<p>So I think this question has been asked about a million times, but I haven't really gotten the answer I'm looking for. I loved Williams when I visited. I'm just worried about how athletic it is rumored to be. I'm a guy, and I really don't like sports. Is Williams the type of place where people play sports all the time just for fun? Would I enjoy Williams if I don't like sports at all? I am fine with stuff like the Outing Club - that actually sounds fun. I will add that I'm really into theater and music and plan to pursue those in college. Thanks!</p>
<p>I'm not sure what you want people to say. Yes, Williams is a very athletics oriented school. It has the largest athletics budget in Div. III. It has the highest percentage of varsity athletes in Div III. It has won the national Div III championship cup every year but one since the overall cup has been awarded. The sports teams dominant the social scene. A professor famously said that Williams is like a Nike camp with enrichment classes. All that is what it is. If that's not what you are looking for then you are, to some extent, trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.</p>
<p>Are there students who don't play varsity sports who are very happy at Williams? Who are heavily involved in music and theater and art? Yes. The art history department is one of the best in the country. The Clark Art Intstitute is fabulous. The music and theater departments have spectacular facilities and a wide range of opportunities. The academics are solid across the board for engaged students. Downsides? You will feel a bit of estrangement from the dominant sports-oriented scene. And, you will feel some isolation from the music and theater scenes of a city, if that's what you are used to.</p>
<p>2010, Williams kids are generally speaking (always dangerous to generalize, I know) physically active. That often means that they are involved in organized team sports -- either varsity, or club or let's-get-together-a-game-of-broomball-at 2AM! Or it can mean that they like to climb mountains, ski, dance, work out in the gym or go for a run. They tend to be do-ers, not hibernators.</p>
<p>My son who graduated from Williams a few years back was, like you, involved in the arts. He also loved the outdoorsy activities offered by the Outing Club and took up snowboarding in the winter. He attended team events when his friends were participating and joined in when someone suggested a friendly game of soccer, but he was definitely not what you would call a sports enthusiast. </p>
<p>Although I would agree with I-Dad's comments that sports are an important part of what makes Williams Williams, I wouldn't agree that sports teams dominate the social scene and that a student who doesn't participate in organized sports would "feel a bit of estrangement from the dominant sports-oriented scene". There are plenty of other choices, especially in music and theater.</p>
<p>Interested Dad has one perspective on things, but it is not an accurate one. First, on the budget issues, Williams does not invest more in varsity athletics than comparable colleges -- there are different ways to measure and I-Dad picks only one. For example, some of Williams peers have invested tens of millions of dollars in athletics facilities in recent years (unlike Williams) while Williams has invested tens of millions of dollars in arts and student life facilities. I-Dad's "figures" do not incorporate this reality. Second, Williams does not have a materially different athletic culture than most of the rest of NESCAC. As I've said to I-Dad over and over, and something he continually ignores, is that the only reason Williams has a marginally higher percentage of varsity of athletes than many of its peers is that it has HUGE roster in individual sports like track and field, swimming, cross country and crew. Trust me, the folks who partake in those are no different in terms of the "culture" they create than non-athletes. There are no more team sport players at Williams than at any other NESCAC, and of course Williams has a larger student body overall than many of its closest competitors among LAC's. Finally, I don't see how athletic culture "dominates" a school in which less than 40 percent of students play a varsity sport -- they are still a minority of students on campus. </p>
<p>That being said, I do think that Williams is a sport / outdoorsy place -- its reputation attracts a lot of folks (like myself) who are not in the least bit athletic but enjoy keeping fit, following sports, hiking, that sort of thing, and it also scares of some of the folks who might be more attracted to more self-styled "intellectual" places like Swarthmore or UChicago, where the focus on acadmices is more single-minded. But if you visited and loved and enjoyed the people you meet and are happy with doing outdoorsy stuff or occasionally supporting friends ona sports team by attending a Div-III game, I really wouldn't sweat it. Again, as a non-varsity athlete, you will be a substantial majority of the campus (especially since the student body is growing somewhat, while the number of recruited athletes will -- I'm fairly sure -- not be).</p>
