<p>Since Williams College is famous as the #1 LAC in the country and extremely difficult to get into (it was a long shot for me), I just wanted to know if it was cutthroat competitive there as is Princeton, Harvard, Stanford... the like?</p>
<p>I can't speak to the current atmosphere from current experience, but 25+ years ago, it certainly wasn't "hypercompetitive," and I haven't heard or read anything that would make me think it has changed much in that regard. What you get from its being extremely difficult to get into is a class full of very smart, talented students. That's not the same as being "hypercompetitive." In my (ancient) experience, Williams was filled with kids who gladly shared notes from classes and were very willing to help out their classmates.</p>
<p>And, for the record, I wouldn't characterize Harvard as "hypercompetitive" either. Yes, there are a lot of very smart, talented students there, too, but from what I've seen, it's a friendly, generally very cooperative atmosphere.</p>
<p>You might have to study very , very hard to maintain good gpa. Some students think that getting A's at Williams is harder than at H, Y, and S. Princeton is an exception because of the new policy of avoding grade inflation.
However, the fact dose not mean that there is cutthroat competition but that students should work extraordinary hard for an A. Therefore, it's not unusual that some Williams students are accepted to medical schools with 3.50 gpa's.</p>
<p>When I visited overnight there were a bunch of people hanging out in the entry common room helping each other with math and physics.</p>
<p>Haha, no, not at all. Most people just work to get through their classes it seems -- its pretty hard to get an A, but that doesn't mean we're at each other's throats for grades. We proofread each others papers and double-check homework and such. Thats something thats emphasized on the tours, I believe.</p>
<p>Williams is the kind of place where students are pushed hard academically, but by the professors rather than by each other. The students generally cooperate, rather than compete, to get through their classes.</p>
<p>Competitive urges are more likely to be satisfied by participating in athletics, or in the notoriously cutthroat trivia contests.</p>
<p>I haven't posted on here in about half a year, but I can tell you that in my experience as a first year, Williams is about the opposite of hypercompetitive in every area except sports. I think the entry system encourages people to work together instead of competing with each other because chances are someone out of the 20ish people living with you is either taking the class with you or knows someone taking the class and can introduce you. It was not uncommon for me to walk into the common room and see half my entry huddled around a chem problem set or see my entire music theory class in the practice rooms at 1 am. Also, for math science classes there is the resource center, where people go to either get help from TAish people or just work problems out among themselves.</p>
<p>I've thought - hoped - that the tutorials would, if anything, further encourage and develop the already strong collaborative learning model.</p>