@parentgeorgia I’ve found that what people see in schools is often a reflection of themselves and the filters they walk through life with - so I will give it a go with the caveat that this is through our family filter.
On one hand, you can view it as Hamilton sits left of Colgate and Colby, but not nearly as left as Wesleyan and Vassar. But what struck us is that Hamilton is really more of a melting pot of diverse individuals, with some students as right as Colgate and Colby and some as left as Wes and Vassar. Both Colgate and Colby were somewhat more homogeneous than Hamilton, quite a bit mainstream in the vibe of the students, and seemed less intellectual for intellectual sake. I know others on this board feel differently, but that stuck us pretty strongly. As I’ve ventured before I think this is also reflected in the architecture of the schools, with Colgate and Colby having very cohesive classic campus aesthetics and Hamilton reflecting that it is comprised of joining two schools with vastly different architecture. But I think there are plenty of right-leaning Hamilton kids, but there are perhaps more artsy kids at Hamilton than Colgate and Colby. I’ve heard one Colby student describe Colby as a school “where normal people go” and that rang true of our experience both of the students, the vibes, and the architecture. But coming from NYC we would use words such as suburban and mainstream instead of “normal”!
In general, I think Colby and Colgate are fairly similar in terms of their place the left/right spectrum, and it’s Hamilton that sits in the balanced middle.