<p>which is better: middlebury or amherst or williams</p>
<p>prestige wise, amherst = williams > middlebury</p>
<p>Personally, I like Middlebury and Williams better then Amherst. However, Amherst is part of the Five College Consortium with Smith, UMass, Hampshire, and Mt. Holyoke.</p>
<p>Historically, Middlebury has been regarded closer to Bowdoin, Colgate, Colby than it has with Williams and Amherst. Even currently if you look at last class of enrolled students SAT avgs, Midd is three points lower than Colby and two points higher than Colgate, while Williams and Amherst are ~ 90-100 points higher. That said, I think Middlebury would be a more fun, laid back place to be, but it's not as highly academically regarded as the other two.</p>
<p>intresting.....</p>
<p>id say amherst=williams>middlebury as someone before me said. this is true in my limited experience.</p>
<p>I agree that Amherst=Williams > Middlebury.</p>
<p>i mean it really depends on what you want to do, if you are interested in languages, middlebury is really the best (though i'm am biased as this is my #1 choice), plus you can't always goes by prestige</p>
<p>They're all great, and very similar, schools. It's true that in terms of prestige Middlebury lags behind the others, but on the other hand I toured all three and probably liked Midd the best. Beautiful campus, great facilities, nice people.</p>
<p>To go to either Williams or Middlebury, keep in mind that you have to be ready for a lot of isolation, especially in the winter. If you don't want to be essentially snowed in in a small mountain town for a few months, Amherst is the easy choice.</p>
<p>Yes, Middlebury lags slightly behind Amherst and Williams in terms of prestige, but IMHO, things are changing. </p>
<p>Many speculate that the primary reason that Middlebury (and Bates and Colby, among others) lags behind Amherst and Williams, etc., in presitige is that Middlebury went co-ed in 1883 (shortly after Bates in 1869 and Colby in 1871). For the better part of a century, Middlebury, Bates, and Colby were the among the few formerly all-male New England liberal arts colleges to admit women. This fact alone detracted from their prestige because nearly all elite schools at the time were single-sexed (including the Ivys and Seven Sisters).</p>
<p>Following the lead of several Ivies, including Yale (1969) and Princeton (1969), Williams and Amherst went co-ed in 1970 and 1975, respectively. The last students who attended these colleges when they were all-male are now in their late 50s. In the past 2 decades, schools like Middlebury, Colby, and Bates have been steadily gaining prestige as a new generation that has only known these schools as co-ed begins to take over. </p>
<p>When you're at the top, you have nowhere to go but down. Middlebury (for one) is gaining momentum and is becoming more and more popular every year. Last year, 1,000 more students applied to Middlebury than did the year before. And the Admissions Office is again predicting a record year, with early applications already up 7% over last year, while other schools, including Amherst and Williams, have seen significant declines in ED numbers.</p>
<p>there are such minute differences among the schools, each might be 'better' for particular students. dont worry about the rankings (this goes for all schools). worry about fit.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Many speculate that the primary reason that Middlebury (and Bates and Colby, among others) lags behind Amherst and Williams, etc., in presitige is that Middlebury went co-ed in 1883 (shortly after Bates in 1869 and Colby in 1871).
[/quote]
That may have something to do with it. Another possible factor to consider is wealth. </p>
<p>According to US News, the three highest-ranked liberal arts colleges in New England are Williams, Amherst, and Wellesley. Oddly enough, the three wealthiest LACs in New England, as measured by endowment</a> $ per student, are Williams, Amherst, and Wellesley. All of the other New England LACs, including Midd, are well behind by this measure, and it will likely be difficult for them to catch up.</p>
<p>Midd and Williams, and to a lesser extent Amherst, also compete for students with Dartmouth. It's interesting to note that Dartmouth now ranks below the top New England LACs on an "endowment per student" basis. Other New England LACs, like Midd, Bowdoin, and Smith, may ultimately surpass Dartmouth in this regard. Dartmouth has significantly higher operating expenses than the LACs, due to its graduate and professional programs, yet it does not enjoy the efficiencies of scale achieved by larger and more impersonal universities. Dartmouth is "in between", which may have advantages academically, but which may not be ideal financially.</p>
<p>Middlebury's endowment (as of last month) stood at approximately $840 million (up quite a bit from just a few years ago). With Midd poised to launch a $500 million fundraising campaign this coming fall, and with over $200 million already pledged during the "silent" phase of the campaign, Midd's endowment should break $1 billion within the next 2-3 years. That being said, Middlebury is larger than Williams and Amherst, which means that per student endowment has quite a bit of catching up to do to compete with the big boys.</p>
<p>so are people trying to say middlebury now?</p>
<p>No--i'm just making a point that Middlebury is a school on the rise. What do you mean by "which is better"? Better for what? Better in what? Prestige? Campus? Grad school admissions? Ice hockey?</p>
<p>Just for comparison, Williams' endowment as of 6/30/06 was $1.63 billion. Williams is also in the midst of a capital campaign.</p>
<p>It's hard to say what on the rise means or what one means by better. One thing Williams and Amherst have over Middlebury (besides money) is lot more opportunities for on campus recruiting for companies not coming to Middlebury. Maybe, this has since changed. Every school out there is undertaking some massive capital campaign.</p>
<p>Also, I wouldn't exactly call Middlebury competing for students. I had a friend at Middlebury show me a T-shirt a lot of people had on campus entitled, "Top 10 lies told at Midd" and #1 was Middlebury was my first choice over Dartmouth and Williams.</p>
<p>There's no doubt that the rich will continue to get richer. Amherst and Williams are the only 2 NESCAC schools with endowments over $1 billion. Middlebury will be the next NESCAC school to cross that threshold.</p>
<p>I also wouldn't say that Middlebury competes for students with Colgate and Colby, as gellino mentions above. Middlebury competes with colleges higher up the food chain, like Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, and Wesleyan. </p>
<p>Schools like Colgate, Hamilton, Colby, Bates, Trinity, etc., compete with each other for students.</p>
<p>Considering that when I was there, every one of my friends who had also applied to Middlebury was accepted there, I would certainly say that Middlebury and Colgate compete for students. I can't imagine that this has drastically changed in the last few years. Especially, as people come to appreciate that Middlebury had been deceiving prospective candidates about what the class SAT avgs were by 80 points. However, I would say that their most focused overlap (besides Dartmouth for both) is probably different and would say that Middlebury is more with Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, while Colgate is more with larger schools like Cornell, Tufts, Bucknell. Don't get me wrong, I think Middlebury is a great school and wish I had known more about it before. Ironically, one reason I didn't is because they didn't cooperate with the couple of guidebooks that I had. I have a lot of friends who went there and don't feel they're going around feeling vastly superior to Colgate grads and equal to Williams and Amherst grads.</p>