We did Spring Break trip for D27 to the five-college consortium in Western Mass. She didn’t go in with any kind of list, so there isn’t so much up/down/off, just impressions. Out goal was to (a) let D27 see a different region of the country, and (b) show her a few different kinds of schools so she can start thinking through what she wants in a college. We toured four of the five consortium schools.
UMass Amherst: The first school we toured, and D27 really liked it (until she saw the other schools). From my perspective, a great school. The campus was really beautiful but also seemed easy to navigate. I’m a sucker for a good library, and Umass’s is amazing. The tour was fairly scripted (and inflexible; our guide spent 15 minutes talking about study abroad as we absolutely froze in a wind tunnel outside, and at no point did it occur to her to move our group somewhere more protected), but it was also super informative. D27 was impressed by the sheer amount of resources available on campus, but once she’d seen all four schools this sunk to the bottom of her list. She wants a smaller school.
Hampshire College: Oh, this school. If D27 had had a list, this would have shot straight to the top. We had three tour guides, each of whom openly loves Hampshire. The info session was incredibly inspiring – it’s clear that this school sees itself as nurturing world-changers, and takes that very seriously. A theme that repeated throughout the tour was “a student/group of students thought the campus should have this, so they went ahead and created it..” The campus center was designed by an architectural student as his senior project.
The campus is incredibly quiet; it’s set on a farm so it seems very still. But town is just a few minutes away, and we did see several groups of kids hanging out around campus. And one nice thing that I noticed was that our tour guides greeted every student we saw by name (perhaps normal in a school this tiny, but still a nice thing).
If it weren’t part of the Consortium, I’d worry about sending my kid to a school with fewer than 1k students, but that access to four other schools really helps (according to our guides, most Hampshire students take advantage of the Consortium for classes and extracurriculars). It’s also pretty clear that Hampshire is a school for a very particular kind of kid – someone who craves structure might struggle there, I think. D27 walked away musing about whether she’s self-directed enough to thrive at Hampshire, but in a “I want to be that kind of person” way, not a “this isn’t for me” way.
Smith College: Gorgeous campus, but I think this is where the tour guide makes a difference. Ours was very serious and studious (in fairness, we chose her – the school had six or seven tour guides introduce themselves then we could choose one to tour with. Ours had just returned from study abroad and we wanted to hear more about it). I found the school’s vibe energizing, but D27 thought it was too intense. One thing I disliked is that our guide seemed a tiny bit snotty when talking about the Consortium. According to her, few Smithies (less than 30%) take advantage of the other campuses because they have everything they’re interested in at Smith. Lots of students around campus, but we didn’t notice many socializing, and the campus center – billed as the social hub of campus – was a relative ghost town.
Mount Holyoke: This ended up being D27’s second-favorite school of the four. We had a 1:1 tour, and our guide was very relaxed and down to earth. D27 got the impression that MH is more balanced than Smith, with extracurriculars given equal weight with classes. I could have done with fewer “if you do this/don’t do this, you won’t graduate on time” traditions (does any school need more than one?), but it didn’t seem to bother my kid. I liked seeing groups of students walking together and hanging out in the academic buildings/library – it seemed very friendly.
Overall, C27 learned that she likes SLACs and is worried about getting lost at a much larger school. I learned I’d be happy to send her to any one of the schools we toured, and that I absolutely adore the idea of the consortium.