Williams vs. Wellesley

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My impression is that athletes at Williams College and at many SLACs are the happiest students and that social divides exist at many SLACs between athletes and non-athletes.

SLACs are great for two sport athletes. Isolation is countered by travel for competitions and close camaraderie among teammates.

Nope. My friends -- all non-athletes -- who are recent Williams grads and loved it have never cited this (or anything remotely like this) as an issue.

I'm not saying it's garbage, necessarily, but it does smack of someone casting about to try to find an overly simplistic (and inaccurate) way to categorize the differences between thousands of diverse colleges and universities out there.

Coupled with DCUM's chronic class paranoia that "they" -- the wealthier, the more gregarious, the more athletic -- are out there having more effortless fun than poor pressured DC who's been strategizing for college applications since turning 13.

Your friends may have loved their time at Williams, but also may have experienced or recognize the athlete/narp divide and just not cared for whatever reason. It is real at Williams, Amherst, Midd, etc. Don’t know about Wellesley.

I have heard kids carry on about this at other schools beyond a few nescacs. But it applies to all manner of cliques. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Some people will get out of their lax, theatre, track, computer science, etc. comfort zone and some will refuse.

Worth considering that a school where 40% of the kids are on intercollegiate teams might feel different than a school where 10% are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My impression is that athletes at Williams College and at many SLACs are the happiest students and that social divides exist at many SLACs between athletes and non-athletes.

SLACs are great for two sport athletes. Isolation is countered by travel for competitions and close camaraderie among teammates.

Nope. My friends -- all non-athletes -- who are recent Williams grads and loved it have never cited this (or anything remotely like this) as an issue.

I'm not saying it's garbage, necessarily, but it does smack of someone casting about to try to find an overly simplistic (and inaccurate) way to categorize the differences between thousands of diverse colleges and universities out there.

Coupled with DCUM's chronic class paranoia that "they" -- the wealthier, the more gregarious, the more athletic -- are out there having more effortless fun than poor pressured DC who's been strategizing for college applications since turning 13.

Your friends may have loved their time at Williams, but also may have experienced or recognize the athlete/narp divide and just not cared for whatever reason. It is real at Williams, Amherst, Midd, etc. Don’t know about Wellesley.

I have heard kids carry on about this at other schools beyond a few nescacs. But it applies to all manner of cliques. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Some people will get out of their lax, theatre, track, computer science, etc. comfort zone and some will refuse.

Worth considering that a school where 40% of the kids are on intercollegiate teams might feel different than a school where 10% are.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Middlebury College has a significantly larger student population than Williams College. More students/faculty/administrators, etc. can make a school feel less isolated.

Middlebury may be a little larger, but isolated actually means "not near to other places" - both in the dictionary, and in the context of PP's inquiry. Middlebury is indisputably more geographically isolated than Williams.

Also, the gap in size isn't that significant. It's about 500-600 students (in total, not per year). And Williams, despite having fewer students, in fact has a larger academic staff than Middlebury, per the Common Data Set.

If you don't have a car, Midd is better option just based on the town.

Williams alum here. Most students do not have cars, and you really don’t need one. The town has everything you need, there are enough friends with cars, etc. I was worried about feeling isolated as I had only ever lived in NYC and DC. It turned out to be the opposite as the town has everything you need, you can always go to Boston or nyc for a weekend if you need to, Bennington and other larger towns are nearby, etc. I liked the compact nature as it really allowed me to focus on academics and on campus social things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My impression is that athletes at Williams College and at many SLACs are the happiest students and that social divides exist at many SLACs between athletes and non-athletes.

SLACs are great for two sport athletes. Isolation is countered by travel for competitions and close camaraderie among teammates.

Nope. My friends -- all non-athletes -- who are recent Williams grads and loved it have never cited this (or anything remotely like this) as an issue.

I'm not saying it's garbage, necessarily, but it does smack of someone casting about to try to find an overly simplistic (and inaccurate) way to categorize the differences between thousands of diverse colleges and universities out there.

Coupled with DCUM's chronic class paranoia that "they" -- the wealthier, the more gregarious, the more athletic -- are out there having more effortless fun than poor pressured DC who's been strategizing for college applications since turning 13.

Your friends may have loved their time at Williams, but also may have experienced or recognize the athlete/narp divide and just not cared for whatever reason. It is real at Williams, Amherst, Midd, etc. Don’t know about Wellesley.

I have heard kids carry on about this at other schools beyond a few nescacs. But it applies to all manner of cliques. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Some people will get out of their lax, theatre, track, computer science, etc. comfort zone and some will refuse.

Worth considering that a school where 40% of the kids are on intercollegiate teams might feel different than a school where 10% are.

