<p>I also posted this in the Penn forum. I'm having a hard time deciding between Penn and Williams College. I really love both colleges, so I was wondering if you guys could help me out here:</p>
<p>1) I want to go on to either law school or receive my PhD in humanities (foreign languages or English). I want to major in a foreign language. Williams has a HIGH level of acceptance into grad schools, and of course Penn is Penn. On the undergraduate level, Penn has larger language departments and more students majoring in language, which may mean the departments are stronger.</p>
<p>2) I've always wanted to go to both institutions. I realize they're both really different; Williams is small, and on the one hand I love it but I do not like the idea of being isolated in the middle of nowhere. There are also more students at Penn who I meet, yet I will be able to form really tight bonds with the students who I meet at Williams.</p>
<p>2) I know Penn is an Ivy league school. Williams is AMAZING and people rave about it, and although prestige isn't most important, more people know about Penn than Williams. But Williams is still regarded as the best/one of the best liberal arts colleges, and a Williams education can't be replicated.</p>
<p>What do you guys think? Thanks for the input.</p>
<p>If you want to be in a city, then you can throw the relative excellence of language programs out the window, because a marginally better department isn’t going to substitute for a setting that doesn’t work for you.</p>
<p>But don’t mistake of thinking that bigger means better. You’re better off contacting students majoring in those fields at both schools, and ask them to describe their profs and language departments. Better yet, contact some of the professors yourself.</p>
<p>To point 2, the overall size of a school isn’t that relevant to the close bonds and connections you might form. People come out of gigantic colleges with close friends. Instead, I’d suggest looking at how the two schools manage social life (ie the entry system), because those things will have a greater effect than the number of students on campus, once you get above base number.</p>
<p>To your second point 2, the people who hire folks will know about Williams, so I wouldn’t worry about the “lack of prestige” really hurting you. But if you want to be able to tell someone on the street that you went to an Ivy League school, and that matters to you, then go and do what you need to do.</p>
<p>I think matriculating into a Ivy-league carries more weight to your portfolio. It is just that everyone is crazy about the Mighty 8 Ivies (Penn being one) and the prestige persons associate with it. I would go to Penn undoubtedly, not that I am saying Williams is by no means Prestigious. But that is just my two cents.</p>
<p>5 years ago, I got into Penn RD, and actually sent in the deposit before I got off the waitlist at Williams. I ultimately chose to attend Williams. </p>
<p>The biggest reason ended up being money, as Williams gave plenty more of it. I think aid policies nowadays don’t make the aid gap as significant. However, the cost of living is much lower at Williams. For what it’s worth, almost every concert/speaker/comedian, etc at Williams was free, and I might have spent a total of $150 dollars TOTAL on books over the four years I was there. Plenty of rich people at Williams (50% don’t get aid), but you can’t readily discern the social stratification b/c Williams subsidizes so much. That and the fact that people wearing Williams gear all the time might have something to do with it…</p>
<p>Due to the small classes you’ll probably get to know your profs better (well if you want to)…that probably lends itself to better recommendation letters, etc for grad school.</p>
<p>And if you really want to get to know what a professor is geeking out on…tutorials rock and are available across all/almost all areas of study. There is nothing quite like tearing into someone else’s paper point blank, or vice versa.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. Does anyone know if Williams applicants have high acceptance rates to PhD programs, particularly in English or foreign language?</p>
<p>Nauset–How well you do individually, not the school, is going to be the determining factor in whether you get accepted to grad school or not–No school name is going to overcome a mediocre undergraduate performance–That said, my guess would be that a strong performance at Williams would get you into most top rate English departments–My son’s a physics major, and the most common grad school admit is to MIT, so my guess would be English does about that well.</p>
<p>I’m also wondering about foreign language programs at Williams. Foreign language (in addition to premed) is an extremely important area of study to me. Does Williams do well in them?</p>