I’m applying ED to either Pomona or Williams, but I’m torn between the two schools! I have strong academics (34 ACT, 2240 SAT, 3.98 unweighted GPA) and strong extracurriculars as well (US national Paralympic track and field team, 400 volunteer hours, choir, job experience). I’m being recruited for track at both schools, so I’ll have the coach’s support in admissions as well. I visited Pomona and LOVED it! I went on a wednesday night so I saw a lot of the student life, and then went to some classes on Thursday. I visited Williams after and just liked it. Although I did go on a Sunday so all the students were studying in the library. So just looking at the schools in general, I think Pomona has a slight edge, but I absolutely loved the track program and track coaches at Williams! Here are some other factors I’m taking into consideration:
-Pomona is in the 5C consortium and I could take classes at Harvey Mudd (I’m really interested in science)
-Williams has tutorials
-Pomona has more clubs for animal rights and support (which I’m involved in)
-Williams’s track team is at a much higher level and would work better for my training for the paralympics, and the team is super close knit and like a family
-Williams admissions also strongly supports athletes
-I felt like the people at Pomona were more accepting, and Williams was more cliquey (but I would be on the track team so hopefully it wouldn’t be a problem for me??)
-Pomona students were more laid back
-I’m not concerned about weather/location or financial aid
I guess I either have to give up a school vibe that I loved and an okay-ish track program (pomona), or give up a school I just liked and a track program that I loved (williams)…
Please give me some advice!!! I keep wavering between these two options and I reeeaally need to make a decision
In my experience, you should always go with the vibe. If Pomona felt right, then go to Pomona. However, in the interest of defending Williams, I just want to say a few things:
Williams science is incredible. I’m a chem major here, and I couldn’t be happier. The resources are immense, the opportunities for conducting research are unbounded (seriously, if you want to do research, you will do research here), and the professors are excellent. If one of the pulls of Pomona is the opportunity to do science at Harvey Mudd, leave that out of your considerations, because it will be equally as good here at Williams.
Your concern with cliquey-ness here strikes me as not quite right. One of the great things about Williams and the entry system is that everyone is friends with at least one person of a “type”, loosely defined. That means that athletes are friends with theater people are friends with artists are friends with musicians are friends with people who just want to do work all day. People certainly have friends from defined groups they hang out in, but those groups by no means dominate campus life. Some of my best friends are athletes (a few on the track team, actually), and while the team is naturally a part of their social lives, many of their best friends are from outside that system. Also, it’s not like groups get set up here on day one and just stay that way; I love going to a dining hall alone and just sitting down with a random group of people and getting to know them. I made a lot of friends that way, actually. The social scene here is very open, regardless of whether or not you’re on a team.
@jersey454 Thanks for your thoughts on Williams! I’m trying to not choose based on the vibe I got because it’s not really fair to compare an active Wednesday night to a quite Sunday afternoon…
You really can’t go wrong with either, and your experience overall will probably be fantastic at both. If you are truly torn you can always apply to both in the RD round and see what happens. If you are determined to apply ED, is there any way you can take a second visit to Williams, during a different time of week? If you visit a second time and are still lukewarm relative to your unbridled enthusiasm for Pomona, I’d say then you can feel secure going with Pomona, notwithstanding Williams’ superior opportunities in track.
The academics and reputation and student bodies are truly equal at both. But Williams does have a fantastic track program, consistently one of the best in the country in D3, and now a ridiculously nice new outdoor track and field facility to match. So I’d say if you can swing it the best thing to do is take a second visit (ideally to both, actually, and ideally switching days of the week) and to see if your initial vibe is confirmed before foregoing that opportunity. That might not be possible alas since they are so far apart …
Regarding the animal rights thing, you can very easily just start a club at Williams if that is a primary interest of yours, by the way, so I would in no way let that be determinative. In the end, no choice between these two could possibly be a bad one.
Where do you live? Williams is much better known on the East Coast than Pomona. Within the academic community, both are well known but my friends from Pomona living in Massachusetts and forever complaining that people say, “where”?