<p>If a kid is athletic you have to be careful about how athletic the school is and where he will fit in. Yes, Williams is known for its athletics, and Amherst is too, but you have to think about what happens if you aren’t recruited or good enough to play on a team. Will he be OK with that or not? The sports teams at these kinds of schools often are the closest thing to fraternities and may be somewhat closed groups. If an athletic kid is going to do more intramural level participation but also would like to be a spectator then you can’t do much better than schools like Michigan. Actually every school in Williams’ conference (NESCAC) has fairly athletic environments (Midd, Bowdoin, Colby, Trinity, etc).</p>