<p>Here's the deal. I've been a "very talented athlete" since 7 years old when coaches were starting to notice me. If I just "worked a little harder, trained a little more, conditioned better"...I've been training for 11 years and train up to 25 hours/week during peak competition season. I've come inches from the inches from the national team before injuring myself right before traveling to the olympic training center.
I think my rejection by Stanford is a mixed blessing because, to tell the truth - I wouldn't be heartbroken to be a non-athlete for once in my life.</p>
<p>Is Williams the wrong school for a non-athlete? I hear everyone plays sports.</p>
<p>padfoot, many kids at Williams are physically active, but "everyone" is not involved in organized sports.</p>
<p>As the parent of a recent Williams graduate I can certainly second your friend's mom's appraisal. It is, however, not for everyone so plan to visit before making a final assessment.</p>
<p>My guess is that Williams would be very interested in your profile and may even fund a trip for you.</p>
<p>Williams likes students who are active, and actively involved, in whatever they do. If you can show that you're positive, energetic and able to contribute to student life at Williams, so much the better. </p>
<p>Forty to fifty percent of Ephs are involved in sports at Williams (about 30 to 35% total at the varsity level); that leaves fifty percent who aren't.</p>
<p>If you weren't an URM, I'd think your chances were excellent. With the URM hook, I'd say you were a virtual shoo-in at a long list of northeastern LACs and universities. (Stanford probably sees more kids from your URM than they do, for obvious reasons.)</p>
<p>Regarding the question of majors - Williams definitely does not have any "practical" majors; if you want that, Penn would be a much better choice. In fact, Williams is opposed to pretty much anything that can be construed as practical (I had to argue with the deans to get credit for an industrial relations class I took while studying abroad). Furthermore, I found the economics department to be quite disappointing. There are some good professors, but of the six professors I took econ classes with, I would say two were bad, two were OK, and two were good. I picked econ since I figured it was the most closely related to something practical (I plan to enter the business world), but if I could redo it, I probably would have majored in poli sci or something like that. The reason econ is the most popular major is not because of the quality of the department, but because:
a. It's a relatively easy one
b. It's the closest thing the school has to a practical major</p>
<p>I agree that Williams does not have majors that are conventionally viewed as practical. However, I wonder if having a degree in business (for example) actually gives you a leg-up in the business world? From my experience, the people who ascend the business ladder most quickly have degrees in subjects like math or statistics.</p>
<p>Econ can be more practical if you pursue the quantitve route. However, its usefullness diminshes substantially when you avoid topics like econometrics and finance.</p>
<p>Well, Williams isn't a trade school, if that's what you would consider a "practical" major. But personally, I've taken a lot of classes (math, music, various sciences) in which I learned things of very practical use.</p>
<p>I wasn't trying to discuss the merits of liberal arts vs. practical majors. I was just pointing out that I chose econ because I figured it was the most practical, but was disappointed in the department. I think the poli sci department at Williams is quite possibly the best (in the running with the lab sciences) and I think I would have gotten more out of it if I had taken more classes in that field. Furthermore, if a practical major is essential, then Williams is not the place to go.</p>
<p>"if a practical major is essential, then Williams is not the place to go"</p>
<p>"Practical" as in engineering (which, of course, Williams does not offer [aside from the 3-2 program with Columbia SEAS and study away arrangements with schools like CalTech]). But in terms of pre-professional (law, medicine, business) as well as PhD tracks, Williams is top flight.</p>
<p>Just for the record-to balance out Williams07student's statement- I was quite pleased with my economics experience at Williams.</p>
<p>as an FYI, the Williams economics dept is quite different in its structure and prioritization than most other departments at Williams. Much like research universities, my sense is that the EC department at Williams greatly emphasizes research. This means that the quality of instruction might not always be on par with the other departments at Williams.</p>
<p>"But in terms of pre-professional (law, medicine, business) as well as PhD tracks, Williams is top flight."</p>
<p>For pre-med, Williams is great. For law, there is no pre-professional. Generally, you major in a social science. There is also no pre-business. I'm not sure where you came up with this. Many students do go into business, but Williams doesn't really do anything in particular to prepare anyone for b-school.
I know most people that go to Williams really like it there, but please be honest with prospective students and stop making up all kinds of crap. Williams is an excellent liberal arts school, but if being able to take a practical major (such as business, communications, etc.) is really important to you, then its not the right place to go. Contrary to the beliefs of some, Williams is not right for everyone.</p>
<p>I'd have to agree with onemoremom that Williams is "top-flight" even if you only want admission to the top tier graduate schools. There is plenty evidence including the somewhat flawed but still reliable WSJ study which places Williams 5th among all research universities and LAC's in terms of admission to top graduate and professional programs. Since you(williams07student) seem to know that there are hardly any respectable pre-law and pre-business programs in the country, then another option for someone contemplating law school or business school would be to get experience in many different types of fields. Basically learning how to think is important because since graduate school admission is so much about test scores and gpa anyway it would be idiotic to say that a school like Williams wouldn't prepare you. </p>
<p>However I also would have to agree with Williams07 in that if you want to enter the workforce without some sort of post-williams education then you would probably be better off at a school like Wharton or Cornell's ILR or countless other "practical majors".</p>
<p>Yeah, that poster meant that Williams is good for a grad school candidate because of its high placements, not because it specifically caters a med/business/law program to its undergraduates.</p>
<p>If you read my OP again, you'll see that I never said I wanted a practical major, and that I actually have my qualms with the pre-professionalism that some schools like Penn offer.</p>
<p>For those who are worried about career prospects for themselves or their offspring, I can report that ALL of my son's classmates who decided to work after graduation were able to find what they would describe as good-to-very-good jobs in their chosen fields in their chosen locales. From architecture to law to public administration to finance to marketing to teaching: the Williams network works!</p>