I think this divide exists at a lot of small schools. You have 750 kids playing sports in a population of under 2000, that's a divide. It becomes less obvious when the school is bigger. We looked at this when our oldest was touring small colleges. The athletes get some special treatments, its less noticeable at a larger school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My impression is that athletes at Williams College and at many SLACs are the happiest students and that social divides exist at many SLACs between athletes and non-athletes.

SLACs are great for two sport athletes. Isolation is countered by travel for competitions and close camaraderie among teammates.

Nope. My friends -- all non-athletes -- who are recent Williams grads and loved it have never cited this (or anything remotely like this) as an issue.

I'm not saying it's garbage, necessarily, but it does smack of someone casting about to try to find an overly simplistic (and inaccurate) way to categorize the differences between thousands of diverse colleges and universities out there.

Coupled with DCUM's chronic class paranoia that "they" -- the wealthier, the more gregarious, the more athletic -- are out there having more effortless fun than poor pressured DC who's been strategizing for college applications since turning 13.

Your friends may have loved their time at Williams, but also may have experienced or recognize the athlete/narp divide and just not cared for whatever reason. It is real at Williams, Amherst, Midd, etc. Don’t know about Wellesley.

I have heard kids carry on about this at other schools beyond a few nescacs. But it applies to all manner of cliques. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Some people will get out of their lax, theatre, track, computer science, etc. comfort zone and some will refuse.

Worth considering that a school where 40% of the kids are on intercollegiate teams might feel different than a school where 10% are.

Absolutely. I have a couple of non athletes at a small and medium schools and an athlete at a small school. They all have athletes as and non athletes as roomies and friends. But they also have both described certain roomies as being very insular to their teams and not wanting to engage outside of that group much at all...even with other athletes on other teams.

To me it seems more a function of the individual athlete and if there comfort zone can branch out from the team or not.

[Anonymous]

A student who is academically focused at either Williams or Wellesley will receive an excellent education. I do think, however, that the intensification of misogyny in the U.S., particularly as reflected by the recent overturning of R v W, means that women will be more empowered by attending a single-sex college than they will by attending a coed one, all else being equal. The student bodies at the two schools are roughly on par with one another:

Acceptance rate for the class of 2026:
Williams: 8%
Wellesley: 13%

Verbal SAT 25-75% ranges for the Class of 2025:
Williams: 720-770
Wellesley: 710-760

The overall discrepancy is mostly due to the well-documented gap on the math SAT section between the highest scoring boys and the highest scoring girls.

In response to an earlier poster who claimed that Wellesley attracts students from super wealthy *conservative* families, this statement is wrong: Wellesley's student body is overall quite liberal.
Also, I echo the poster who said that what other people think is not, in this context, a compelling reason to choose a college. If possible, the OP's daughter should visit both campuses to get a sense of where she would feel more at home for four years, but assuming that both schools offer one's intended major(s) and the projected debt load for both schools is comparable, one cannot go wrong in applying ED at either school.

[Anonymous]

There is absolutely nothing similar about these schools. Do you just like W’s? Very weird set to consider.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is absolutely nothing similar about these schools. Do you just like W’s? Very weird set to consider.

Are you joking? They're both among the highest ranking SLACs in most rankings, located in Massachusetts, have more of a preprofessional bent compared to other top SLACs with economics as their most popular major, are in the rare group of 20 or so schools with endowments of over 1 million dollar per student, attract very smart and dedicated students who value a liberal arts education, and have an incredibly tightknit alumni community. They have a lot more in common than they do differences...

[Anonymous]

Other than being elite liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts, they don't have a whole lot of similarities. You may want to have a more in-depth conversation about what your daughter really wants before making an ED choice. I preferred Swarthmore and Amherst to Williams based on location and my perception of their campus cultures but didn't seriously consider Wellesley and think I should have based on what I've seen in terms of their alumni support and networking. Ultimately, one year in western Mass ended up being more than enough for me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Other than being elite liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts, they don't have a whole lot of similarities. You may want to have a more in-depth conversation about what your daughter really wants before making an ED choice. I preferred Swarthmore and Amherst to Williams based on location and my perception of their campus cultures but didn't seriously consider Wellesley and think I should have based on what I've seen in terms of their alumni support and networking. Ultimately, one year in western Mass ended up being more than enough for me!

+1

Williamstown is quaint but limiting location wise if you don't want your full experience to be on campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Other than being elite liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts, they don't have a whole lot of similarities. You may want to have a more in-depth conversation about what your daughter really wants before making an ED choice. I preferred Swarthmore and Amherst to Williams based on location and my perception of their campus cultures but didn't seriously consider Wellesley and think I should have based on what I've seen in terms of their alumni support and networking. Ultimately, one year in western Mass ended up being more than enough for me!

