<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>All are good, Williams and Amherst the stand-outs among the three. Williams has a robust pipe-line to Wall Street and leading firms (including Goldman Sachs) do indeed visit the Williams campus (W. was the highest ranking LAC in the last Wall Street Journal survey of top feeder schools to the top professional schools: in the top 5 with HYP and Stanford). Wesleyan is, frankly, in the middle of a pretty depressed area of CT (although the campus itself is very nice). Amherst is a more “happening” town what with multiple colleges and U. Mass. in the region. Williamstown is rural and more isolated, but Williams also has a larger student body, and the campus is gorgeous (and the town is charming with great art museums, etc.).</p>
<p>All are great schools. D loved Wesleyan and it’s town when she visited. Your son should visit and find out what environment appeals to him.</p>
<p>you should definitely visit these places; i heard somewhere that it only takes 7 seconds of being on a campus for you to determine whether or not you like the school. while it’s not always as simple as that (there are things like ACADEMICS to take into account), i have, for the most part, found this to be true.</p>
<p>Your son should also consider Middlebury for two reasons. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Middlebury is very heavily recruited by Wall Street Firms. Here is a list of firms that typically hire middlebury students in different areas. The word typical is rather important in my opinion as this is NOT a list of students that were placed many years ago but a list of organizations that hire at middlebury regularly. [Recruiting</a> Organizations | Middlebury](<a href=“Center for Careers and Internships | Middlebury”>Center for Careers and Internships | Middlebury)</p></li>
<li><p>In today’s globalized world intercultural understanding and diversity are crucial especially in Finance with funds being managed in the BRICS and other emerging markets gaining importance. Middlebury is, among the best Liberal Arts Colleges, the best preparation to be successful in this changing climate. Middlebury has three clear advantages,</p></li>
</ol>
<p>A.It has arguably the best language programs in the country and one of the best international studies programs that will complement an economics degree. The economics department is one of the college’s strongest programs. </p>
<p>B. Middlebury cares deeply about socio-economic diversity: Middlebury College will expand its partnership with The Posse Foundation when 10 students from Chicago enroll at the college in the fall of 2012. The foundation identifies, recruits and trains public high school students with leadership and academic potential to become Posse Scholars. The students receive four-year, full tuition scholarships from Posse’s partner colleges and universities, where they attend in teams, or “posses"
[Middlebury</a> adds a second Posse | Middlebury](<a href=“Middlebury News and Announcements”>Middlebury News and Announcements)</p>
<p>C. Among Liberal arts colleges it has by far the largest foreign student presence. Middlebury also has one of the highest number of “davis Scholars” who are (mostly) international students who are politically and socially very active.
[Davis</a> United World College Scholars at Middlebury | Middlebury](<a href=“Davis UWC Scholars”>Davis UWC Scholars)</p>
<p>With the incoming class of 2015 there will be more than 100 davis scholars and 80 Posse scholars providing for an amazingly diverse environment.</p>
<p>I hope you will consider Middlebury and would love to help further if you have any queries.</p>
<p>Dear Mindi, Thank you for an excellent post. By coincidence, I was also thinking about adding Middlebury to the “long list” of potential schools that we will visit when we start doing campus visits. When I was in grad school, I knew a couple of friends who had gone to Middlebury for undergrad and both of them were very intelligent. Jackuk</p>
<p>Econ is I believe the largest and certainly one of the strongest departments at Williams. It benefits from the very small grad program in development economics, which brings mid-level diplomats from all over the developing world to Williams for a year, and which enables Williams to make an impact / have a real international presense. There is also the unusual Political Economy major, which I think is one of the most interesting courses of study at Williams and unique among these schools. </p>
<p>The list of alumni from Williams in finance / asset management / investment banking / venture capital generally is very impressive, including Herbert Allen, Edgar Bronfman, Andreas Halvorsen, Jimmy Lee, Bo Peabody, Steve Case, Mayo Shattuck, Chase Coleman, etc. etc. The Williams alumni network in this area I’d say is unparelleled among liberal arts colleges. Definitely, along with art history and math / physics, one of the areas Williams really stands out from the crowd even among the very top liberal arts colleges. </p>
<p>In terms of campus environment, I agree, a visit is key. Williams and Amherst are really very similar and most who would enjoy one would enjoy the other, although there are some differences at the margins, mainly in terms of location, academic calendar (Winter Study at Williams), and a few other factors. Wesleyan is pretty different, being a larger university with a more liberal / activitist / alternative / artsy vibe on campus, generally, although I think the differences are not as exaggerated as they used to be as Wesleyan has been, for example, really emphasizing athletics in recent years. </p>
