Princeton v Williams

College Search & Selection
1

Would love to hear info on which school has the better math/computer science program, faculty and opportunities. I’m also interested in which student body is happier.

In terms of perks (study away, summer learning opportunities, opportunities to connect with professors, financial aid, career advising, vegetarian food, etc.) which is better? Obviously both are great, but are the extras better at one or the other?

I’ve read about Princeton’s bridge year program and I’m curious if Williams has anything that compares. Also, I’m concerned about Princeton’s eating clubs and its effect on the student body and culture. We are lower middle class and looking for a campus that is inclusive, and not pretentious.

Thanks in advance.

2

Princeton’s math is hard to beat. It leans a bit theoretical but I heard they are trying to add more applied math. Faculty are stars in their fields. Williams’ math program is probably the best among LACs, and as a LAC it’s more teaching-oriented, no TAs teaching classes. But unless you really want a small school in the middle of nowhere, I’d choose Princeton. I think it’s more inclusive too, if only because the bigger size allows more variety. When we visited Williams, there were several prep school kids in a small tour group.

3

I grew up near Princeton and didn’t apply because I shared some of those concerns about the level of pretention. Not that Williams is immune from that sort of thing, but if you are the type of person who generally cares about people on the street being wowed when you say which college you go to, you likely won’t be headed to a liberal arts school. Princeton, to be fair, has really improved in recent years in terms of outreach to minority and financial aid students — Williams and Princeton are nearly identical in terms of Pell Grant, first generation, and overall diversity statistics, although Princeton has a heavier Asian population and Williams has a higher percentage of Black / Latino students. But Williams is a very inclusive community with no eating clubs, fraternities, or exclusive organizations of any kinds, and to me had a quirkier, far more down-to-earth vibe than Princeton.

At Williams, you will certainly have more opportunity for close interaction with faculty – that is just the nature of a small liberal arts college vs. a major research university. And Williams alums who so desire typically go on to the very best Math / Comp Sci Phd programs in the country.

I can’t really speak to Princeton’s perks / unique programs. The perks / quirks of Williams (to me) that make it stand out from the crowd are: Winter Study, the Williams-Oxford program junior year, the entry / JA system, Mountain Day (and the hiking / outdoors opportunities more generally), the art history program / proximity to amazing museums, WCMA Walls, and all things purple cows.

I don’t know much about computer science at Williams but Williams has an absolutely spectacular math department that places a huge emphasis on teaching. The profs won’t be at the level of Princeton math professors in terms of research, of course, but six Williams math profs have won the leading national teaching award for college / university professors (only three awarded, nationally, each year), and four are still teaching at Williams:

https://www.maa.org/programs-and-communities/member-communities/maa-awards/teaching-awards/haimo-award-distinguished-teaching

The Department as a whole has also been recognized for its excellence, and the award release provides a nice summary of the philosophy of the math department:

https://communications.williams.edu/news-releases/4_10_2014_amsaward/

4

In the unique programs list, I somehow forgot the single best unique academic feature of Williams: the tutorial program. No other school has anything quite like it!

5

Thank you for your responses. We will be visiting both schools soon. It may just come down to a gut feeling at the end as to which would be a better fit.

6

Tough call. As this site’s unabashed LAC fanboy, I would normally say Williams, but Princeton is one of the Ivies that gets good marks for actually caring about undergrads, and it keeps its undergrad size manageable. Perhaps more important, it keeps its graduate school (profs teach graduate students too) remarkably small.

This will really come down to fit and feel.

7

@hapworth -

I regret to inform you that your membership in the LAC fanboy club has been put on notice.

Princeton’s math department conferred 36 bachelors degrees, 48 masters degrees and 21 Phd degrees in the last year of official record.

That may be the highest ratio of Phd students to bachelors students of any Math department in the country.

Note that professional schools don’t share faculty with undergrads, so their size does not create conflicts of interest between undergrads and grads. It is the size of the Phd programs that really matter.

Williams claims a 7:1 student faculty ratio, and 2% of their classes have over 50 students.
Princeton claims a 5:1 student faculty ratio, but 10.1% of their classes have over 50 students.

At this point in time, the only highly selective universities in the Northeast that are endorsed by the LAC fanboy club are Dartmouth and Tufts, but both are being monitored closely, because they both appear to be growing their Phd programs as well as their percentage of classes over 50 students.

