of basic questions and more difficult ones, but he was well-prepared to give hints, but not answers, during office hours.
- 200 lv: I was terrified of this class based on what previous people have said about it, but ended up really liking both Stat 201 and Professor <em>**. Lectures were sometimes very fun, with </em> telling awesome stories about his stat experiences (I won’t deny he sometimes name drops…), but were sometimes 50 minutes of him writing a proof on the board that no one was following (you won’t be expected to memorize proofs). I found him to be friendly and helpful when I had questions. The most straightforward way to learn the material is to read the textbook, which is easy to follow and full of examples. It stinks having two problem sets a week, but the exams aren’t very tough which is a plus. I had never taken a stat class, and found what we learned extremely interesting enough to want to take another class, hopefully with ***.</p>
<p>OP, as the mom of an Amherst grad, I fully support the opinions of those on this thread that are telling you to do some research. Have you noticed nobody is responding on the Amherst thread? It’s not because we are A holes, it’s because these are silly questions that can be found either on the website or on CC using the search function.</p>
<p>And to Johnwesley, I’m not sure what your intentions are on coming onto this thread and dissing a parent who is not only the parent of an alum, but also a college prof. Wesleyan is calling and wants it’s town fool back.</p>
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<p>Actually, the Amherst thread was quite enlightening: the lone response, as I recall, was somethig along the lines of, “there’s nothing bad about Amherst”. My favorite one was from Middlebury:
Honestly, you let Middlebury beat you in the charm department? Middlebury?</p>
<p>Psychologically, I think I understand why it is so hard to answer an open-ended question. First of all, it does require a little more work than cutting and pasting the URL to a two year-old thread. And, second of all, it’s really uncomfortable standing up and risking the possibility that you will be mistaken as a spokesperson for the school. I completely get that. The fact remains, however, that for the same bandwith it has taken to rake the OP across the coals for being lazy (an accusation belied by the fact that he’s managed to discover the names of five LACs), at least ten of you (at last count) could have answered the question.</p>
<p>actually i decided to take the time and avoid cc because none of u were helpful originally besides johnwesley. Sure i could have done more research on my own but the only reason i came here was to get incite from those that actually GO TO THE COLLEGE, APPLIED, VISITED.</p>
<p>@Dat… stick around… you will learn alot here! If all it takes is a few critical words to keep you away then you will have a tough time navigating through college…you can always learn from words of criticism(did I spell that right? LOL) you will find some truth in those words… use it to grow! It will toughen you up if nothing else!</p>
<p>@Dat-- I believe you are a URM… there are lots of schools that do diversity fly in weekends in the fall for seniors… do yourself a favor and do a search of “diversity fly in weekends” here on CC… many will pay for your airfare/expenses… you should locate the list soon and call/email the schools that you find of interest…most have an application, LOR, essay component to them and they fill up FAST!!! And deadlines that are fast approaching. Most schools(LAC’S) have these weekends…have you applied for Questbridge? if you are low income/urm then you will probably want to look into this as well. Like I said, stick around, pull up a chair… the info that you will find out here is priceless!</p>
<p>OP, If you wanted incite you certainly got it; insight, not so much.</p>
<p>OP has managed to completely ■■■■■ this thread while receiving answers to any questions about the people that go to/surround Williams. Lol.</p>
<p>OK, I’ve resisted the urge to comment on this thread, but here goes. The people who post on CC by no means are reliable sources for information on admissions. They also very poorly reflect any social mores or personalities at Williams. I hope this doesn’t affect your interest in Williams - I’m a current student and was appalled by the assumptions about the OP made by many on this site. I’ve never heard that happen at Williams.</p>
<p>my daugther was recommended to look at a website called College *******…it may not be completely objective, but you at least will get the answers to many of your questions without doing battle…</p>
<p>I believe that posters do not need to be so appologeti with respect to the OP. Perhaps this retret from the posters was the opportunistic post by JohnWesley</p>
<p>Regardles of what the OP and JohnWesley say, it is very clear the OP did not do his homework before posting and ended up dumping a laundry list of very open and unfocused questions. It is also clear that available resources such as College P r O w L e R, Barrons and Princeton R. Guides, and even the search function can bring up the generic information.</p>
<p>The OP claim that he searched for info and could not find anything is very surprising. Perhaps it is true, but then it was a very ligh search effort from his part.</p>
<p>As was previously posted in this thread, if the OP cannot find that kind of information, than one wonders how he/she will research information to produce a paper at a rigorous school. </p>
<p>I acknowledge some of the posters’ answers were sarcastic, but any person who visits this forum and is indeed a “competitive applicant”, a person that go to Office Hours and ask specific questions to their professors will see through the fact that the OP comes across as someone who would go to the same office hours and say: “I skipped classes, I did not read the book, I did not do the homeworks, and now I am afraid of the exam tomorrow. Can you teach me what will be in the exam?”</p>
<p>^^I agree … you must form a thick skin to go through life! Period! And if a few sarcastic remarks cause that much harm then this may not be the place for the OP. Let alone a highly selective university. Maybe I’m wrong? </p>
<p>This website is filled with all kinds of folks… from different backgrounds, different levels of patience for nonsense(LOL) and who are willing to do the work that needs to be done for themselves/their students & don’t want someone to start a thread and ask questions without doing any research. </p>
<p>Also, there are also TONS of hs students here who are willing to do an immense amount of the work and not have their hands held. They too come from all walks of life. </p>
<p>OP needs to learn that no one is going to hand anything to him. If you look at his past posts, you will see that he has asked plenty of random questions all over the place and he needs to learn how to be resourceful!! Its best to learn now. If not, he will be lost at any institution of higher learning. </p>
<p>When I first joined CC, I read a thread and was not familiar with a term. So I asked what the term meant… someone responded to me, “Google is your friend, use it.” So I googled the term and learned so much about the topic @ hand… lesson learned! Some might think it harsh, but I appreciated his/her gruff response.</p>
<p>I guess I am just too nice. I’ve been told that throughout my life…and it hasn’t hurt me, actually.</p>
<p>I am pretty darn nice myself!! 
I always offer up information that I have amassed over the past 20 months of this whole college planning menagerie!! But I believe that we will do this young man NO justice by holding his hand… I provided him with information about diversity fly in weekends and even took the time to PM him with other information that I felt he would find useful… should he be taught to fish/learn how on his own? OR be provided the fish??? Which will help him in the long run?</p>
<p>Well, that is a good way to discuss and help. He’s (or anyone else for that matter) will still not know how to “fish” if you do it for him…but he’ll eventually learn that…no matter how many poles you hand him! Telling him “you’re not going to learn this way”…is still, in some way, holding the pole. Just give him the info you know, dont give info you dont know (like make it up, or make disparaging remarks for no good reason, that never teaches anyone anything) and he’ll use the info/or not to the best of his ability…and we may never know how it turns out…(I guess I like the fishing analogy…)–I know I liked Williams for the way they work with the incoming Freshman/women and the dorms (I forget what they call it)</p>