<p>In terms of career services, the bad news is that students generally complain that outside of investment banking, management consulting, and grad school / fellowship advising, the career services offices at Williams is not terribly helpful. The good news is your interests seem to coincide well with that office’s strengths – tons of top investment banks recruit heavily at Williams, I believe more heavily than at any other liberal arts school (also Amherst is certainly right there as well), and all of them have a healthy number of Ephs in high places who will push to hire Williams alums.</p>
<p>A major difference between Williams and Amherst is that Amherst has an “open curriculum”, and hence no distributional requirements. It’s not necessarily a big deal for some students, but is for others.</p>
<p>Dear Ephman and Mini, Thank you for your helpful posts. I like the idea of the Political Economy major for my son. It looks to be similar to the PPE major (Political, Philisophy and Economics) that Oxford offers and many Brits that work in the City seem to have. Also, I like the idea of distribution requirements compared to an open curriculum. Since one of the primary reasons for going to a liberal arts college is to come out well-rounded, it makes sense for the school to require a reasonable breadth of courses. I checked the Williams website and the distribution requirements do not seem too onerous.</p>
<p>Jack, my son (Williams 07) considered all three, but ultimately chose Williams. Because his area of interest is fine art and art history, Wesleyan was his second choice. There’s a lot of overlap among the types of kids who attend all three – intelligent, friendly, extroverted, talented, multifaceted.</p>
<p>Definitely visit. My son liked the ambience of all three. Amherst is a lively college town. Middletown isn’t such a great location in itself, but it’s easily accessible to both New York and Boston and the Wesleyan campus is big enough to be self contained.</p>
<p>Williams is far more insular and rural than the other two. For my son, who likes outdoorsy activities and winter sports, this was a big plus. He fell in the “knew in 7 seconds” category and once on campus Williams became his immediate first choice. He had a wonderful four years there and four years out he and his friends are all doing well in life and careers.</p>
<p>Politically, all three lean left, but in my opinion Wesleyan is the farthest left, Amherst second and Williams more toward the middle. As an American who lives in an under-developed country I can tell you that the political affiliation of the faculty is a is a major factor in studying economics and political science. I would say that Williams is more “balanced” than the others.</p>
<p>The distribution requirements at Williams are not at all onerous; students are encouraged to experiment and double or even triple majors are common.</p>
<p>My son really liked Winter Study (January term) and took advantage of several of Williams’ hallmark tutorial classes. The entry system was, for him, also a strong positive. He hadn’t lived in America for 15 years, so the instant comaraderie really helped ease his transition. </p>
<p>The career placement service was immensely helpful to my son (although he’s in an entirely different field from your son). He secured good internships during the summers and landed an excellent real job at graduation, all through Williams connections. The professors were profoundly good in supplying recommendations and advice for jobs and for graduate school. I imagine the same could be said for Amherst and Wesleyan, but I can certainly vouch for Williams excellent support. Wall Street and graduate school admissions definitely know and respect the Williams name.</p>
<p>For international students getting to Williamstown from a major airport was a continuing challenge, but everyone seems to cope. Amherst is a little more convenient because of the train. Getting to Wesleyan is easy.</p>
<p>Each of these schools is intensely selective, especially for international admissions, so the best policy would be to apply to all three and see how things shake down. If you can see your way financially, ED is a good idea, especially at Williams.</p>
<p>Momrath, thank you for the helpful response. One other question I have for anyone is how do Williams students deal with the cold and long winter? I have heard horror stories from places like Cornell of students getting very depressed during the long winters. As we live in London (my kids were born here), the weather is not great, although the winter weather rarely gets below 30F. How do Williams students cope? Are there outdoor activities, like ski resorts, nearby? Thank again, Jackuk</p>
<p>We live on the equator so Williams’ climate was weather-shock to say the least. On some days the temperature difference between here and there was over 100 degrees F. The saving grace is that natural environment is intensely beautiful, including and especially in winter. It helps to like to do something in the snow. Skiing, snowboarding, tobagganing, skating, snowball throwing and snowman making are all popular stress relievers and broomball is a Williams tradition. (My son liked the environment so much he ended up Cornell for graduate school. 
