<p>I visited Williams recently and - despite having high hopes - walked away realizing that Williams is not a good "fit" for me personally.</p>
<p>Here's what turned me off:</p>
<ul>
<li>Too sports-centered</li>
</ul>
<p>I had visited hoping to disprove the sterotype that Williams is a "jock school," but left feeling that this was indeed the case. Sports came up in conversation over-and-over, and - for lack of a better explanation - the place just FELT jocky. According to the tour guide, the most common weekend-activity is "watching baseball" - as a non-sports kind of guy, I felt like I didn't "fit" well.</p>
<ul>
<li>Too much alcohol</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm no prude and have no problem with drinking, but - in talking to students - drinking seems to be the center of the social activity on campus. Again, not a strong fit for me personally.</p>
<ul>
<li>It really IS in the middle of nowhere</li>
</ul>
<p>I guess it didn't sink in until I visited, but Williams really IS out in the boonies. I felt as though, before long, the self-contained enviroment would be stifling to me, personally.</p>
<p>To balance this post out somewhat, here are things I liked:</p>
<p>Amazing Food
Beautiful buildings (from the outside -- the dorms I saw were trashed)
Nice kids
Kids raved about the art classes
Winter Study is an awesome concept</p>
<p>To anyone still making a decision, I hope this post helps... but visit and see for yourself!</p>
<p>I also had mixed feeling about Williams. Too much drinking, no town, just a street, and even though there are events on campus it was too cliquey party centric. I think I'd go crazy there after the honeymoon phase. I'm sure the academics are good. All these schools we talk about have great academics, but it depends on what you want to study, how big that department is, and most definitely how comfortable you will feel in the environment. I passed.</p>
<p>yeah, same here. i was btwn dartmouth and williams and after dimensions, i'm set on dartmouth (visited williams in the fall). even tho both are huge drinking schools, D didn't strike me as a school full of kids who'd actually stay in their rooms to drink until they pass out when there were no parties (williams did). hanover was a nice contrast from williamstown (it was actually a town... with stuff to do...). there was also more intermingling among different groups at D than at williams (felt like there was more self-segregation at the latter). anyway, in the end i think it comes down to having that "gut feeling." i had one as soon as the bus entered D campus, but not at williams. so i also passed.</p>
<p>I know what you mean about that gut feeling. I definitely got that feeling when I stepped out of the car on Williams' campus. But I can see why other people wouldn't... it's a place you have to love wholly because it could definitely feel claustaphobic if you don't like that type of environment. For me, it's exactly what I was looking for. I LOVE it. :) Visiting is the only way to find the perfect school for you.</p>
<p>Interesting taurustorus, I felt the exact opposite in terms of self-segregration. Went to both dimensions and Williams' preview multicultural/preview weekend and was actually fairly depressed by the self-segregation I noticed at Dartmouth. I loved both schools, but felt that their was much more integration at Williams.</p>
<p>I also found the exact opposite in terms of drinking at Dartmouth and Williams on my visit--far more people drank to excess at Dartmouth. All of the drinking that I saw at Williams was very public (no one was locking themselves in their rooms and doing shots) and responsible.</p>
<p>that's really interesting haon and obilisk18. for obilisk18, were you sure that the self-segregation was on the current students' part and not on the prospies'? not trying to undermine your impression or anything, but i noticed that there was a difference (prospies tend to self-segregate b/c a lot of them came from pretty homogeneous schools or hung out w/ people like them in HS). for haon, unless you were in those people's rooms watching them drink until they passed out, then you HAD to have been watching them drink publicly, lol. besides, i wasn't trying to argue about which school has a bigger drinking problem. i drink, but i drink at parties. at williams (at least at my particular visit), the students i ran into were borderline alcoholics (i stayed at both williams and sage). they would ration their bacardi and vodka and some guys were telling me how they weren't gonna come out to party; instead, they were planning on drinking in their rooms until they passed out (okay, so the sample group of the drink-til-blackout consisted of only three guys, but they were from two different buildings and it wasn't like i was hunting down alcoholics so i thought that was a pretty freakish coincidence). anyway, i'm def. not saying there aren't alcohol lovers at dartmouth. i visited one girl's room and she seriously had a bar under her bed, lol. but i guess that didn't bother me 'coz she wasn't like straight chugging vodka; she actually made pretty tasty drinks. anyhow, as i was saying, i think it all comes down to your gut feeling. so plz take my observations (and everyone else's) with a grain of salt. the best way to decide is to visit the schools yourself.</p>
