<p>kwu, everybody knows it…</p>
<p>It’s a very good news for Middlebury that it can be #1 not in a century but in a decade…</p>
<p>My S1 seems to be learning modesty at Williams.
He says that Amherst is much better than Williams and that only a true genius can survive at swarthmore.</p>
<p>Re: #61 -
Everyone around here calls it “U Mass Amherst” so that the town name (and the college’s name by association) gets mentioned fairly often. Since the U Mass branch schools aren’t huge and aren’t well known out of state, I’ve always thought that convention was odd, but I do believe that it raises name recognition for all things “Amherst.”</p>
<p>You insulting UMass does not offend me personally, interesteddad, but I find your repeated disparaging use of the nickname “ZooMass” to be very snobbish and I would be embarrassed if my father acted this way. Many of my closest friends, and a few of my family members, have received great educations there. No, it isn’t as good as it could be, but it isn’t deserving of so much contempt either.</p>
<p>and ccfaithful, Amherst is “only number 2” in one college ranking, after US News changed its formula. Why should we care what the #5 national magazine has to say about us anyways? Pah!</p>
<p>On a serious note though, you’re really splitting hairs trying to make objective rankings between Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Pomona, Middlebury, and a handful of other schools.</p>
<p>^ I second you. There’s no point in ranking the very top schools. Mind you, it would be better if WAS(P) were no.1 on that ranking. But I guess, US News likes to make it as intriguing as it can get so that it can later spur these paltry discussions about who’s first, which admittedly sound as lousy and commonplace as arguing Harvard vs. Yale vs. Princeton.</p>
<p>Totally agree with the previous two posts. Of these top schools, go to whichever you’re lucky enough to get into or choose based on personal fit and you’re unlikely to go wrong.</p>
<p>Actually, I think this is true probably the top 40 LAC’s. Barnard rates 30 on USNWR (which is kind of cuckoo because Columbia is 9 on unis and D has taken 40% of her classes across the street – just how it worked out, and Columbia kids do the same) and her education has been every bit as rigorous as S’s at Williams, different, but just as rigorous. To my surprise Williams’ pedagogy is more creative, Barnard’s more academic. Both excellent and demanding.</p>
<p>The odds that anyone would turn down Williams or Amherst to go to Barnard are less than zero. Lists that try to determine 1 -5 are suspect. They can however get the difference between 1 and 30 right every time.</p>
<p>Well, you don’t have the experience I have so your position is just conjecture.</p>
<p>Your statistical sample of 1 is not sufficient to reach valid conclusions and your statements fly in the face of all independent reviews. You are of course entitled to any opinion you care to hold, but the op was asking about Williams vs Amherst.</p>
<p>unregistered, I was just joking…
I know how great Amherst is…</p>
<p>Without wanting to get into any arguments people often think that when they compare a #30 ranked school with a number #1 ranked school it is only with the thought that the #30 school should be held in higher regard. However many who post on these sites looking for information might take it the other way and come to think that Williams is not comparable to Amherst as 1 or 2 but more comparable to lesser regarded schools like Holy Cross or Bucknell. As for perspective my child at Williams has close friends at Holy Cross and Bucknell and none of them feel that those schools can hold a candle to Williams or Amherst.</p>
<p>icantfindaname, I go to Amherst and can think of a number of reasons why someone might chose Barnard over Amherst or Williams, such as a desire for a single-sex environment or really wanting to be in NYC. Saying that the odds that anyone would turn down Williams or Amherst for Barnard are “less than zero” strikes me as both wrong and needlessly elitist.</p>
<p>ccfaithful, no worries. I am always joking.</p>
<p>My d. turned down Williams (that recruited her heavily) for Smith. Better music program (especially medieval/Renaissance), Five-College Opera Consortium, much better and deeper language departments (especially in Italian) and better study abroad opportunities, paid research assistantship in her first two years (that she parlayed into a five-year graduate fellowship at Princeton), better town, better housing, and less drinking. </p>
<p>It really wasn’t a difficult decision.</p>
<p>Catfish. Single sex comp to Williams = Wellesley. Desire for New York = Columbia. This an old discussion where the Williams thread is used to market other schools by reference. When we visited Amherst last spring the lovely people in admissions suggested without any elitism or malice to the 100 or so gathered in the auditorium that there are a number of nice colleges nearby and that for most if not all in attendance those would be a more realistic opportunity. I did not find it insulting or elitist. There are many possible answers to the original post</p>
<p>“What is the biggest difference between Amherst and Williams?” but IMO Barnard is not among them.</p>
<p>
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<p>Does Williams really have more drinking than the Five College Consortium? I was always under the impression that the opposite was true.</p>
<p>Much, much more drinking than Smith. (UMass has a substantial drinking population. But Williams’ numbers, according to its won survey, is more than a standard deviation above the national median; Smith is more than a standard deviation below.)</p>
<p>I think women may be less inclined to turn to alcohol as a solution to stress and depression–and as a means to social ascendancy.</p>
<p>Barnard benefits from its location in New York City. It is overshadowed by Columbia in the same way that Swatdad argues that Amherst is overshadowed by UMass. One might be able to argue that Barnard is among the top of the womens’ colleges, but Smith and Wellesley win hands down if only on account of their traditional WASP elite background, i.e. prestige and tradition in addition to academic rigor.</p>
<p>Turning down one school to go to another is a personal choice; it does not mean therefore than the school turned down is inferior to the school chosen. Particularly if the school chosen is dissimilar in some profound way, as in women only. In that case there is no valid comparison. My child turned down Harvard to go to Williams; does that mean Williams is a superior school to Harvard? I guess in that case according to a sample of one student I can extrapolate that in fact Williams is indisputably superior and borrowing the legal concept of stare decisis, settled law, it will always be superior. Just think my child’s choice has proven for all time that Williams is the nation’s best college.</p>