I have a nephew and a son-in-law both of whom graduated from Hamilton 10 years ago, and Wesleyan is extremely popular in my world. The kid next door went there, as did four other kids who grew up on our block, my son’s first girlfriend, one of my virtual nieces, several good friends in my generation, and – way back when – my father (class of 1951, when it was a very different place).
Based on the experience of the people I know who went there recently, both schools are great. I have written before about my nephew’s dream experience at Hamilton – he ultimately did a roll-your-own major and got incredible support from the college for it, including research grants, hiring an outside expert professor to supervise his thesis, and providing significant funding for a project that grew out of the thesis. My son-in-law’s time there was more conventional, but he and his college friends are admirable, intellectual people doing interesting things in the world, and they all pretty much loved Hamilton.
The Wesleyan people may be a little flashier. It’s reputation in film and literature, and it’s reputation for social activism, draws (a) a fair number of celebrity kids, and (b) a fair number of the sort of kids who get to pick which college they attend. (I even know one young woman who actually turned down Harvard to go to Wesleyan . . . although she changed her mind two weeks later and got Harvard to let her rescind her rejection of them.) It’s more clearly New York City / LA oriented. Also, several of the Wes kids I know are pursuing or have obtained PhDs, which isn’t as true of the Hamiltonians
Political correctness is a big thing at Wes, but I think most of the students treat it as a source of amusement, not as a creed. It would probably drive you nuts if you are a rabid Trump supporter, but not if you are in the normal range of centrist, skeptical people.
Wesleyan and Hamilton both have fraternities and sororities, although the fraternity system there does not resemble what you would find at most other colleges, and many students don’t bother to join one.
For practical purposes, both schools are isolated, but Hamilton is a lot more isolated. At Wesleyan, if you know someone with a car you are not much more than an hour from New York City, Providence, or Boston, and 15 minutes from New Haven or Hartford. With a little more time, you can get to any of those places and back on public transportation fairly easily. At Hamilton, there’s no place more interesting than Syracuse you can go to in day-trip distance. And Clinton NY is much, much smaller than Middletown CT. Which also means Hamilton feels legitimately rural, while Wesleyan is a nice campus in a bustling , not-altogether-charming large town.