While I'd agree that Swat and Amherst are more like Wellesley in terms of location and campus culture, I had classmates at Wellesley who had also liked, applied and were admitted to Williams (indeed, most Wellesley students also apply to coed schools, including universities; the one commonality shared by these schools is that they are amongst the most rigorous academic institutions in the U.S.). An intellectually curious, bright, hard-working student whose prospective major is fairly common at schools offering a liberal arts curriculum and who doesn't have strong preferences concerning the most obvious characteristics that distinguish the two schools from one another could be happy on either campus. Deciding whether to ED to Williams or to Wellesley is not the same as choosing whether to ED to Wellesley or to Washington & Lee, a notoriously conservative school with a pre-professional bent where the Confederate flag flew as recently as five years ago and where those who are not white, wealthy, hetero, "Xian" and patriarchally-minded are still routinely shut out from the frats and sororities that dominate the social scene on campus. And to be honest, in a world where a wide swath of the human population lives in a war zone or still doesn't have consistent access to nutritious food, running water or common vaccines, it is nothing less than a luxury to be able to choose a college based upon perceived fit, let alone on account of the kind of minutia that would separate Williams from Wellesley.

[Anonymous]

Wow—angry secular progressive attacking Washington & Lee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other than being elite liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts, they don't have a whole lot of similarities. You may want to have a more in-depth conversation about what your daughter really wants before making an ED choice. I preferred Swarthmore and Amherst to Williams based on location and my perception of their campus cultures but didn't seriously consider Wellesley and think I should have based on what I've seen in terms of their alumni support and networking. Ultimately, one year in western Mass ended up being more than enough for me!

While I'd agree that Swat and Amherst are more like Wellesley in terms of location and campus culture, I had classmates at Wellesley who had also liked, applied and were admitted to Williams (indeed, most Wellesley students also apply to coed schools, including universities; the one commonality shared by these schools is that they are amongst the most rigorous academic institutions in the U.S.). An intellectually curious, bright, hard-working student whose prospective major is fairly common at schools offering a liberal arts curriculum and who doesn't have strong preferences concerning the most obvious characteristics that distinguish the two schools from one another could be happy on either campus. Deciding whether to ED to Williams or to Wellesley is not the same as choosing whether to ED to Wellesley or to Washington & Lee, a notoriously conservative school with a pre-professional bent where the Confederate flag flew as recently as five years ago and where those who are not white, wealthy, hetero, "Xian" and patriarchally-minded are still routinely shut out from the frats and sororities that dominate the social scene on campus. And to be honest, in a world where a wide swath of the human population lives in a war zone or still doesn't have consistent access to nutritious food, running water or common vaccines, it is nothing less than a luxury to be able to choose a college based upon perceived fit, let alone on account of the kind of minutia that would separate Williams from Wellesley.

Take this nerd talk to the nerd forum, please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other than being elite liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts, they don't have a whole lot of similarities. You may want to have a more in-depth conversation about what your daughter really wants before making an ED choice. I preferred Swarthmore and Amherst to Williams based on location and my perception of their campus cultures but didn't seriously consider Wellesley and think I should have based on what I've seen in terms of their alumni support and networking. Ultimately, one year in western Mass ended up being more than enough for me!

While I'd agree that Swat and Amherst are more like Wellesley in terms of location and campus culture, I had classmates at Wellesley who had also liked, applied and were admitted to Williams (indeed, most Wellesley students also apply to coed schools, including universities; the one commonality shared by these schools is that they are amongst the most rigorous academic institutions in the U.S.). An intellectually curious, bright, hard-working student whose prospective major is fairly common at schools offering a liberal arts curriculum and who doesn't have strong preferences concerning the most obvious characteristics that distinguish the two schools from one another could be happy on either campus. Deciding whether to ED to Williams or to Wellesley is not the same as choosing whether to ED to Wellesley or to Washington & Lee, a notoriously conservative school with a pre-professional bent where the Confederate flag flew as recently as five years ago and where those who are not white, wealthy, hetero, "Xian" and patriarchally-minded are still routinely shut out from the frats and sororities that dominate the social scene on campus. And to be honest, in a world where a wide swath of the human population lives in a war zone or still doesn't have consistent access to nutritious food, running water or common vaccines, it is nothing less than a luxury to be able to choose a college based upon perceived fit, let alone on account of the kind of minutia that would separate Williams from Wellesley.

Take this nerd talk to the nerd forum, please.

Williams vs Wellesley? That is a nerd forum. Who do you think is accessing this level of elite colleges?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is absolutely nothing similar about these schools. Do you just like W’s? Very weird set to consider.

Are you joking? They're both among the highest ranking SLACs in most rankings, located in Massachusetts, have more of a preprofessional bent compared to other top SLACs with economics as their most popular major, are in the rare group of 20 or so schools with endowments of over 1 million dollar per student, attract very smart and dedicated students who value a liberal arts education, and have an incredibly tightknit alumni community. They have a lot more in common than they do differences...

And there student cultures are utterly and completely the opposite of each other. 🙄