<p>In several threads about LACs, people mention the following:</p>
<p>“Middlebury doesn’t have the same bent as Brown, Vassar, Reed. Schools of the Middlebury ilk are more like Dartmouth, Williams, Colgate, Colby, Trinity; while ones of the Brown ilk are Wesleyan, Bates, Connecticut College.”</p>
<p>How are these two “strains” of liberal arts colleges different? My guess would be Middlebury and its ilk are more traditional whereas Brown, Vassar, Reed and so forth are more willing to be experimental.</p>
<p>All of these schools have liberal student bodies, but at schools like Wesleyan, Vassar, and Reed, you’ll find that the students are more vocal about their convictions, and their views may be more extreme than those of students at Middlebury, Williams, and Dartmouth. Which is not to say that there aren’t conservatives at Wesleyan and extreme liberals at Dartmouth–but in general, that’s the way the stereotypes have played out.</p>
<p>well speaking as someone who acknowledges that some students are likely to use “substances” while at college atleast occasionally- a very simple way of explaining the difference between colleges could be that some seem more like “pot” colleges ( Berkeley,Reed, Bard, Brown) and some are more “alcohol” colleges, ( Dartmouth, Colgate,Williams,Cornell)</p>
<p>Not that everyone does so- but that is one way I think about the difference. </p>
<p>On a whole, some schools seems to have a more affluent, more conservative student body, ( for an LAC)-, they are more likely to have Greeks ( Colgate and Bucknell for example), while schools like Reed and Carleton do not.
But from what I have heard , just because the student bodies at these types of schools vary, that does not mean that the * professors* at colleges like Colgate and Bucknell are necessarily more conservative, or even middle of the road.
My very conservative niece who attended Colgate and stayed to graduate summacumlaude, complained quite a bit about the perspective of her profs,feeling that they spoke too much about a “world view”.</p>
<p>( She majored in classics & chose not to attend the University of Washington, because one of their offerings was “women in antiquity”, everyone * knows* there * weren’t* any women in antiquity )</p>
<p>Williams contradicts the stereotype as it has both a very active sports scene and a very active arts scene. In fact it’s quite common to find kids who are both serious athletes AND serious artists, actors, dancers or musicians. </p>
<p>I feel that the characterization of preppy vs artsy is meaningless as today even the prep schools aren’t traditionally preppy any more and there’s a general homogenization of dress and cultural outlook across the country. As noted above just about every LAC has a predominately left-leaning faculty. The major difference I think is that at some the kids are all liberals; at some the conservatives, while still a minority, are represented.</p>
<p>I’d agree with the general comment that you could make a differentiation between drugs and alcohol though most are present to one degree or another at all colleges.</p>
<p>Of the schools mentioned by the OP:
</p>
<p>I think you could put some of these on one side of the cultural divide and some on the other, but for the most part there is an enormous amount of overlap in the middle range. </p>
<p>Students at Middlebury for example are extremely “crunchy” and at Conn College more mainstream. Williams as I noted has terrific arts programs, on a par with the schools thought of as “artsy” like Vassar and Brown. So, you have to be careful with categories. Visit, draw your own conclusions.</p>
<p>Huskem, I’d give the smart jocks and “love the outdoors year round” award to Colgate. Williams is probably the hardest of the top liberal arts colleges to categorize or describe.</p>
<p>If Swarthmore is your standard for “hardcore studious student body”, Williams is hardcore, but not that far.</p>
<p>If Oberlin & Vassar are your standard for liberal, artsy, ad non-conformist, Williams is liberal but not that far.</p>
<p>If Middlebury and Colgate are your great-out doorsy school, I’m mean Williams loves the mountains (& hikinh) but not in 365 day a year way tht Middlebury snowplays and Colgate rock climbs.</p>
<p>If Washington & Lee and Franklin & Marshall wwer your standard for partying and beers, Williams can party, but they don’t PARTY!</p>
<p>The comparisons could go on forever…Williams is an odd-ball that combines the best of all and some unfortunates.</p>
<p>I agree that Amherst is harder to characterize than Williams. Even though it’s smaller, it seems really diverse to me. I’ve never heard of F&M having a party reputation like Dartmouth, Colgate, Middlebury, Bowdoin before. W&L, I have.</p>
j/k</p>
)</p>