I posted earlier, but now I’m pretty sure I’m down to choosing between these two schools. I’m also posting this in the lehigh and Hamilton forums.
Pros and Cons for each from my perspective:
Lehigh-
Pros:
big party life
hour outside of Philadelphia and in decent sized city
good size student pop
beautiful campus
strong business program
Cons:
heard of preppy stereotype w rich kids mostly
over the top greek life
maybe slightly worse academically than hamilton
city isn’t the best
Hamilton-
Pros:
very strong academic school
pretty good job connections to banking it looks like
love the open learning curriculum and style of classes
beautiful campus
could play on tennis team
Cons:
didn’t vibe well with tennis team when went and didn’t feel it (will be visiting campus again)
maybe not as fun as lehigh?
in the middle of nowhere
a bit too small
They are both excellent schools, and they have different environments. You can party at both if that’s what you want, but Lehigh, with D1 sports, may be more overt in that regard. I don’t think that the preppy factor is so different from one to the other.
If you can pursue your academic interests at either (and that’s important because their programs differ a bit), pick based on how happy you think you’d be. Revisits are helpful at this point.
It sounds like you are interested in business/banking. If so, then at Hamilton (as at most LACs) you would most likely major in economics. I’m sure the economics program is good, but it won’t be as broad as the options at Lehigh, which has a full business school. Possible majors at Lehigh would include business, economics, business economics, finance, management, accounting, marketing, and supply chain management; these could also be combined with minors like entrepreneurship, international economics, public policy economics, and real estate.
Playing an intercollegiate sport (like tennis) can be a great part of the college experience, and it sounds like Hamilton (as a D3 school) would be better for that. If you didn’t “vibe well” with the team, remember that the composition of the team will be significantly different in the fall, after the seniors leave and the new frosh arrive.
Housing is different at these schools. At Hamilton, as with most LACs, you would be in college housing for all four years. It’s part of the LAC experience, and there probably aren’t a lot of off-campus housing options in Clinton anyway. At Lehigh, you would be in college housing for two years; after that, you can move off-campus, and most students do. The adjacent parts of South Bethlehem are full of old row houses which provide an abundant supply of inexpensive rentals. So you and your friends could get your own house, with greater freedom and lower cost than dorm life (but also less convenience). This is one reason why Lehigh has the bigger party reputation: the school has limited control over the upperclassmen who live off-campus.
It looks to me like the students at both schools are pretty similar in terms of ethnic and economic factors. If anything, Hamilton students are more likely to be wealthier.
Hamilton tends to be a school best for students . . .
who are confident they would like a classic liberal arts and sciences experience in a small-college, undergraduate-focused environment
who have academic interests across natural sciences and math, humanities and fine arts and social sciences, or who would like to associate with other students who do
and
who would enjoy proximity to natural areas such as the Adirondacks for either recreation or course-related field study.
Do not overlook . . .
Hamilton’s closeness, made accessible through college-run transportation, to both a suburban area and the small city of Utica
and
the College’s spatial and architectural diversity, which serves to enhance the breadth of experience at the school to a level beyond that which its enrollment alone would indicate.