<p>My son is interested in applying to a LAC to get a BA in Economics and hopefully, after that to move into a career in finance, either in investment banking or asset management. He is interested in Williams, Amherst and Wesleyan. We will visit all 3 schools next year. Can anyone tell me their views on these schools 1) academics, 2) economics department, 3) campus environment/social scene and 4) location. Also, any information about the quality of the universities' career services department and whether investment banks recruit on campus would be helpful. Thank you.</p>
<p>The Little Three colleges common data sets don’t break down their percentage of majors by department, but, if we use “Mathmatics and Statistics” and “Physical Sciences” as surrogate markers for academic strength in quantitative thinking, we can see that all three are in the same general academic range with Williams doing a particularly fine job in attracting and retaining Math majors, Wesleyan just behind it in the Physical Sciences:</p>
<pre><code> Math -Physical Sciences - Total
</code></pre>
<p>Amherst - 4% 6% 10%
Wesleyan- 3% 6.7% 9.7%
Williams - 7.2 7.2% 14.4%</p>
<p>If we use Swarthmore (also a very excellent college), as a control, the results are:
Swarthmore - 4.2% 4.4% 8.6%</p>
<p>In terms of campus environment, it’s no secret that Middletown is a small New England city more or less half-way between New York and Boston. It’s taken years of each taking the measure of the other, but, I think that Wesleyan and Middletown have finally arrived at a good place. Wesleyan feeds a steady stream of student customers to its thriving Main Street while Middletown maintains a fair degree of law and order around Wesleyan’s downtown neighborhood.</p>
<p>Amherst deserves kudos for refusing to be swallowed alive by the state flagship school which shares its name; it keeps it at arms length while enjoying the fruits of its commerce with village shopkeepers. It’s a tidy (and, some would say, snobbish) little ship within a sea of Massachusetts students.</p>
<p>Williams is what it is, an alpine village with a college associated with it. Actually others have been less kind, comparing it to a Nike camp with enrichment courses. they have a great track record in funneling young athletes into jobs on Wall Street.</p>
<p>Bain & Co. seems to recruit on all three campuses.</p>
<p>You can have tons of fun just plugging in the queries here:</p>
<p>[IPEDS</a> Data Center](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/]IPEDS”>Use The Data)</p>
<p>It’s too bad they don’t allow for a comparison by major field of study…but you can look all of that up for each college, one-by-one.</p>
<p>And that was a searing assessment of Williams. I think you get a yellow card for that.</p>
<p>wesleyan has an excellent econ program. i double majored in econ and the college of social studies which is an excellent interdisciplinary program that combines econ philosophy government and history. i went on to work at a premier investment bank for a while and got my mba at harvard business school. i had 3 of my close friends at wesleyan in my class at harvard business school and others went on to stanford columbia and the best business schools out there. most of my friends from wesleyan who are in finance are doing exceptionally well and have great positions at many leading firms.</p>
<p>Thank you for the helpful responses.</p>