<p>HELP!! I am totally torn between these schools, and I have no idea how to make up my mind about them. I really like the Williams-Exeter Programme at Williams, but the college seems so isolated . . . I love the music scene at Oberlin, but I feel like I don't know enough about any of the schools to make an informed decision. (I've looked everywhere, Wikipedia, **************, CollegeConfidential, actual visits, but I can't make up my mind.) Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>I applied to all these schools. We think alike.</p>
<p>mi1k, Did you apply this year and are waiting for acceptances? If yes, just wait a bit and see where you get in. </p>
<p>Have you visited all four? Then you should have a pretty good idea of the differences. If you are fortunate enough to get 4 out of 4, then perhaps you could arrange to re-visit and overnight? Williams/Amherst/Bowdoin are quite similar in culture (though different in physical set up). Oberlin attracts a different kind of student. </p>
<p>What kind of music involvement are you looking for? Major in music, performance opportunites or just the chance to hear music performed? Williams music department is highly regarded and from what I understand there are lots of performance opportunities even for non-majors, but it's not a conservatory like Oberlin.</p>
<p>Williams is isolated -- an insular campus-- but this in fact is its greatest strenght. It doesn't appeal to everyone, but most of the kids thrive on the energy generated by the college community.</p>
<p>Amherst offers single rooms to freshmen and belongs to a five college consortium that permits cross-registration for courses. Bowdoin has great food, great dorms & a strong government program, but may not be as academically challenging as Amherst & Williams. Oberlin is very liberal & has an elite music conservatory.</p>
<p>I was accepted two years ago to Williams, Amherst, Oberlin, and Midd, chose Williams, and am pretty happy with my choice, although of course everyone is different. Some things you might want to think about:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>In the end, it might just be where you get accepted that ultimately decides things; I was almost hoping for that but was unlucky enough to get into all of my top choices. :-) </p></li>
<li><p>No matter what you think college will be like, it won't be like that. Not that you'll be factually wrong in any specific detail, just that it's hard to get a true impression of college life until you've actually been a college student, which can make it hard to understand the true differences between schools - all you have to go on are the facts you can find and the incomplete impressions you can form. That's life, though. </p></li>
<li><p>Williams and Oberlin are about equally isolated, IMHO. Amherst as a town is probably almost as isolated as Williams, but within the town there's more to do and a much larger population of college students. I have no personal experience with the student life there and how it's affected by the larger-town environment, but if you could do an overnight visit it might give you a better picture.</p></li>
<li><p>I never did overnight visits when I was looking at colleges, but I have hosted a few prospective students (and met others my friends were hosting), and my two thoughts are a) overnight stays can be really useful in getting to know more about a school and b) your impression can be incredibly different depending on who you get as a host, so take that into consideration - don't judge a school just because you hated your host; all of these schools have an incredible variety of students. I'd recommend visiting overnight if you haven't already done so, but make an effort to talk to kids other than just your host and their immediate friends. Before you come, try to look up kids that are involved in the activities you're interested in (sports, music, whatever) and email them asking if you can sit in on a meeting/rehearsal/practice/etc., or just talk to them for a little while. I guarantee, at least at Williams, that pretty much everyone will say yes, be impressed/flattered that you bothered to contact them, and be more than happy to talk to you about their particular interests/activities or their thoughts on the school in general. Don't be scared to do something like this - I was when I visited, but there's absolutely no reason to be; the absolute worst thing that can happen is that you have a slightly awkward meeting and then go your separate ways, while the best case is that you learn something really helpful and, as an extra bonus, meet someone cool who shares your interests. (note: at Williams the best way to do this is to check the <a href="http://wso.williams.edu/wiki/index.php/List_of_student_groups">WSO list of student orgs</a>; if you don't find what you're looking for or can't find any contact info, then email/call the admissions office and ask them to give you a contact and they'll probably be happy to help). Profs are also usually happy to meet with you; but they know almost nothing about student life and probably won't ever tell you that their department is weaker than another schools', so meetings with profs probably tend not to be very useful.</p></li>
