I tried looking up your statistic, but I couldn’t find anything. Care to share a link?
Regardless, I’m not so sure why you think the situation would be any different at any other college. The fact of the matter is college is stressful. It’s absolutely not something to be proud of that many students suffer from mental illness, but it is par for the course these days at high powered, rigorous programs. Do you think the situation is substantially different at Northwestern?
I can attest that Williams is a great place to thrive when it comes to your mind, body, and spirit, and this is not “in spite of” Williams. The Berkshires are a bit isolated (40 minutes from Albany, 2.5 hours from Boston/NYC), but I found the beautiful scenery a great way to rejuvenate my body and soul during the course of my stay there. As far as the mind goes, it’s hard to compete with the quality of undergraduate instruction at Williams; the intellectual relationships I’ve cultivated with my fellow students and faculty are ones I will carry with me throughout the rest of my life. I agree that Williams (like other elite institutions) has a long way to go in terms of psychological care for their students, but I personally had great experiences with their counseling services.
My niece seemed depressed at Willams and the best medicine for her was to go to Italy during William’s January period and take a semester away from isolated Williamstown in her junior year. Not everyone will be happy in a very isolated place. Some people energize with PEOPLE and not beautiful landscapes. Also the Socratic method may not really apply to some types of learning, that may take more focus on say coding, or writing a proof out by yourself to learn the math. So while Williams really does have outstanding teachers, they do not also keep really deep in their field as some at Northwestern do. Northwestern has it all, the teachers who are pretty darn good, the researches that do not give a rats ass about teaching in a classroom but will spend ten hours with an undergrad at an X ray machine or atomic force microscope training you how to study a material with that piece of equipment. Northwestern has better labs and more actual real research work. So it really depends what floats your boat and what you want to study. I understand political science will work well with the Socratic method, but maybe need to get into the city of Chicago and actually see city government could have a big advantage in my mind, if the Northwestern student gets himself down to the city.
You can’t go wrong with either, but I’d personally pick Northwestern. Bigger school w more opportunities if you are proactive to take advantage imo. NU recently hired the dean of Yale College as new provost (as well as top admin from Dartmouth to be Weinberg dean); admin focus on undergrad education is very strong.
A colleague of my husband’s taught for a year at Williams during a sabbatical. She came back exhausted because she said the students were so “needy.” I think this means that students are really the focus at Williams in a way that they just can’t be at a research university.