<p>The annual athletics budget is what it is. See page 3 of the following PDF for a breakdown of the FY2007 operating budget:</p>
<p>Feel free to point to any other Division III college or university with an annual athletics budget in excess of $6 million.</p>
<p>If the original poster is interested in a more in-depth look, I would suggest reading the Williams College Ad Hoc Faculty Committee on Athletics report:</p>
<p>Right. And as I said, that does not accurately reflect total insitutional commitment to athletics. There are, of course, many different ways to calculate these budgets -- a Sports Illustrated article a number of years back, for example, reported that Williams spent the LEAST per capita of NESCAC schools on athletics. Secondly, as I said and you ignored, this doesn't reflect the fact that, for example, Middlebury spents tens of millions of dollars on new athletic facilities over the past decade, whereas Williams has spent very, very little. In any event, you'd EXPECT Williams as one of the highest-endowed liberal arts colleges, with one of the biggest annual budgets, to spend more on athletics than its competition -- it also surely spends more on faculty, theater, music, plant maintenance, etc. etc. -- as a very rich institution, it would only be surprising if Williams spent LESS than other liberal arts colleges. The point is, that single figure you point to, which, along with one other figure that I already debunked, is your sole evidence of some sort of unusual emphasis on varsity athletics at Williams relative to its peers, is completely worthless / immaterial. The issue is not whether Williams devotes a lot of institutional resources to athletics -- it surely does - it is, does Williams devote a disproportionate percentage of its institutional resources relative to its almost-uniformly poorer peers. Even taking one look at Williams' athletic facilities, in comparison to every other gleaming new building on campus, provides an easy answer to that question.</p>
<p>In any event, this is all tangential to the initial question, and your demonstrably false "spin" that Williams has a different varsity athletic culture than other liberal arts schools (or at least, than other NESCAC or similar style schools with football programs). It does not. The only difference in campus culture is that, I'd speculate, a higher percentage of non-varsity athletes on campus might have a casual interest in sports or outdoors activities than at many other schools, which is hardly surprising given Williams' setting and location.</p>
<p>I've got a daughter at Colgate and a son at Williams. Neither is involved in sports. I have gotten to know Colgate over the past four years and think that it has a pretty strong "sports vibe," meaning that there's a strong community of athletes which influences the overall college atmosphere. </p>
<p>I haven't been associated with Williams for very long, but nothing I've heard from my son makes me think that athletics "dominate" the social scene there. On the other hand, he's into other things and could well be clueless.</p>
<p>My main point is that although athletes will have an influence on the campus social scene in any smallish school, it's also easy to find non-sports society if that's what you want.</p>
<p>Ephman:</p>
<p>So you are saying that Williams does NOT emphasize athletics? And that winning the national Division III Directors Cup for umpteen years in a row is just a coincidence? And, just a coincidence that their annual athletic budget is the highest of any Division III school? And, just a coincidence that 150 members of each freshman class are recruited athletes?</p>
<p>OK.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In any event, you'd EXPECT Williams as one of the highest-endowed liberal arts colleges, with one of the biggest annual budgets, to spend more on athletics than its competition
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not really. Pre-crash, the ten largest per student endowments among LACs were:</p>
<p>1 Pomona
2 Grinnell
3 Amherst
4 Swarthmore
5 Williams
6 Berea
7 Wellesley
8 Bowdoin
9 Haverford
10 Smith</p>
<p>No other college in the top ten matched Williams' athletic budget. Amherst and Bowdoin are the only two that are even in the same ballpark. All of the others, including Pomona, spend half of Williams annual athletic budget. So, the overall endowment and spending doesn't account for the differences.</p>
<p>Another data point from the Enrolled Student Survey (Spring 2003) at Williams:</p>
<p>Percentage of each ethnic group participating on a varsity sports team:</p>
<p>33% of African American students
36% of Latino/a students
33% of Asian American students
49% of White students</p>
<p>First of all, when it comes to these matters, prospectives, I would trust folks like the Dad of a CURRENT non-varsity athlete rather than a alum who graduated many decades ago with a well-chronicled and long-running vendetta against his perceptions of Williams culture. You have to consider the source ...</p>