<li><p>Music - "music scene" is a vague word. Are you talking classical, rock, performing or just watching performances? I play violin, pretty well, to the point where I considered auditioning for the Oberlin double-degree program (in the end, I decided not to ebcause I realized I don't want to be a professional musician). My impression of Oberlin is that it's great if you want to see high-quality classical concerts all the time, but not so great if you want to play classically and you're not a conservatory student or at the level of the conservatory students. At Williams, classical instrumentalists have the Berkshire Symphony, which is semi-pro, reasonably selective, quite good musically but very stuffy socially (it's not a lot of fun to play in), the Student Symphony, which is less formal and demanding but non-selective so it's not as musically rewarding, and Symphwinds, which despite the name actually uses strings, winds, brass, and occasionally other stuff, is also non-selective, and plays almost exclusively modern music. Singers have the concert and chamber choirs, which are both quite good and led by a fantastic director, Brad Wells. The music department overall is pretty stuffy and concerns itself mostly with classical music (occasionally jazz), but if that's what you like then I guess they're decent at it. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>As for non-classical stuff, we have seven acapella singing groups, some of which are good, and the Cap N' Bells theater group occasionally does musicals (this year they did Sweeney Todd, and it was IMHO really good, at least as far as student-run college productions go). There's almost no rock music scene on campus (right now there are, as far as I know, <em>zero</em> bands at Williams), although there are people are trying to change that. I have no idea how any of this compares to Amherst or Oberlin, although I'd assume that with the Five Colleges Amherst probably at least has a decent local rock music scene. </p>
<p>In the end, my personal decision making process essentially boiled down to
a) I love mountains and the outdoors, so I couldn't imagine spending four years in the barren wasteland that is Oberlin, Ohio,
b) My academic interests are primarily math/science, and while Middlebury is a good school it's not as strong in those areas as Williams and Amherst, and
c) I wanted a smaller, more intimate environment, and I liked the idea of living in a tight community rather than just going to classes and then going out on the town with 40,000 other college kids, so that pushed me away from Amherst.</p>
<p>In retrospect, Williams has been a lot of things I wanted it to be, but it's certainly not perfect. I never drank before coming to college, and Williams and the JA system are great in introducing you to the joys of drinking and how to drink responsibly; the downside is that large portions of the campus then ignore that advice and do nothing but binge-drinking on Friday and Saturday nights, which gets old after a while (this is probably less true at Oberlin, where I assume everyone just smokes pot instead; Amherst is probably pretty similar in terms of drinking culture although the larger environment might provide a better range of non-alcoholic weekend activities). Williams is also not as tight a community as I had hoped; sports teams have almost taken the place of frats and a lot of varsity athletes hang out primarily with their teammates, which leads to IMHO something of a fractured social scene and even a rift between athletes and non-athletes (though there are people who would dispute this). Amherst is probably pretty similar in this regard; Oberlin has less of an athletic focus so I'd imagine things are different there. In general, though, I'm pretty happy with Williams - I've had a lot of fantastic professors, learned a lot, made a few good friends, and overall had a good time, so I definitely don't regret my choice to come here.</p>
<p>Wow, that was a lot more than I meant to write - goes to show how good I am at procrastinating work :-) (yes, I'm doing work on a Saturday night - that's not typical of most Williams students or even of me, usually, but right now I've painted myself into a pretty big hole that I need to get out of). If you have any more specific questions about these schools, I can try to answer them, although obviously at this point I probably know a lot more about Williams specifically than Amherst or Oberlin (and I know nothing at all about Bowdoin).</p>
<p>in no way is bowdoin less "academically challenging" than williams and amherst.</p>
<p>I'd support most of Jeke's comments. Williams, most would agree, offers the nicest campus and natural environs of the four schools you mention. It is the most isolated, however. If you go and visit and it doesn't feel right you should probably move on. Your life there will be very, very campus centered.</p>
<p>Some points I (somewhat) disagree with:</p>
<p>I think Oberlin's music scene, from almost any angle, is a major plus and far superior to what will be found at your other choices. Prepare yourself for Oberlin, Ohio. It's not on anyone's list of top 20 college towns and competes with Williamstown for "small."</p>
<p>I disagree about Amherst's tone. It does offer a pretty intimate campus. Despite this, it probably also offers the best "escape" options of the schools you list given the multiple other colleges in the area and nearby Northampton.</p>
<p>One last point, I'd second pb2002's comment about level of academic challenge - I'd argue it's very similar across all 4 campuses. Your choice of major will have more to do with workload than the choice of college.</p>
<p>thanks jeke for taking the time to write that post. i found it very helpful.</p>
<p>omg jeke, you kick soooo much ass. that post was amazing and it really really helped a lot. </p>
<p>I visited Williams, but it was during the winter break, so all I really got to do was see the campus. I'm revisiting on the 7th, though. </p>
<p>i do have a few questions about Williams, if you don't mind. . . </p>
<p>What else is there to do at Williams on weekends besides the whole drinking scene?