We assume that this was just a momentary lapse of judgement on your part and that you will return to your former form with regards to promoting the LAC educational model.

Thanks,
The Northeast chapter of the LAC Fanboy Club

8

Of the 3 LAC’s and 3 Ivy’s that my son was admitted to, the last two standing after our careful elimination process ended up Princeton vs. Williams. It was a very tough for me more than for my son because I loved and respected Williams so much. In the end, though, we chose Princeton for the following reasons:

  1. Endowment per Student: Princeton has been perennial #1 with $2,839,298 per student to #12 Williams’ $1,108,604. This translates into all expenses paid programs at Princeton, such as the Bridge Year, my son’s recent tour of Spain with Princeton University Orchestra, courses held on location around the globe, study abroad, etc.
  2. As an Asian-American, Princeton’s Asian student enrollment is 22% to Williams’ 13% (Class of 2022). My son has made many friends (too many, in my opinion as a parent) and hasn’t felt any sense of isolation on campus.
  3. Princeton’s location was much more suitable to my son’s needs than Williamstown. He has already taken about 5 short day trips to NY in his first semester as a freshmen.
  4. Lots of other reasons to list, but what came down as a single deciding factor was a much better FA offer from Princeton.

My son hasn’t experienced any sense of “pretension,” classicism, and such on campus. The only thing that came anywhere close to such is his surprise at seeing so many kids wearing “Canada Goose” jacket. Princeton is genuinely committed to FLI (first-gen, low-income) students that their enrollment has tripled in the last decade. In 2015, Princeton has even established the Scholars Institute Fellows Program (SIFP) on campus to empower FLI and help them thrive on campus. A definite edge to Princeton if you’re considering math or CS as your intended field of study, as well. Visit both places to get your person feel before making your decision.

9

Congratulations on being able to make such an exciting choice between two such wonderful colleges!

The link below to a comparison of Williams and Yale also largely applies to Williams vs. Princeton. My comment is post #3 on the linked thread.

But I agree with @Hapworth, who pointed out that, among top research universities, Princeton has a reputation for an outstanding undergraduate-centered undergraduate experience, thus lessening the degree of difference between Princeton and a top small liberal arts college such as Williams.

In addition, you asked specifically about math and computer science. Math is the second largest major at Williams, and the department is excellent. Computer science is a little dicier because there is more demand for it than available courses; this fall, some freshmen considering a major in computer science were blocked out of the introductory computer science course that is a prerequisite for everything else.

Really, Princeton vs. Williams is a choice between two of the very finest undergraduate experiences available. Best of luck!

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22141258#Comment_22141258

10

Princeton. No contest (IMO). Arguably the best math department in the world.

11

I agree with @JenniferClint, but the real issue in OP’s case is which of these two outstanding schools is the better fit for OP.

@Hapworth wrote in post #5 above: " … but Princeton is one of the Ivies that gets good marks for actually caring about undergrads…". Is there an Ivy League school which doesn’t care about its undergrads ?

12

^ Some Ivies probably care more than others.

Off the top of my head:

Focused on undergrads: Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown
Focused on graduate students: Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Cornell

13

With Columbia’s core curriculum, I think that it is fair to state that Columbia “actually cares about its undergrads”. Especially since 82% of the undergraduate classes at Columbia have fewer than 20 students. This is significantly higher than Williams College (76%), Amherst College (71%), Bowdoin College (66%), Wellesley (70%), Middlebury (70%), Pomona (71%), Swarthmore (74%), Grinnell (63%), Kenyon (74%).

Among the top 40 LACs only the USMA at West Point (97%) and Claremont McKenna College (84%) have a higher percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students than does Columbia.

I know too many Penn & Cornell students & past students to feel very comfortable stating that these universities care about their undergraduates. Cornell does, however, have a lot of large classes similar to UC-Berkeley.

Decades ago, Harvard was known for large classes at the undergraduate level. Now 73% of the undergraduate classes at Harvard have fewer than 20 students. But, unlike LACs, 11% of classes have 50 or more students at Harvard.

Based on numbers, Cornell undergrad is more in line with Berkeley & Michigan regarding size of classes.