<p>Well obviously I'm just describing my own experience and what I've heard, but at Dartmouth I was in several people's rooms as they closed the door and did shots. That happens only very rarely at Williams--the fact that your sample grouping of hard drinkers consisted of three people from different buildings I think should indicate to you that you stumbled upon a group of hardcore drinkers. If the entire was doing the same, that would be more indicative of the whole Williams culture. As it is, there is obviously drinking at Williams. There is a certain amount of unsafe drinking--you'll find that at any school. The vast majority of students don't drink by themselves in their rooms, and what you described (students planning only on drinking in their rooms) is extremely rare. Dartmouth certainly has much more of a reputation as a drinking school than Williams.</p>
<p>I think you do make an excellent point about self-segregation...it makes sense that the prospective students would self-segregate more than current students.</p>
<p>Statistically, both Darthmouth and Williams have roughly similar percentages of "binge drinkers" (five or more drinks in a row at least once in the two weeks prior to the survey). In a 1998 survey, Dartmouth's binge drinking rate was 48%. In a 1999 survey, Williams' binge drinking rate was somewhere between 50% to 53% (depending on the binge drinking rate of internationals which were not included in the published stats). </p>
<p>This compares to the national average binge drinking rate of 44%, defined with a slightly lower bar (only 4 drinks in a row for women, five for men). Both schools would be just above the cut-off for "heavy binge drinking" category in the Harvard School of Public Health national College Alchohol Survey.</p>
<p>I don't think there's much to choose from as far as drinking. Both have above-average drinking cultures relative to the universe of super-elite colleges and universities. Both have Presidents who are very concerned about the levels of dangerous alcohol consumption. Both have strong consitituent groups that correlate to increased drinking on campus that will make reducing the heavy drinking difficult (frats at Dart., the highest percentage in the country of varsity athletes at Williams). However, I think that Morton Shapiro probably has a better chance of changing the drinking culture at Williams because the alumni and trustees will not fight him every step of the way as they would at Dartmouth with even a hint of reigning in the frat culture. It believe that the alumni would strongly support Shapiro in reducing the emphasis on both athletics and drinking at Williams; alumni surveys have shown that to be the case.</p>
<p>Morty is a huge sports fan and Williams athletics booster, and I know of no instance where he has correlated athletics with campus drinking. There are some on campus who have, but that is simply part of the ongoing discussion, not a factoid, as you so typically present it. His last name has a "c" in it, btw--I haven't seen you spell it right once, in all your thousand posts.</p>
<p>S*chapiro has already moved to reduce the emphasis on athletic recruiting at Williams. The number of below-average admits was curtailed by NESCAC conference regs a couple of years ago. Within that group, Schapiro changed the distribution to further limit the number of far below average admits. The number of "ultra-low-band" admits has been reduced since Sc*hapiro became President. Perhaps this is coincidental, but I doubt it.</p>
<p>Although S*c*hapiro has not explicitly linked athletics and drinking, his Ad Hoc Committee on Alcohol did by specfically identifying the need for the Director of Athletics to play an integral part in addressing the issue. It was the only campus constituency group specifically singled out in the report.</p>
<p>As you know, Pres. S*c*hapiro is an economist by trade and a believer in statistical analysis. Thus, I suspect he is familar with the Harvard School of Public Health research on campus drinking problems that found, "Fraternities and sororities and intercollegiate athletics are centers of alcohol abuse on campuses."</p>
<p>The reason I say that he would likely have alumni support is that, in alumni surveys, there are only three areas where alumni feel the college places too much emphasis: faculty research, alumni concerns, and athletics.</p>
<p>In any case, the question was a choice between Dartmouth and Williams. Some prospective students expressed an observation that perceived excessive drinking at one or the other might be a reason to make a choice. I don't think that is valid since research shows that both schools have essentially the same percentage of heavy drinkers. Furthermore, with the administrations at both schools focused on reducing problem drinking, it is my opinion that Williams' efforts are more likely to produce results. In fact, it would not surprise me if the heavy attention focused on drinking at Williams last year has already reduced binge drinking. You might disagree.</p>
