<p>Ehhh. I considered both Hampshire and Oberlin as a prospie – though Hampshire dropped off the list fairly early – and have a few friends who now go to Hampshire. I’ve never gotten the impression that Hampshire is academically inferior to Oberlin, just that they’re really different. (And I don’t think you can judge the academic quality of an entire school from a single class session.) Obviously Hampshire’s curriculum is much less structured, and different students respond to that in different ways. Some people have the motivation to create challenges for themselves and really thrive; others don’t have their limits pushed as much as they would under a curriculum like Oberlin’s.</p>
<p>It’s worth thinking seriously about how you would respond to a system that gives students a lot of individual initiative – and, if you know what you would want to major/concentrate in, what that would look like over the course of four years at Oberlin vs. at Hampshire. There are Hampshire-esque opportunities at Oberlin – you do at least three Winter Term projects, you can create an individual major, it’s really easy to set up a private reading, many students do some kind of senior capstone – but it’s not quite the same thing.</p>
<p>I don’t think I can comment about activism, unfortunately – I don’t know enough about the political scene at Hampshire to make a fair comparison.</p>
<p>As for the Jones Farm: it’s owned by the college but run by a group called the New Agrarian Center. Lots of students volunteer there, and they often hire student workers, especially over the summer. They also have a close relationship with dining operations on campus: OSCA sends compost there and has gotten produce there in the past, and I think CDS serves some Jones Farm veggies as well. I wish I had more time to spend there – I spent the Day of Service weeding their kale beds during first-year orientation and had a fantastic time :)</p>