Williams Worries

Colleges and Universities A-Z Williams College
1

Williams is one of my son’s two leading contenders right now (the other is Georgetown SFS). He also got into Amherst and Cornell A&S.

Though Williams seems like a great option, we have a few questions for you Ephs and non-Ephs.

  1. Just how isolated is Williamstown and how crazy does that level of isolation drive you? We're big-city people, but our son is reasonably flexible. Will he be driven out of his skull with boredom by senior year, or are the social compensations of Williams enough to feed the soul for four years?
  2. Can you flourish at Williams with zero interest in sports? Our young man is not an athlete and hasn't any real interest in sports, either as participant or spectator. Except that he does like to hike.
  3. Just how necessary and serious is sleep deprivation at Williams? This guy hasn't had a decent night of sleep, it seems, since middle school.
  4. Is there anything else we should know about Williams?

Thanks to all in advance!

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I’m not a current Williams student, but I had to choose between Williams and my current school. I want to say that outside of academic strengths (which I can’t speak to because I don’t know what your son wants to study, but it seems international right since it’s GTown SFS he’s been admitted to?) the degree of FIT is what will matter between four schools of identically wonderful stature and opportunity.

Honestly, I really liked Williams when I visited, but the isolation was the killer for me. I love nature, and greenery, and the Berkshires are really stunning, but those winters just seemed unbearable even for someone who had lived in the northeast for years, and I just know that I personally would have got a case of cabin fever and been depressed most likely. So it totally depends on who your son is as a person - does he like snow? cold? nature? the outdoors? If not, I wouldn’t go to Williams, or Cornell, and would instead look to the lovely college town of Amherst or at DC. But if he does like those things, then Williams is just awesome, ESPECIALLY if he likes to hike! I think there is a program you can do when you arrive on campus where you immediately go on a hike or camp in the Berkshires or something as a sort of bonding experience. So from that perspective he’d no doubt love it.

Re: sports – I got the sense that the campus is certainly a rather athletic one. They mention it a lot on the tour, and you have to take a PE class at some stage while you’re there I think or at least participate in a sport maybe? (Someone please correct me if I’m wrong) It’s not unlike at MIT where you have to prove athletic ability in some capacity by swimming or something. I don’t think it means that non-sports people would be left out or feel unwelcome or what have you, but I have heard stories of sporty people dominating some corners of campus social life, so that was also a slight deterrent for me. But it means the people on campus look pretty fit! Lots of good looking young girls and guys with brains to match lol.

He would experience no more sleep deprivation at Williams than at any other college. However, I would say don’t send him to Cornell though. That’s a stressful place to attend school for any major, and I would urge him to just focus on the wonderful, UNPARALLELED undergraduate offerings of a Williams or Amherst, and to a lesser degree Georgetown instead of Cornell. Perhaps this is controversial, but I always tell people to choose the other school if its between that and Cornell unless they’re hell bent on going. I just know too many people there who are unhappy and are convinced that chronic stress and suicidal thoughts are normal for everyone at college, which they are NOT! Some degree of stress is, of course, but when people are literally throwing themselves off cliffs to end their life of pre-med coursework, you really have to evaluate and ask yourself what’s worth an ivy degree. Just my two cents painted with a broad brush.

I can recommend things more specifically to his major and academic interests if you clarify them, but that’s my general overview as a huge fan of Williams who almost took the wonderful offer of attending there.

3

I attended Williams. I am completely non-athletic. I had a wonderful time and never felt in any way that there was any exclusion or dominance by any group of people. To the contrary, interactions are very fluid within this warm community. It is easy to have a wide variety of friends with different interests and backgrounds. It begins in freshman year, when you are placed in an entry which is designed to be a microcosm of the college, and you get to know people from all walks of life.

I think college is easier for time management than high school because classes take up fewer hours of your day. You can plan the rest of your time. There is plenty of time for schoolwork and extracurricular activities and leisure/relaxation/socialization. I thought high school was much more hectic than college.

Yes, it is a remote mountain village. Personally, I prefer natural beauty to cities, so maybe that’s why I never felt isolated… I went to Williams undergrad and Columbia grad and preferred living in Williamstown to NYC. (I grew up on Long Island and live there now as well.) But certainly, the entertainment is primarily on campus, not off. But it is hard to imagine anyone ever feeling bored at Williams. There is so much to do (performances, speakers, trivia nights, hikes, etc.-- just look on their website for a typical weekly events schedule) and so much to think about and talk about.

4

Our son had only ever lived in big cities and was a bit surprised when Williams’ mountain village environment drew him in. Williamstown isn’t so much isolated as it is insular, which for my son turned out to be a strong positive. The close knit community – both students and faculty – and the constant bombardment of stimulus – intellectual, arts driven, political, social, active – keeps mind and body engaged. Students get to Boston or New York once or twice a semester either for a social event or part of an academic field trip.