)</p>
<p>Dear Midindi, Since we live in the UK, can my son apply to be a Davis scholar? Thanks.</p>
<p>My S also considered all three. He was far more impressed by Williams and about to graduate. </p>
<p>He would make this same choice again.</p>
<p>Some of his reaction was purely visceral – he liked the campus better and just felt it was “his place.”</p>
<p>Another reason he chose Williams was because he felt the music department vastly superior, and his interest at the time was classical music. He is a violist, pianist and composer.</p>
<p>However, he is graduating in a completely different major and has found a home there.</p>
<p>He has also benefited from the pervasive influence of Art History at Williams, even though this was an area he had never considered before. He made weekly visits to The Clark Museum and worked there one summer.</p>
<p>My S is very left leaning but in a quiet, private way. He liked the lack of cant among Williams students and the easy way political positions are expressed.</p>
<p>I know this translates into the perception of an apolitical, stodgy, jock culture to Williams’ critics, but that wasn’t my son’s experience.</p>
<p>I liked all three schools a lot. I seem to be a lone voice, but I really like Middletown, CT. We found Amherst to be the most lackluster campus, but the town is cute and some really like the consortium. I don’t think my S would have taken adequate advantage of it to be a factor in his choice. The loyalty of its students makes up for its less impressive campus for most I would think.</p>
<p>I also think Middlebury is a good choice and a stunning campus.</p>
<p>And just to add confusion, Vassar was my S’s second choice over the others. It just “spoke to him”, probably because its music is most similar to Williams.</p>
<p>One advantage to Vassar is that it is close enough to NYC to allow an internship there for a semester (or one day a week during a semester is probably more doable) although the train is quite expensive. The trip is roughly an hour and a half on a good railroad line and very direct.</p>
<p>Any of those schools would prepare him for a career in investment banking. Amherst and Williams stand out, but Wesleyan isn’t that far behind. I second others’ comments about visiting, particularly if your son is planning to apply early decision (if he isn’t, he might want to apply to all of them as it’s pretty tough to gain admission to one of them, let alone all three of them). Personally, I was torn between Middlebury and Amherst, but after visiting Middlebury, I knew the rural location wasn’t for me. It was a visceral feeling I got on the ride from the airport to the college, and this was confirmed the moment I stepped foot on campus. Honestly, I didn’t think something like location would matter so much to me (and I actually thought I might enjoy rural), but it did.</p>
<p>^^I might add that the current acting head the IMF is a Wesleyan alum.</p>
<p>^^Good thing the former head of the IMF is not.</p>
<p>Haha!:D. Interestingly, the last two IMF heads could not present better contrasts between the American and continental European educational systems. Strauss-Kahn went directly from the French equivalent of high school, or <em>lycee</em>, directly into what in the United States would be considered an MBA program and from there, seemed to collect other professional and graduate degrees before winning a teaching position in economics at the University of Paris (Nanterre): [Dominique</a> Strauss-Kahn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Dominique Strauss-Kahn - Wikipedia”>Dominique Strauss-Kahn - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Lipsky attended an American liberal arts college for four years, was exposed to a wide variety of subject matter before, apparently, deciding he wanted to spend the rest of his life in the economics field: [John</a> Lipsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lipsky]John”>John Lipsky - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Both figurative rapists, when not literal ones. (It’s not pretty when you’ve seen people actually DIE as a result of IMF policies.)</p>
<p>^^care to elaborate (if it doesn’t hijack the thread entirely?)</p>