<p>Williams is justifiably proud of its athletic success. It has also been the top ranked academic school by US News for five years in a row or something like that. If there was a ranking for number of a cappella groups on campus, Williams would be near the top nationally as well. Williams is near the top in MOST categories for liberal arts colleges. And I certainly agree that it has more of an athletic culture than a school like Swarthmore, which is outright hostile to athletics and disbanded the football team in a very unfair fashion to current student athletes. But I don't think Williams has a substantially different athletic culture, and I KNOW it doesn't have a demonstrably different VARSITY athletic culture, than Amherst, or Bowdoin, or Middlebury, or Emory, or any other number of its close competitors for students. The point is, if Williams is "dominated" by varsity athletics (it's not) so is every other school in NESCAC except perhaps Conn College. </p>
<p>Also, the Sears Cup methodology happens to really favor Williams. One could argue, with ample support, that Middlebury and Trinity have more successful athletic programs overall. Even Amherst has risen to the point where it is fairly eve, in the aggregate, in athletic competitions with Williams. </p>
<p>The problem is, the statistics you cite either (a) directly undermine your contention that Williams is "dominated" by an athletic culture (even among whites, more than half are STILL not varsity athletes, that is hardly "domination", and the numbers will go down as the student body expands slightly) or (b) are wholly immaterial. As I've said 100 times in the past, and each time you simply ignore it because you have no rebuttal and just choose to be a troll posting the same meaningless stats ad infinitum as purported "evidence" of your vendetta, the only reason Williams has edged out its competition in the Sears Cup and has marginally more varsity athletes than many of its competitors is its HUGE rosters and tremendous year-in, year-out success in individual sports -- cross country, track, crew, tennis, swimming and diving -- all of which usually constitute the bulk of its Sears Cup points. And no one has ever argued that membership in these sports is associated with any sort of problematic "sports culture" which was all know is a code word for other things. Williams has about the same size, and no more or less successful in the aggregate, ice hockey, basketball, soccer, football, baseball/softball, lacrosse programs, as the rest of the NESCAC. Williams does NOT take more recruits in these sports (in some cases far less) and does NOT take lower band recruits than other NESCAC schools (in every case, in fact, higher). And it is the team sports that really are responsible for the "culture" that you like to complain about, not having an 80 person women's track and field roster. To the extent Williams used to put more emphasis on athletics in admission, that perception is dates -- the school has ceased to admit the very low band admits it took up through the early part of this decade. And it has capped "Tipped" athletes at, along with Amherst and Wesleyan, the lowest number of admits in NESCAC. </p>
<p>In short, prospectives, listen to the parents of actual students at Williams rather than the rantings of one cooky, bitter alum who has barely set foot on campus in decades.</p>
<p>Just to provide some stats, since that is all interested dad can do, Williams conference record in team sports thus far this year. As you can see, this hardly represents the result of an institution obsessed with athletics:</p>
<p>Basketball: M, 6-3, W 3-6
Football: 6-2
Soccer: M, 4-4-1, W, 8-0-1
Volleyball: 7-3
Field Hockey: 3-6
Ice Hockey: M, 12-3-2, W, 4-9-1</p>
<p>Very solid results? For sure. The type of single-minded athletics-dominated juggernaut Interested Dad portrays? Certainly not. And this is despite a reputation as an athlete-friendly place with great coaches and strong athletic traditions. The point is, Williams is not admitting more or substantially stronger athletes than its competitors, and accordingly, its varsity athletic culture (at least regarding team sports) is substantially the same.</p>
<p>2010:</p>
<p>Looks like you've got your answer. The notion that Williams is particularly sports oriented appears to be a false. Don't pay any attention to the stats. There's a ready explanation for all of them. According to Ephman, you shouldn't even give a moment's thought about Williams being too sports oriented for you.</p>
<p>Good luck with your application!</p>
<p>2010-- I'm going to take another tack to the question of athletics & Williams. </p>
<p>If you're going to worry about being at Williams, I think there's another aspect of Williams that looms larger than athletics: Its location & all that means for you. If you're comfortable with that, then I would think the rest would fall in place.</p>
<p>I think all the above comments about Williams that had to do with non-varsity athletics are accurate. There's much more to Williams than sports. I'm not going to go near the data on varsity sports, other than to point out it's Div III, not Div I. </p>
