Now what help- My kid got into 8 small liberal arts schools

[paying3tuitions]

<p>On Hampshire College, I posted yesterday in the Visual Arts and Film Major forum for someone trying to size up Hampshire College for a film major. I’ll copy it here, adding that I didn’t have a child who attended. But S attended Amherst and interacted regularly with Hampshire College students who came to the Amherst College campus to rehearse/perform in college theater or belong to classical choir in evenings. The Hampshires, he said, were refreshing, alternative, individualized, go-getters in projects and activities. Sometimes took it on the chin by Amherst College students because Hampshires didn’t always represent themselves in cross-enrolled classes with the same clarity of intellect as found from students enrolled at Amherst, Smith or Mt. Holyoke. Hampshires were stereotyped (by my S’s friends, a bit snootily I"d say) as “brighter than UMass.” So I gather there’s a pecking order within the Five College Consortium. That wouldn’t be the kind of thing anyone would say directly to each other while working on projects. </p>

<p>I picked up a masters degree at UMass at Amherst, and lived in the City of Northampton (home to Smith College). S and I agree that the Pioneer Valley is a great location for college, because the smaller schools are set up within a large consortium that numbers 35,000 students. It’s a beautiful part of Massachusetts, rolling and green, with some suburban and small city amenities, too. </p>

<p>Keep in mind, though, that Hampshire College itself is located in its own rural pocket, but the students are constantly on shuttle buses to other campuses, as well as working on their own campus.

Hampshire was founded in the l960’s for the purpose of taking advantage of the other 4 colleges in the Five College Consortium. People who attend are those who can start a project and take it wherever it needs to go, use resources from many insitutions, seek things out and make it happen.</p>

<p>The campus is rural, with a free shuttle bus that connects it with the other 4 colleges and runs frequently all day and evening. Look all that up on the website of the Five College Consortium to get a better idea of the details.</p>

<p>There are also courses right on the Hampshire College campus, but you wouldn’t just stay there; yoiu’d cross-enroll a lot, too. So check out course catalogues of the other colleges to see what’s available to you. Students mingle a lot for activities, too. Hampshire has its own black box theater, for example, which students use AND they go work upon theater productions on the other campuses, too.</p>

<p>Amherst is a really nice college town. It’s 3 miles from Hampshire campus, I recall. There are 2 quirky-nice places right alongside the Hampshire campus itself: the Yiddish Book Center and the Eric Carle Children’s Literature Museum. There are events specific to those places that are rather fun, but much more out among the 5 College Consortium, in terms of courses, activities and events open to all.</p>

<p>The other 4 colleges are 3 private colleges under 3,000 each (Amherst College, Smith College, Mt. Holyoke) and 1 very large (and only) public University of Massachusetts Massachusetts (around 30,000). Of those the 3 that are in the Town of Amherst are: Hampshire College (3 miles from Main St.), UMass (1 mile from Main St.), and Amherst College (1/4 mile from Main St.). So if you get out there and interact, you have as many students as in a major university, but your little pod of Hampshire College has its own identity.</p>

<p>Hampshire College favors students who are creative, iconoclastic, nonconformist. They build towards a huge senior capstone project that is like each student’s own baby, it’s that important to them.</p>

<p>In film, their most illustrious graduate is Ken Burns, who did all the documentaries on the Civil War, NYC, Baseball seen in series on HBO in recent years. He must have graduated 25 years ago; who knows if there even was a film department back then. BUt it’s the kind of place where he could put his own program together and do that.</p>

<p>A decade ago, I believe, Hampshire made some changes to insist upon some distribution courses because too many students were taking only courses in what they liked. They tightened it up a bit.

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[cobrat]

<p>

Sometimes took it on the chin by Amherst College students because Hampshires didn’t always represent themselves in cross-enrolled classes with the same clarity of intellect as found from students enrolled at Amherst, Smith or Mt. Holyoke. Hampshires were stereotyped (by my S’s friends, a bit snootily I"d say) as “brighter than UMass.”

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<p>That’s very interesting considering nearly everyone I knew who went to Hampshire were just as/more than the equal of those who attended top LACs/universities. One HS classmate who ended up at Yale regarded his twin Hampshire brother as the smarter one among them and knowing him…he’d have no problem showing up most students at Amherst, Smith, or Mt. Holyoke if they chose to condescend. </p>

<p>Fortunately, he had a great experience and said most consortium students weren’t snobby…beyond those who did so to puff themselves up due to some real/perceived sense of their own inadequacies.</p>