14

Wow - what a great position to be in! Congrats! As a New Jersey resident and the father of a Williams freshman, I urge you to indeed let your gut make the decision. Both Princeton and Williams have beautiful campuses, albeit in different types of environments. If you like to hike and ski, Williams is amazing. If you like proximity to big cities (NYC and Philly) then Princeton is probably a better choice.

I agree with the post about endowment per student. Williams is impressive at #12, but Princeton’s resources are remarkable. Best of luck in your decision!

15

Re your eating clubs question, our down-to-earth engineering major was on heavy financial aid and despite initial concerns came to feel very comfortable/found her place within the various eating clubs. Enjoyed it so much, in fact, that she did bicker, ultimately became an officer, and moved into the house. Was a favorable, seemingly inclusive experience and the food was fantastic. Only a handful of them bicker now, I believe, so much of that old stereotypical pretense and nonsense has faded out. Congratulations and best of luck deciding - two of my favorite schools in America.

16

I do not state that a particular university is better than another university. One or the other may be a better fit for you. I can provide some specific information for you.

Williams has 11 faculty in computer science and Princeton has 63.
Williams has 28 math faculty and Princeton has 98 math faculty and 16 in applied math (ORFE)
So Princeton can offer more breath of courses and you will have a greater opportunity to find a prof who is an expert in a field that you would like to conduct independent research.

Princeton and Dartmouth are generally considered to be the Ivies that have the most school spirit. Princeton alumni have one of the highest contribution rates in the entire country; so I guess they were happy.

Most Princeton students have an international experience. The endowment at Williams is $2.75 billion. The endowment at Princeton University is $25.9 billion. The substantial endowment at Princeton enables the university to provide international trips to students. Students who have completed the HUM Sequence course are invited to take a trip to Greece or Rome during fall break of their sophomore year; costs for the trip are covered by the University. A recent Shakespeare course took students to Stratford-upon-Avon so students could see a Shakespeare play in a one room theatre with the audience on three sides. English majors are eligible for a fellowship to study English literature at Lincoln College at Oxford University. Recent courses have taken students to Havana, Peru, Mexico, Japan, Kenya, Bermuda, Panama, France, China, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Argentina, and probably many more that I have missed.

The faculty student ratio at the two universities is similar. Princeton is larger with 1,238 academic staff and Williams has 313 academic staff.

Whether or not Princeton is pretentious is a decision you can make best by attending Princeton Preview days. I believe that you will find the students similar to yourself. I am amazed how much misinformation there is on CC on Princeton’s eating clubs. One third of the students choose to continue having their meals in their residential college. One third join a club by telling the club that they want to join that club. One third join a club through a process similar to fraternity rush. Many students join a specific eating club because they have made friends with members of that club through a student organization. Students are not allowed to join a frat or sorority until their sophomore year. Greek life is not important. The Greeks do not have “houses.” Student do not take their meals in the eating clubs until their junior year; this reduces their impact compared to Greeks at other universities.

Many consider Princeton’s math department to be the number one math department in the world. Alan Turing, called the “father of computer science” received his PhD from Princeton in 1938. John von Neumann joined the faculty in 1930. All computers today are designed with a single memory for programs and data first described by von Neumann in a paper in 1945; computer scientists call this the von Neumann architecture. The first stored program computer, the MANIAC (mathematical and numerical integrator and computer) was built in Princeton starting in 1947. The first commercially available IBM computer, the 701 was built based on the MANIC design. Princeton engineers have had an important role in the development of networking and the Internet. David Boggs BSE ’ 72 was a co-inventor of Ethernet. Robert Kahn MS *62, PhD 64 co-invented the Internet protocol TCP/IP. The largest cloud service provider with over 2 million servers was started by Jeff Bezos EE & CS, ’86. Stanford, Princeton, and MIT are frequently cited as having the best computer science PhD programs. Google has established an AI lab across the street from Princeton University. The lab builds on several years of close collaboration between Google and Professors of CS Elad Hazan *2006 and Yoram Singer, who will split their time working for Google and Princeton. Eric Schmidt BSEE ’76 is the former Executive Chairman of Google. The engineering school founded in 1889 was one of the first engineering schools in the US.

17

so what school did you choose @Lulu108 ?