Why doesn't Hamilton recieve as much public prestige as others?

denverdoughboy
Wed, 19 Dec 2012 00:12:18 +0000

I think Hamilton suffers from small size, small town, cold weather and being 5 hours from any major metro area (NYC or Boston). If you’re flying in from San Fran or Chicago, the closest airport is Utica, and you don’t get a whole lot of direct flights into there. That said, I think it’s an excellent school that has tried to emphasize writing across the curriculum and small classes, and it has an out-size reputation in New York, especially among employers. Funnily enough, I think the name Hamilton also has some influence over how the school is perceived. It is seen as less liberal and more republican because of the name (for example, the Fiske guide for years cheekily suggested that Hamilton was more republican than Jeffersonian). People don’t realize that it did away with the residential greek system many many years ago and I would surmise that the student body is just as liberal as any other northeast liberal arts college today. But sometimes perception begets reality.