Curious Kid

Hi! I'm an internation student! I know that Yale's more internationally renowned but I've heard that Williams offers a better undergraduate education, plus it is the top LAC in the US so it actually shares a similar level of prestige to the Ivy League. Any other comments about these two schools will be much appreciated! Thanks

posterX

Both are fantastic schools and offer a great preparation for any kind of career. However, while Yale is just as strong as Williams for undergraduate education, it offers many more resources. For example, Williams has some concerts and plays, but since Yale has the world's best music conservatory and best drama program (for graduate students as well as undergrads), it has thousands of free concerts every year and more than a dozen different theaters, with plays pretty much going on around the clock. Williams has fantastic laboratories and a library, but Yale is one of the best research institutions in the world and has one of the world's largest libraries. Williams has 20 history professors studying different areas, but Yale has over 100. The reason why Yale is still great for undergraduate education despite its size is in large part due to this unsurpassed ratio between resources and students - for example, a huge university such as Berkeley also has 90 or 100 history professors, but it has four times more students than Yale. Also, Yale has a "college" system that breaks the student body down into 12 groups, each of which is much smaller than the student body at Williams College.

There's a reason why David Brooks, the nation's most famous columnist (and a University of Chicago graduate) has written that Yale offers the best undergraduate education in America. It's probably also the reason why Yale is the nation's most selective college. It simply is unsurpassed in terms of what resources are available to each student.

dmw123

Disregard PosterX, on the whole. He touches on some valuable points, like resources available at Yale, but I'd be wary of any superlatives or unsupported figures that he uses. To him, Yale is the ne plus ultra of life, the universe, and everything. And it's not. But it's a darned good school.

The size of the school is a key difference between Yale and Williams. Williams only has around 2,000 students, if I remember correctly, and this small number is underscored by Williams's geographic remoteness. Williams is in the terrifically scenic, but terribly remote, Berkshire mountains, and so you're going to get awfully familiar with those 2,000 classmates of yours. Yale is a university of around 11,000 students, with 5,200 undergrads. I think this is a nice number - you may not. That's about individual preference. I do think that a larger undergraduate population allows for more niches (oftentimes at the expense of community - I don't think thats a problem at Yale though). I think at smaller schools it's easier for one culture to predominate - I've heard that Williams has something of a scholar-jock culture (my history teacher who was on the hockey team seemed to think so), though Fiske's guide to college tells me it's largely shaken that image.

When I was visiting Williams, I stayed at an astronomy professor's house (family friend, sorta) and that night he had a student come over to his house to drop off a paper and to have dessert with us (largely so I could pepper her with questions about Williams, I'm guessing). She seemed to really enjoy the place, for the record.

Those who have heard of Williams would likely put it on a par with HYP. It's a different type of environment, probably filled with more people concerned about their education than the prestige of their degrees. That being said, plenty of people, particularly outside the Northeast, have never heard of Williams. I don't think I need to tell you that it's international name recognition pales in comparison to Yale.

Goodluck with this whole process, Curious Kid - hope you end up somewhere you love!

Best,
DMW

zephyr151

"There's a reason why David Brooks, the nation's most famous columnist (and a University of Chicago graduate) has written that Yale offers the best undergraduate education in America."

David Brooks is not the nation's most famous columnist. Compare the sales of his books versus Thomas Friendman's. Got a citation for his statement?

GuitarManARS

That is kind of beside the point.....?

SonataX

How does book sales measure fame? Bill Clinton is more famous than Dr. Spock, but has sold less books.

jimbob1225

anyway dont start dumb args, back to the OPs question

OP, take everything said here with a large grain of salt. Go visit the 2 colleges and if that's not possible, talk to alums or current students

Wichika Warrior

If Bushy and Kerry could get into Yale so could you James