Do you see a lot of students leaving the campus on weekends?
You said that the social life is somewhat stratified, due to the emphasis on sports. . . . does this make williams cliquish? (HS all over again . . . .)</p>
<p>thanks soooo much, you rock!</p>
<p>5757, mi1kandserial: thanks, glad to know someone actually read all of that. :-) </p>
<p>Weekends:
Often there are concerts or performances featuring Williams students or artists brought in by the college or by some student group. Williams makes a point of keeping all its events free or very cheap; by far the most expensive ticket this year will be $20 to see Third Eye Blind play at Spring Fling, and that's abnormally high. Music dept. events (symphony concerts and such) are free, acapella groups tend to ask $1, and dance/theater events are sometimes $3-$5. Of course, student performances tend to naturally cluster towards the ends of semesters, and given the finite number of student groups there may not be anything you're interested in seeing on a given weekend.
There's a great local one-screen movie theater (imagescinema.org); it usually only shows one or two movies in a given week but they're usually good ones, and Williams students get discounted tickets.
Other than those options, Williams doesn't have many external entertainments, so what there is to do is basically whatever you and your friends want to do. You can watch a movie in a common room, hang out and watch TV, play video games (or card/board games if you prefer and you can find people to play them with you), go to the music building and jam in a practice room, etc. You can use the weekend to catch up on all the things you wanted to do during the week but didn't have time for, like reading a particular book for pleasure. Or, if you like dancing or watching drunk people, you can go to parties.
The problem with being a non-drinker (or even an occasional/moderate drinker, which is basically what I am) at Williams and presumably other schools with similar cultures isn't a lack of things to do so much as a lack of people to do them with, a lot of the time. Sure you can go see a movie on a Saturday night, but when you get back at 10:30pm all your friends will be going out to parties and you'll end up spending the rest of the night by yourself. One solution is to find non-drinking friends, but that involves choosing from a pretty small set of sometimes very odd people. Non-drinkers definitely exist at Williams and most of them do manage to go through their four years having a good time, but it's harder and they're definitely a minority. (of course, you may be one of the many people who gets to college and then discovers that they actually like drinking, making the issue mostly moot). </p>
<p>Almost no one leaves on weekends, except for athletic trips and such (i.e. to go to a tournament or meet at a distant school). A few people may go to Boston or NY or to visit friends at other schools, but the vast majority of kids stick around. Williams is not a commuter school - even kids who live a couple hours away rarely go home except on breaks.</p>
<p>I wouldn't say Williams is cliquish. It's certainly not so in the high-school sense; I think most kids here are too mature for that. The issues with athletics are more a consequence of what it means to be on a tight team - if you spend a lot of your time with a certain group of people (practicing, traveling to games, whatever) then it's likely that's where you'll develop your closest friendships. Teams set up a lot of team social events, bonding, etc. in an attempt to cultivate this, so it's not that varsity athletes are necessarily cliquish or unfriendly so much as just often unavailable because they spend so much time with their team, and they have less of a need to actively work on finding friendships outside of it. Non-athletes tend to develop friendships with other non-athletes because those are the people who are around more often and not distracted by their social obligations to a team. (and also possibly because non-athletes tend to share other characteristics - I'd venture that non-athletes probably tend to be non-drinkers, for example, although there are certainly many, many counterexamples on both sides of that). There are non-athletes who feel left out just because they're not involved in something that's a huge deal in the lives of many of their friends, and also sometimes because they don't get the benefits of the free, almost guaranteed friendships and social structure that come with being on a sports team (the entry system helps a lot with this, but it doesn't serve quite the same function). Life is what you make of it, though, and there are plenty of non-athletes (we're about half of the student body, depending on how you count it) with plenty of friends who are having a great time with whatever other activities they've chosen to get involved in.