My son and his close friends were not team athletes, but they took full advantage of the outdoorsy and arts activities that Williams abounds in. My son actually liked the natural beauty of the Berkshires so much, he chose Cornell for graduate school. He’s back in the city now, but considers his four years at Williams an idyllic time.

There seems to be a reasonable balance between academics, social life and outside interests. Williams students are serious, but not obsessive. For the most part, these are happy, smart, energetic, confident kids.

Some other points of differentiation that were important to my son: Winter Study, the Entry residence hall system, tutorials, the Outing Club.

5

Thank you, Senior2016M, TheGreyKing, and momrath for your thoughtful and thorough replies.

Some strong (and wittily expressed) opinions about Cornell, Senior! I hope you feel you made the right choice at your current school. It was evidently not an easy one. I appreciated your heartfelt affection for Williams.

Good to get the opinion of a confirmed nonjock, GreyKing. We’ve taken a look at the Williams calendar, and it is amazingly busy – 13 events today alone, for example.

Our son loves the tutorial format, momrath, and if he attends, plans to go even more deeply into it for a year at the Oxford program.

To anybody – do you feel you need a car to survive at Williams?

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I often come to the defense of Williamstown here and I really think it is underrated / underappreciated on the first few vists. First of all, there are always, as you note, a ton of campus events, whether they be outside performers or speakers (and it helps that there is a world-class theater facility on campus to host/attract them) or student-run activities. In any given week, there are loads of things to do outside of your core academic and extracurricular load (which does keep you fairly busy most days).

But turning to the town itself, there are a huge array of spectacular outdoors activities near campus, hiking, golfing, skiing, exploring the woods, etc. And Williamstown and neighboring North Adams are arts meccas to rival any mid-sized city – for starters, you have The Clark and MassMoca, which is about to double in size to become (I think) the largest contemporary art museum in the world and which hosts a ton of great music fesitvals (eg the Freshgrass festival each September) and concerts and other events throughout the year; that is a huge asset to have a ten minute drive away. Williamstown’s commercial district, while small, is not without its high points, including a great independent movie theater, three bars (including the gorgeous college-owned Log), and a slew of restaurants to choose from at various price points. It’s not an urban area, no doubt about it, but you also most certainly won’t be bored out of your skull, not even close. And if you do happen to need a change of scenery, which is nice from time to time, Boston and New York are both very accessible at 3.5 hours away, Montreal 5, so it’s easy to get off campus for the occasional weekend trip if you want a taste of urban life. And I do think Williams offers a lot to compensate for the relatively limited offerings in town – you have a tremendous student center in Paresky that has a great snack bar and lower-level pub, plus a second gorgeous student center in Goodrich, one of the best college libraries in the country, and the aforementioned Log – other liberal arts schools of a similar size (including Amherst) don’t have anything close to that array of appealing on-campus to spend time at.

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Thanks Ephman, for the vigorous defense of Williamstown. I didn’t realize Montreal was so close! Do you feel you need a car to get around the general area?

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Senior2016M, our son’s major will probably be global studies. He may not be enough of an econ guy for the political economy interdisciplinary major.

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I think Georgetown and Williams would be my choices for that major. It then comes down to Williamstown vs DC. Visiting is the only way to assess! Had I not visited Williams and Vanderbilt and been forced to choose on paper, I would have chosen Williams. But visiting made me realize the environment I needed for college, and swung it the other way. So without visiting it’s hard to say which will TRULY fit your son best. Good luck though! No wrong decisions here. Williams, Georgetown and Amherst are three AMAZING schools to have as options for undergrad!

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I would second @Ephman’s defense of Williamstown. It’s really a country village, but still it has everything you need on a day to day basis – a few student oriented restaurants, a couple of bars, a movie theater, a drugstore, a cleaners, a convenience store and some other odds and ends.

Williams itself has two wonderful art museums and MassMoCA as mentioned is quite near. The Berkshires are actually a sophisticated weekend playground for people from Boston and New York with plenty of opportunities to enjoy both nature and the arts. The performing arts venues – Theater in Williamstown and Lennox, music at Tanglewood, dance at Jacob’s Pillow – are mostly summertime affairs, but their influence runs deep in the Williams community. And there are some very good restaurants in the area surrounding Williams (when someone else is picking up the tab).

My son never had a car at Williams. Enough of his friends did so it was no problem to tag along for trips to North Adams for MassMoCA and restaurants, shopping trips to nearby malls and other excursions. Bus routes are available for longer trips to New York, Boston and Montreal and the various airports. There’s plenty of ride sharing.

The Global Studies concentration draws on so much that Williams excels at. The various tracks offer a good deal of academic diversity and customization. Even though the Center for Development Economics is a graduate program, it’s influence rubs off.

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