Middlebury vs William and Mary

NiceUnparticularMan
Thu, 01 May 2025 11:07:21 +0000

Between these two, I would think whether you want to be at a relatively isolated LAC or a midsize coastal research university would be the dominant factor.

Both are very good academically. Middlebury maybe has a slightly higher general reputation, but then William & Mary has a particularly good reputation in your areas of interest. So I very much agree, at this level what matters is what you choose to do and how well you do it, not which college you choose.

But then W&M has about 7100 undergrads and another 2800 postgrads. That is relatively undergrad focused for a research university (although W&M was just upgraded to an R1), but still Middlebury has about 2800 undergrads and no postgrads. That has a lot of potential implications, each of which can be a pro or con depending on you. Like, for example, Middlebury is a NESCAC member and that means a pretty substantial minority of students are a varsity athlete of some kind. Middlebury will have fewer large lecture classes, but typically less variety of upper level classes in a given field. And so on.

OK, then Middlebury is in a small town in rural Vermont. It is a lovely setting with nearby mountains for recreation, but it is pretty far from any major metropolitan areas.

W&M is in a relatively modest sized town, although a lot of people visit for local attractions, but it is not far from the local large coastal cities of Virginia, various beaches, and is in what I would consider to be the greater DC orbit.

And to me that would seem to be enough differences to form a preference over which four year college experience sounded the best to you. But I can’t tell you which to prefer, because that is a matter of personal preferences.