Help with Decision - Hamilton College vs URichmond

You might consider a few aspects:

Your daughter got into Hamilton. Hamilton’s selectivity rank in U.S. News places it tied for 5th within the National Liberal Arts category, with Williams and Swarthmore. By comparison, URichmond placed tied for 28th, with Denison and a few other colleges. By this standard, this represents a greater separation than general rankings suggest.

A Hamilton education combined with its career services evidently produces excellent results. By information available through U.S. News, Hamilton grads earn more than UR grads in early career salaries. For further context, Hamilton grads earn the most from any of the 10 NESCAC LACs.

Subjectively, Hamilton offers an especially intellectual environment for those who seek it. A new Hamilton professor contrasted Hamilton with Stanford, but facets of this might apply to UR as well:

                 — — —

The above said, I don’t especially recommend Hamilton to students without wide academic interests. While Hamilton offers superb departments in economics, math and CS, it truly shines for students who seek to explore diverse academic areas beyond their major(s), such as literature, classics, political theory (government/sociology), geosciences and astronomy, as well as for those who might want to, say, learn to draw, write short fiction, or acquire a new language.

If you would like supporting sources for any of the above, let me know.

1 Like