<p>I’m curious about what these schools are about, and particularly, how the three LACs distinguish themselves from one another:</p>
<p>Wesleyan, Amherst, Pomona, Tufts</p>
<p>What sort of people would belong at each of these schools? If location were not a factor, which school would you choose, and why?</p>
<p>These might be stereotypes, but I’ve found them to be true for nearly all the students I know at these schools.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is super liberal both politically and socially. A strong activist and hipster vibe.
Amherst is much more moderate, just as politically aware as Wes but less activist-y, more of a ‘traditional’ college experience socially (more emphasis on parties and drinking than Wes, which has a better music scene).</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about the others, sorry.</p>
<p>Tufts is bigger and with more sub-divisions; people tend to identify more with their field of study than with any overall school stereotype.</p>
<p>Pomona - difficult to distinguish it in any significant way.</p>
<p>I took classes at Tufts. I was mostly interacting with the grad students, but I did interact with some of the undergrads, read the campus paper, and so on, trying to get a feel for the culture. My impression of the undergrads as a whole - obviously there were subcultures and such - was that they were liberal, mostly upper-middle-class or wealthy, a little naive, interested in the world (lots of international affairs types), friendly, politically aware, altruistic, and mostly white (the last of those, at the very least, being less true for the engineering students).</p>
<p>Someone in another thread cited this bloomberg.com article that featured Tufts President Bacow and it reminded me of other bloomberg.com articles over the years:</p>
<p>tufts - [Tufts</a> Says Wealthy College Endowments Should Take Less Risk - Bloomberg.com](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)
amherst - [Amherst</a> Students Donate $70,000 to Assist in Financial Crisis - Bloomberg.com](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)
wesleyan - [Obama</a> Provides Wesleyan Recognition Beyond Belichick (Update1) - Bloomberg.com](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>It sounds like Tufts doesn’t have a strong sense of community. Would this be true even if I weren’t comparing it with LACs? I’m trying to cut down on the number of schools I’m applying to, and this has been pretty helpful so far. :-)</p>
<p>it’s hard to get a complete handle on 10,000 students, over half of whom are undergraduates, particularly at a place like Tufts. In terms of community, it’s probably on a par with any other college located in a metropolitan area; a lot of the social life takes place a short distance off-campus. But, I wouldn’t call it a Tufts “bubble” the way there are at LACs.</p>