(also, I should note - these are my perspectives, but I certainly don't represent the entirety of Williams; there are two thousand people at this school and I probably only know a few hundred of them. Williams has a wide variety of students with a wide variety of experiences, so I'm sure there are kids who would disagree with pretty much everything I've said here. Take that as you will.)</p>
<p>I have been to Williams, Amherst and Bowdoin several times.</p>
<p>I don't have any issue with Jeke's post except I don't think it is true that Amherst is almost as isolated as Williams.</p>
<p>There is nothing in Williamstown except Williams College, so far as I can tell. The town, while beautiful, is appended to the campus. It is only a block or two long. There is also nothing really close to Williamstown. (I don't view William's isolation as a negative by the way. But some might.)</p>
<p>Amherst is in a much more populated part of Massachusetts than Williamstown. The college shares the town with UMass, a large state university, so the town serves 20,000 or so students. It is a good size town. </p>
<p>Amherst is also much easier to get to than Williamstown. It is close to major highways and airports. There is direct train service to NY and Boston. </p>
<p>Finally, there's a lot going on nearby. Northampton, home of Smith College, is just a few minutes away and is a really lively town. </p>
<p>This is not an Amherst is better than Williams post. They are both amazing schools and anyone fortunate enough to choose between them is lucky indeed. But there are differences between them and I think location is a principal one.</p>
<p>"There is also nothing really close to Williamstown."</p>
<p>You've somehow managed to overlook the adjacent city of North Adams (five minutes away), with its retail, restaurant, and cultural offerings (Mass MOCA), as well as another smallish college (MCLA) that provides additional concert, etc. opportunities for Williams students; the larger city of Pittsfield (20 minutes south) with even more commercial resources; Bennington, VT (15 minutes north), another town with a small college and interesting shops, restaurants, etc.; as well as Albany, NY (fifty minutes west), the state capital, home to several colleges, and the site of several venues that attract popular and indie musical groups to clubs and concerts that Williams students (even those under 21) like to (and legally can) attend. South of Williamstown, toward the Mass Pike, is the Berkshire Mall at Lanesboro (about 20 minutes) as well as additional southern Berkshire towns (with all their cultural and outdoor offerings, also a nearby ski slope) along Rte. 7S heading toward the Mass Pike (a 40 minute drive) -- including an outlet shopping mall at Lee (college groups in the recent past have arranged for transport directly to the outlet). Of course, in the Williamstown area itself are the excellent Clark Art Museum and numerous restaurants, within a five to ten minute drive of campus (in addition to the restaurants and shops of Spring St. and Water St. that are within easy walking distance).</p>
<p>Williamstown is not quite the barren oupost it might have been hundreds of years ago when it was the site of a fort on the area's western frontier.</p>
<p>I think you should read Jeke's post in the "How hard is it to get to Boston" string. Six hours by infrequently scheduled bus. There are six or seven bus departures a day from Amherst to Boston and it can take as little as 2.5 hours. </p>
<p>Williamstown is a truly beautiful place, far more so than Amherst MA. But being an hour's tough drive away from Albany NY does not change my view of Williamstown's "off the beaten track" status.</p>
<p>That's not a bad thing by the way. I went to an isolated college and I liked it. But I'd think anyone that went to Williams College for all the fun and easy to get to off campus places to go to would be disappointed.</p>
<p>"an hour's tough drive"</p>
<p>I've made this 50-minute drive numerous times, and it's really rather pleasant and easy (Norm's Limo and Taxi makes it several times a day as well). </p>
<p>"fun and easy to get to off campus places"</p>
<p>Now that's extremely easy: just a ten-minute walk east on Main Street to off-campus restaurants and stores (including Wild Oats natural foods).</p>
<p>As as far as getting to Boston to concerned (and remember, Jeke said he doesn't speak for all students), see these other students' quotes from a recent thread on WSO:</p>
<p>"you can also take the bus from the williams inn... there are buses that leave for Boston every day at 10am and 4pm. It takes about 4 hours to get there."</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>"amtrak out of pittsfield is $17 and takes you to south station. leaves at 5:30 pm, arrives at 9:45 pm." [another four hours, presumably also with stops]</p>
<p>I don't know what WSO is, but the only bus service between Williamstown and Boston that I'm aware of is Peter Pan. According to their web site there are two departures a day, one that leaves at 10am and arrives at 4:35pm, the second of which leaves at 4pm and arrives at 8am the next morning. So that's at least 6 hours in either case. </p>
