How is the social life at Williams? Are people generally nice or does it feel like high school? What is the dating scene like there? How prominent are sports teams in the social scene? Is the culture clique-y? How difficult is it to succeed at Williams? Are class sizes small?
What is the general vibe/what is your feeling about the school?
I am looking forward to applying to this fantastic school 
Thank you so much for the feedback!!! All is appreciated
Your posts remind me of myself when I was applying to Williams. I’m gonna answer your questions, but also say this: CHILL. In a lot of respects, college is college, and while I think Williams is an amazing school for me, worrying about this stuff excessively is totally not worth it. With that having been said, let’s do this s***.
- Does it feel like high school?
No way. High school is so sectioned off into your little groups and stuff and no one has friends outside of their group, while Williams is a lot more free-flowing. I'm friends with many people who aren't friends with each other at all, and I'm also friends with people who are good friends with each other. You could say that there are groups here, but they're so open and free-flowing socially that it's like walking outside of a bubble drawn in chalk on the floor - no effort needed to move outside of it. Yeah, there are some people who just NEED a group to feel sane, and the sports teams are naturally very close, but the athletes here are definitely not only friends with their team. Some of my best friends are varsity athletes, and I'm not on a team. That answers the clique-y question too.
- What's the dating scene like?
I mean, come on, it's college. Since everyone is super busy, many people feel they don't have time to keep a healthy relationship going, so FWB or ongoing hookups happen a lot. There are definitely more than a few couples, but I'd say it's like 80:20 hookups:couples ratio.
- How prominent are sports teams socially?
I mean, they're THERE, but unless you're actually on a team they probably won't be a huge presence in your life. Besides supporting my friends at games, I rarely interact with teams as a group. They throw parties off-campus that are probably the most "college-y" parties here, but I find them a little gross and tend to avoid them. Many others do too, it's not like EVERYONE goes to these parties. Probably 15% of the school (including the sports teams themselves) frequent those parties regularly, and the rest of us do our own thing on the weekends. It's a pretty good system, actually; weeds out the people who are more "fratty" than I'd like to hang out with on the weekends, for the most part.
- How difficult is it to succeed at Williams?
If you want to keep up a 4.0 GPA, prepare to be working for at least 5-6 hours a day. However, if you can revise your definition of success to a personal goal that's more reasonable (as I highly recommend), then success is certainly attainable here. Personally, my definition of success is to do as well as I possibly can in each class without killing myself, and it's worked out pretty well for me so far. Many people see 3.5 as the cutoff for a "good" GPA, but seriously, it's personal progress and growth that matters, not a number on a sheet. Define success as you learning and trying hard and you'll be the most successful person in the school.
- Are class sizes small?
You can find this on any Williams stat website, but I'll give my personal take. We have tutorials, which are great, and they're just 2 students and a professor. However, we also have organic chemistry and bio 101, which are over 100 students each. Most fall in between, of course; the average seminar size seems to be between 8-20 students, with most hovering somewhere near 12-15. I've found that at Williams, though, class size almost doesn't matter; beyond getting more opportunities to speak in a smaller class, my large class professors make huge efforts to make classes feel smaller. They memorize names before we even get to class, hold insane amounts of office hours, and treat each student as though they were the most important student in the class. It's really awesome any way you look at it.
- General vibe?
This is variable from person to person, but the vibe I get is that people are happy here. Competition in grades is low, friends are a-plenty, and classes are interesting. Things are good in the purple valley.