Middlebury vs Williams

tk21769
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:01:58 +0000

Since the academics at Williams and Midd are so great, I’d hate to write them off simply because I’m not into sports. Would I find a place at either of these schools?



Yes, probably, but you really ought to explore other options as well.

We found that the social life and meals at Middlebury did seem fairly dominated by sports and sport-centered cliques. I would expect Williams, if anything, to be more so. Don’t take my word for it. By all means visit and see for yourself, just in case our impressions were influenced by something specific to our experience.

However, if your own recreational interests are more free-spirited than clubby, you might like other schools. Possibly a LAC out west such as Carleton, Colorado College, Whitman, or one of the Claremont schools. These cover a range of selectivity and geographic settings; they all offer very good to excellent academics.

Of course, many of the best schools in the country are concentrated in the Northeast. What turns me off a little is the common admissions concept of “crafting a class.” This social engineering approach has the advantage of assuring a diverse mix of campus activities (not just sports by any means). An apparent side-effect is to induce a lot of jockeying as each student tries to elbow his way into a niche and establish a brand identity. Maybe this accounts for the clubbiness we observed.

I’m partial to the quirky Chicago essays and Oxbridge interview questions (“What happens when you drop an ant?”), not extracurriculars, as a way to expose the special qualities an applicant, as a unique individual, brings to the academic community. Then let them figure out how to organize and entertain themselves. Not that anyone at Williams or Middlebury is going to hold a gun to your head to make you be a joiner, or ostracize you for being a free spirit. As I say, go visit!