Why Williams over Harvard, Yale, or Princeton?

Fida_10
Mon, 13 Mar 2006 00:50:58 +0000

I think the Dartmouth-Plan also makes a huge difference. Dartmouth has a slightly complicated term system, where they have 3 trimesters of 3 months each. You end up taking the same number of courses in total, but you do only 3 courses a term. What that means is that you hit the ground running, and often have very little time to study for exams towards the end. Opponents of th D-Plan complain that it doesn’t give profs time to go as indepth into a subject as they could have with a 4-month semester, and students sometimes feel rushed. Proponents say its good because it presents a challenge, and instead of feeling wound out at the end of 4 months, you can finish off your courses in 3, take a short break and return re-energized to attack 3 new courses.

Another feature of the D-Plan is that all students spend sophomore summer on campus. In turn, they can choose to “move around” the other terms. Effectively this means that they can choose to take 3 months off in winter or fall and work then, instead of vying with their own classmates for limited summer internship opportunities. If you’re not a big winter person, you can also get by spending only a single winter on campus during your 4 years at Dartmouth. However, you have to change housing EVERY 3 months, which I imagine is perfectly tiresome, and after sophomore summer, it’s unlikely that all your friends will ever be on campus at the same time. For me, that sort of defeats the purpose of a close-knit community, if people aren’t really together a lot you know?

As Hansel says, the Greek life also makes a big difference in campus environment. Dartmouth students are notorious for their “work hard, party harder” style…you’ll probably find a lot more drinking there than at Williams. That’s not to say that Dartmouth students don’t do alot of other things, and like Williams, they have many plays, movies, concerts and lectures going on each weekend, but I believe the focus of Williams’ social life is more on these things - and weekend games - than at D. Besides, I’ve always felt that fraternities and sororities reduce the inclusiveness of campus, because they’re selective (although there is one frat at Dartmouth that is open for all to join…when my tour guide told me that, I said “aah, for the people who are rejected by the frats they wanted to get into” and he laughed but didn’t correct me, so I assume that’s at least partially true).

Plus, size does matter. Dartmouth has a little more than double the number of students than Williams. That means bigger lecture and seminar classes, more TAs, and coupled with the strong Greek system, a more segmented community. At Williams, you’ll get a lot more personal attention from your profs. Your largest lecture class will probably be 100-120 (and that’s only for really popular courses like Econ101), seminars about 8-40, and you even have tutorials where it’ll be just you, another student and a professor.

Another extremely important factor is Williams’ Winter Study programme. One month, in the middle of winter, when you have to do a single class (that too on a pass/fail grading system) and all your friends are on campus = a FANTASTIC time. Besides, the Winter Study courses are really interesting. You can do stuff that you might otherwise never have studied…courses range from Glassblowing, to Astronomy and English, to a study of Heavy Metal, to Food Culture in art and film, to archaeological digs in Armenia…the possibilites are endless. The Williams course catalog is available on the Williams website (www.williams.edu) and has a list of Winter Study courses, plus you can see descriptions of lectures and seminars with class sizes etc. You can also go check out Ephman’s great post on the “Williams vs. Amherst” thread in this forum.
Sorry I don’t have exact links :(

Plus Williams has mountains. And Mountain Day, which is a random friday in October when classes are cancelled by all the bells on campus simultaneously ringing “The Mountain” song, and everyone goes up into the Berkshires to enjoy the spectacular autumn colours. People can sleep the whole day, hike, bike, or just walk up, and sometimes, I hear they even have mountain-top choir performances.

Not to mention the great Williams at Oxford programme where those of us, who, like Gavroche, wish we could have applied to Oxford, can take our financial aid packages to Oxford and spend junior year there, collecting full credit on courses while participating in almost all campus activities like any regular Oxford student.

I could go on and on, but it really just comes down to personal preference. I fell in love with Williams when I visited the campus - it just has an amazing openness, friendliness and warmth that hit me instantly. And while Dartmouth was nice, it just didn’t strike me the way Williams had. I suggest you visit both schools - both are superb academically but they have different vibes, and you can try out which one is a better fit for you.

I hope that helps.