Gwen2310

I'm researching schools for someone who's going to apply next year so please tell me what makes Williams different from the rest of the liberal arts schools.

I also get the impression (from a few threads on CC) that many of those who go to Williams are athletes. Is that true?

Thanks everyone!

akamom98

My son is a freshman and most decidedly, is not an athlete! He's active, but does not play on a sports team. He says that everyone is physically active in some way and he has friends that are on sports teams and those that aren't. I think active and athletic are two different things...

We took our son to many different schools. He preferred Williams over all others for several reasons: the tutorial program, Oxford exchange, strength of the music department, entry system, academic rigor, and the chance to be surrounded by intellectual peers in an environment that just seemed to fit him. He is a very content freshman at this point. Williams has turned out to be all that he wanted!

mythmom

^^^^ Well said.

Williams celebrates gentle humor, for example it's purple cow mascot. It is left leaning but not aggressively PC as some other schools are. (This is good or bad according to ones values.)

It's been a haven for my S. He also went to Williams for the music program and then changed his major to Classics. He is finding the Classics Department wonderful, too.

He has been in plays, the orchestra and the chorus. He found it easy to be cast and easy to find a place. That's not always the case at some schools.

The music program is non-audition, so he liked that.

All the arts are really strong as are the sciences.

In HS he was not active at all. He spent all his time with his violin. Now he is a hiker and perhaps a budding skier. He did not organized sports, but does very much enjoy the outdoor environment of Williams.

He has gotten more interested in art with the two art museums on campus, and is now taking art history. Sections often meet at one of the museums.

He loved his entry, and he loved having a single each year.

You will hear a lot about the sports/drinking environment at Williams but he did not find it oppressive or overwhelming at all. He isn't a drinker.

He has friends who are athletes and friends who are not. He did not find a big divide between the two groups.

All that said, the LAC's are like 37 flavors of ice cream. There similar but have slight variations. One can have several favorites. Williams was S's favorite, but he also applied to Vassar, Amherst, Wesleyan and Bard. I think he would have done well at all of them. His other two choices were U of Chicago and Brown, just to show you the range of options he had. He chose Williams from that array. Many students would choose differently.

The deciding factor was intangible. He just felt more comfortable there and more excited about his possibilities there. Looking at the list, with the exception of Bard, Williams is most set in Nature.

I don't know if this helps.

kkari

I personally don't play a sport either, but there are a lot of athletes on campus (only four of 22 people in my entry do not participate in a varsity or club sport). Because this is a small campus and we participate in many different sports, there is a need for athletes to fill those spots. However, since there are so many athletes, there is not a special or elitist athletic crowd, and there are especially no "dumb athletes". Everyone is incredibly smart and talented in other fields.