Thoughts on Hampshire College

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They insist they’re not closing but c’mon. It’s a joke school.

Funny because DS gets mailers from them every few weeks

[Anonymous]

Very interesting institution with a proud history, but with serious financial problems: read the Chronicle of Higher Education for the narrative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I attended, also went to Columbia for grad school.

It’s everything DCUM hates: collaboration not competition, very little name recognition in corporate America, if your child is the right fit they will thrive, nobody goes to IB afterwards. Lots of counterculture and alternative kids. No “prestige”.

Your child must be VERY VERY self-directed to succeed. Actual dumb hippies crash out fast, you need to do real work. Nobody will hold your hand. You do not get a gold star or an A at the end, you must create your own meaning because you get narrative detailed evaluations for all work.

If your idea of rigor is memorize the book for the test and actually learn nothing, it’s not for you. You can’t succeed by grinding and being a good copycat, you must actually deliver original work and it will be judged fairly. It’s grad school style program for undergrad. It prepared me extremely well for professional degree in grad school.

Five College cooperation is easy and very useful, for most of my work I used the MHC and Amherst libraries because they had the materials I needed. Cross registration is a breeze, take whatever you want any time you want.

The school was in financial crisis a few years ago, but has stabilized.

Good to hear.

[Anonymous]

I attended Hampshire back in the 90's, and I'll say this about it: Hampshire is VERY quirky. It's a unique place. There's NO other college like it really, though a few come close (Antioch, Reed, Sarah Lawrence, Eugene Lang College of New School University, NYU/Gallatin School of Individual Studies, Bennington, Evergreen State, Prescott, Bard, New College of Florida) but none of them are fully equal to Hampshire.

SO, Hampshire is ACTUALLY the fully evolved experiential and experimental collegiate model of ALL the places I just listed that contain elements of what Hampshire ACTUALLY is in it's institutional totality.
Hampshire was also founded by some of the BEST institutions of higher education in this country. Amherst, Smith & Mt. Holyoke are all considered "Little Ivies" and are all EXTREMELY well-regarded and academically prestigious colleges. UMass/Amherst is also a top-tier research University, it's the flagship campus of the State University system and it's well-known globally. These other institutions get Hampshire graduates into Ivy League Graduate schools, myself included. I went to Yale for graduate school. It's true that in order to succeed at Hampshire you HAVE to be ambitious, driven, focused and self-motivated or you'll flunk out. Hampshire has more academic merit to it than meets the eye.

[Anonymous]

NYU Gallatin is not Hampshiresque in the slightest. It is the backdoor to lower Manhattan for a kid who can’t walk through the front door, and couldn’t be bothered with distribution requirements if they did.

Takes one to know one. ☝️

90s grad
NYU Gallatin School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Waiting for someone to say it’s hard to get a job on “the street” from there.

I hear it’s hard to get a job on the street from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Waiting for someone to say it’s hard to get a job on “the street” from there.

I hear it’s hard to get a job on the street from there.

I hear they beat people who say “The Street” there.

[Anonymous]

The Secret History by Donna Tartt (who is an alum) is a good summation of the types of creepy weirdos you'll find at Hampshire. See also: Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Secret History by Donna Tartt (who is an alum) is a good summation of the types of creepy weirdos you'll find at Hampshire. See also: Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis.

Oops, I was thinking of Bennington. But Hampshire is the same, minus the writing prestige.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Secret History by Donna Tartt (who is an alum) is a good summation of the types of creepy weirdos you'll find at Hampshire. See also: Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis.

Tartt and Ellis went to Benington, not Hampshire.

[Anonymous]

* Bennington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I attended, also went to Columbia for grad school.

It’s everything DCUM hates: collaboration not competition, very little name recognition in corporate America, if your child is the right fit they will thrive, nobody goes to IB afterwards. Lots of counterculture and alternative kids. No “prestige”.

Your child must be VERY VERY self-directed to succeed. Actual dumb hippies crash out fast, you need to do real work. Nobody will hold your hand. You do not get a gold star or an A at the end, you must create your own meaning because you get narrative detailed evaluations for all work.

If your idea of rigor is memorize the book for the test and actually learn nothing, it’s not for you. You can’t succeed by grinding and being a good copycat, you must actually deliver original work and it will be judged fairly. It’s grad school style program for undergrad. It prepared me extremely well for professional degree in grad school.

Five College cooperation is easy and very useful, for most of my work I used the MHC and Amherst libraries because they had the materials I needed. Cross registration is a breeze, take whatever you want any time you want.

The school was in financial crisis a few years ago, but has stabilized.

It is also very very expensive!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I attended, also went to Columbia for grad school.

It’s everything DCUM hates: collaboration not competition, very little name recognition in corporate America, if your child is the right fit they will thrive, nobody goes to IB afterwards. Lots of counterculture and alternative kids. No “prestige”.

Your child must be VERY VERY self-directed to succeed. Actual dumb hippies crash out fast, you need to do real work. Nobody will hold your hand. You do not get a gold star or an A at the end, you must create your own meaning because you get narrative detailed evaluations for all work.

If your idea of rigor is memorize the book for the test and actually learn nothing, it’s not for you. You can’t succeed by grinding and being a good copycat, you must actually deliver original work and it will be judged fairly. It’s grad school style program for undergrad. It prepared me extremely well for professional degree in grad school.

Five College cooperation is easy and very useful, for most of my work I used the MHC and Amherst libraries because they had the materials I needed. Cross registration is a breeze, take whatever you want any time you want.

The school was in financial crisis a few years ago, but has stabilized.

It is also very very expensive!

The Columbia grad student is one of two people who actually has useful things to say.

It's a school for a certain type of student. I went to a weird alternative high school and so several of our grads went to Hampshire. All are successful by typical metrics now, but they all had nontraditional career paths.

I visited my friend while she was attending and the facilities do, indeed, leave much to be desired.

[Anonymous]

This says it all...

https://youtu.be/oPAMALGDpQI?si=sW3KKVSh-r4SLVrk

[Anonymous]

We visited a couple of years ago and it was a hard no. The facilities are indeed in rough shape, except for the admission office building which is quite nice.

We were the ONLY ONES there for a tour. This was after a tour at Smith that was packed.

They didn't raise the financial issues but when questioned admitted that it took quite a toll on the college. A lot of professors left, they had 13 students (13!!!) in the first year class.