<p>And, as far as sports or athletics, I think one should consider the positive aspects of it. Williams students, by far, were the fittest looking when compared to the other campuses I visited as a tag-a-long parent. My son is a first year student. He's very fit, but not into organized sports. Although a large percentage of people, who aren't at Williams, watch sports, he never sat through a game until he got to Williams. It will probably never be important to him. However, he is as proud as any other Eph when a friend wins a game.</p>
<p>So, unless you're truly allergic to sports & break out in hives when you see sports equipment or uniforms, I wouldn't worry about it.</p>
<p>Well, I'll chime in here as a non-athlete alum and as the parent of a current student who is an athlete. I think the question about how much sports dominate the social scene gets asked a lot, and I think the discussions usually follow a similar course. I don't have the statistics at hand, but I don't think more than half the student body is involved in athletics, unless you add in all of the outing club, broomball, IM and people who just like to run or ski for fun. As others have said, most students there seem to be physically active. I think that's a good thing from a physical and mental health standpoint.</p>
<p>One point that I think often gets left out of the discussion is that so many students are not so one-dimensional as the whole athlete vs. non-athlete discussion suggests. Many athletes are involved in other non-athletic endeavors, especially during their off seasons. Do athletes tend to become friends with their teammates? Sure, but not exclusively so. I imagine that members of a cappella groups, the theatre community, and the outing club become close as well. </p>
<p>2010 - If you plan to get involved in the outing club, music, and/or theatre, you will have lots of different opportunities to get to know people and will have lots of company in those activities. In fact, you may even find some athletes involved in some of those as well. </p>
<p>I always wonder when people ask about the dominance of "athletics" whether they're worried that it'll be like h.s. where the football and basketball players command more than their share of attention. It's not like high school.</p>
<p>Williams is very strong in swimming and track & field, compared to the rest of the NESCAC... but for team sports, just above average</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who responded! I'm definitely not allergic to athleticism, so I'm not going to worry about the sports scene when I apply. In response to Tuppence, I am (surprisingly) completely comfortable with the location, so that's not a problem.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It has won the national Div III championship cup every year but one since the overall cup has been awarded.
[/quote]
This is quite true. However, it is revealing to look at the NACDA Director's Cup standings to see the exact sports where Williams excels. For 2007-2008, Williams earned NACDA points as follows:</p>
<p>51.0 % Women's sports
44.7 % Men's sports
4.3 % Coed sports (skiing)</p>
<p>My understanding is that last year was not an anomaly -- Williams' continuing position at the top of the NACDA rankings reflects the success of its female athletes. Other schools have actually outpointed Williams in recent years, in terms of male athletic teams alone. </p>
<p>For 2007-2008, for example, the Williams teams that earned the most points, and contributed the most to Williams' #1 ranking, were as follows:</p>
<p>100 pts: Women's tennis
100 pts: Women's rowing
75 pts: Women's swimming
75 pts: Men's swimming</p>
<p>But let's consider the men's teams in more detail, because the concept of an "athletic culture" is typically associated with men. The men's teams earned points as follows:</p>
<p>236.5 pts: Individual "speed" sports - Cross country, track & field, and swimming.
147.5 pts: Individual "skill" sports - Golf, tennis, and wrestling.
117 pts: Team "ball" sports - soccer and lacrosse. </p>
<p>And for comparison:</p>
<p>0 pts: Other men's team sports - football, basketball, ice hockey, and baseball.</p>
<p>In summary, the athletes that are most successful at Williams tend to be (1) women, (2) runners and swimmers, and (3) golfers, tennis players, and skiiers. Those categories counted for the vast majority (over 87 %) of Williams' NACDA points last year. </p>
<p>If Williams has a "jock culture", then it is fair to point out that it is not the same kind of "jock culture" traditionally associated with high school.</p>
<p>Through Fall 2009, Williams is in second place in the Division III standings, thanks to strong performances from three women's teams, plus men's cross-country. </p>
<p>Williams is the only school among the 12 currently highest ranked institutions that has failed to earn any points from men's team sports, such as football or soccer.</p>
<p>2010 -- And please keep in mind that the report interesteddad is fond of pointing to (post #6) is at this point quite dated (the data is at minimum 8 years old -- from two [plus] generations of Williams students ago). In fact, the report lists the number of Williams athletic tips as 72 although it's well-known that, during the current 9-year presidency of Morty Schapiro, Williams distanced itself from other NESCAC schools by reducing the number of its athletic tips to 66.</p>