<p>As to Amtrak, well figure a half hour in a cab to Pittsfield, time hanging around the train station, you are still talking 5 hours. And that's assuming the train is on time. I don't know if you have much experience with Amtrak outside the Boston--NY--DC route, but Amtrak's on time record is horrible. </p>
<p>And as to Route 2 from Williamstown to Albany--it is beautiful near Williams, but very curvy through the mountain pass. (Everything about Williams is beautiful.) I think it is a tough drive and would not find it enjoyable at night or in any kind of weather. And the section through Troy wouldn't make anyone's list of America's most scenic highways! And then of course you have to consider the destination--Albany! </p>
<p>I view Williamstown itself as a very pretty appendage to the campus, so the fact that there are restaurants and a grocery store on Main Street doesn't change my view as to the relative lack of fun places for students to go outside of Williamstown WHEN COMPARED TO OTHER SCHOOLS.</p>
<p>WSO=Williams Students Online</p>
<p>WSO = Williams Students Online (<a href="http://wso.williams.edu)%5B/url%5D">http://wso.williams.edu)</a>.</p>
<p>ncram is basically correct about getting to Boston: there's no attractive way to do it using public transportation. Both Peter Pan and Amtrak are slow, expensive, and unreliable (and onemoremom, I can't claim to speak for everyone on subjective issues, but I'm pretty sure that if there were an easier way to get to Boston I would know about it). In my experience, people mostly either drive themselves (if they have cars) or catch rides with other people who are driving - WSO has an online ride board for exactly this purpose. </p>
<p>Route 2 to Albany is a beautiful drive, and I think it's quite fun as well (even at night), as long as the weather's decent. "Tough" is subjective - I wouldn't necessarily want to drive that route in a semi truck, but as long as you've got a decent car it's not bad at all, and if you enjoy driving you'll enjoy this drive. You can get to the Albany airport in 35-40 minutes if there's not much traffic, maybe a little over an hour if you're unlucky and get stuck behind a slow car. It is true that Rt. 2 becomes a lot less attractive when the weather goes downhill, but in that case you can always take Rt. 7 through Bennington; it avoids going over the mountains and isn't much out of the way. All of that said, though, I don't think most people ever go to Albany for any reason other than the airport. That doesn't mean there aren't fun things to do there, but if there are then the vast majority Williams students don't know about them, or don't think they're worth the drive. (e.g. things like bars, clubs, or parties at other schools have significantly lower appeal if you have drive to them, because that means someone has to be a dedicated driver).</p>
<p>"my view as to the relative lack of fun places for students to go outside of Williamstown"</p>
<p>ncram:</p>
<p>That's just it -- it's <em>your</em> view, and no one else's (just like my opinions are, well, mine, and colored by my several-years-long experience with the area, as well as my Eph's). The fact remains that there's plenty to do off campus as well as on, and the reality is that most Williams students are so busy with, believe it or not, coursework and extracurriculars, and the campus so self-sufficient, self-contained, and home to so many different events for so many varied interests, that the time students have to spend off campus is relatively limited. I know that when my Eph has some free time, that free time is mainly spent at Williams -- enjoying the campus and the friendships that inevitably form in such a small, insular environment. </p>
<p>jeke:</p>
<p>My Eph (and friends) must then be among the "minority" of Williams students who find out about/know about different touring groups playing the various concert halls and clubs in the Albany area and think they're worth the drive, even though these students aren't drinking when they attend.</p>
<hr>
<p>As far as the drive on Rte. 2 through the mountains is concerned, if people are confident in their driving ability and icy roads have been sanded, the time saved, the curving road, and the scenery make it the preferred route by far for many who bother making the drive from Williamstown to Albany.</p>
<p>"the section through Troy wouldn't make anyone's list of America's most scenic highways! And then of course you have to consider the destination--Albany!"</p>
<p>Troy, an old industrial city, is not unlike many such towns you'll see throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic region. Albany is, in my view, a lovely, green city on the Hudson River in a beautiful region of upper-state New York.</p>
<p>Petersburgh Pass and the hairpin turn section of Rt 2 east of N. Adams can both be very treacherous roads when it is snowing.</p>