<p>ID:
Thanks for that "c", finally. Paleo-alums are always more convincing in asserting their insider status when they can correctly spell the name of the person who has been their beloved alma mater's president for the last 6 academic years.</p>
<p>As usual, you provide much data, but little context. The "alumni preference" graph was interesting, but seems to be based on four old surveys...beginning with 1979, and most recently, 1994. And although the surveys did indicate that the alumni respondents were concerned that too much attention was paid to athletics, they also indicated that too much attention was paid to alumni concerns! Not sure what to do with a study like that. Anyway, it's worth noting that your close personal friend, President Schapiro, with a c, came on board in 2000, fully 6 years after that last survey.</p>
<p>Smart man that he is, your pal Morty obviously realizes that the Harvard study you cite makes no distinction between small colleges with teams of scholar-athletes, and large universities that essentially function, to a large extent, as training camps for the professional leagues. He would also point out--as he has--that the ad hoc committee on sports reflected broad and strong disagreement--among faculty members--as to the effect of athletics at Williams. The problem with ad hoc committees, is that they're ad hoc--improvised to address a presumed problem. There will always then, be someone from such a committee that you can quote. You equated a high percentage of varsity athletes with fraternities as an indicator for drinking. I recall the ad hoc alchohol committee making specific reference to two sports, and one club sport, as having a drinking culture, yet you slur the entire athletic community at Williams.</p>
<p>I agree that Williams is likely to have a better result than Dartmouth, and it has much to do with the aggressive and open approach of the administration. It's also the reason for the publicity, which you persistently and innaccurately convey as evidence of a uniquely Williams problem.</p>
<p>
[quote]
yet you slur the entire athletic community at Williams
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I didn't "slur" anybody. I pointed out the most comprehensive national research on college alcohol consumption correlates frats and varsity athletics with higher binge drinking rates (frats being the strongest correlation, which should come as no surprise.)</p>
<p>It is an empirical fact that Dartmouth has a higher percentage of frat members and that Williams has a higher percentage of varsity athletes than many of their peer institutions.</p>
<p>"Rural" and "northeast" also correlate with higher binge drinking rates and probably contribute to both Williams and Dartmouth having above average binge drinking rates. However, I don't see either of those factors being subject to change by either school's administration.</p>
<p>Why the hostility? I chose Williams over Dartmouth and would do so again today. I was trying to point out that, while both schools have high rates of binge driking, Williams is, IMO, working harder to address the issue and is more likely to be effective in its efforts. If drinking is a negative factor (as expressed by several prospects in this thread), I would give the tip to Williams over Dartmouth in a two-school matchup. The dominance of the frat scene in the social life at Dartmouth makes it nearly impossible for that school to effect change on the issue of drinking, IMO.</p>
<p>I think moderate drinking is a great idea. Assuming a 25% abstinence rate at Williams (which is about what it is at most places), according to the newly released Williams diversity report (data from the self-administered 2003 student survey, with 55% of students participating), only 2 out 7 folks who drink at all are not binge drinkers. In other words, 5 out of 7 drink "to get drunk".</p>
<p>How one turns a binge drinker into a moderate drinker is a great mystery to me, and not a question which is in anyway singular to Williams, except that a binge drinking culture likely feeds on itself.</p>
<p>(I'd choose W over D again in a heartbeat, as well.)</p>
<p>The problem with all such advocacy research is that it starts with a premise that it wants to prove, rather than an eyes-open quest to see what's actually going on. Thus, we have the inane assertion that anyone who has consumed 5 beers at a college party--even if this has happened only once--is a "binge" drinker. We have a non-defined "definition" of "drinking to get drunk." Do we mean the "three beer yuk-it-up" buzz of ID's happy memories? Or do we mean "deliberately drinking to puke," which he claims, without evidence, to be the current state of affairs practiced by most students. How ridiculous. If you're going to accuse someone of being a drunk, you ought to have some real evidence, because it's a serious charge.</p>