Williams vs. Amherst vs. Columbia vs. Yale

Ephman
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 17:52:53 +0000

A few different responses:

1. I would not base your decision on perceived likelihood of getting into Yale Law. First, Yale, and all other top law schools, are acutely aware of relative grade inflation at each school, and will discount inflated grades accordingly. In all events, the odds of getting into Yale Law are extremely low from anywhere, and it is, honestly, not a great idea to set yourself up for failure by focusing so narrowly on just one law school among many others that provide an equivalent education and equivalent opportunities (I saw this as an alum of one of Yale's competitors who has had exactly the career path he wanted and has peers from a wide variety of law schools, Yale included, without any perceivable difference among them). Plus, you are going to need over 170 LSAT and over a 3.7 gpa from anywhere, at a bare mininum, to be competitive for YLS, and neither of those is a guarantee for ANYONE four years ahead of the fact. If you go to any of these four schools, do reasonably well on the LSAT, and get above average grades, you will have a great shot at getting into multiple top-10 law schools, and the differences among the top ten are not significant enough to worth caring about at this stage of the game. Williams I know sends kids to YLS every year so it's certainly possible, but of course, you need to have stellar grades (including if you graduate from Yale).

2. Going into politics is more about who you are as a person than your alma mater -- tons of members of Congress are from totally anonymous schools. That being said, Williams certainly has a large number of prominent alums who are currently or have thrived in politics, including current Senator Murphy (as noted above), recent Senator Mark Udall, Mass AG Martha Coakley, former mayors of Boston, Seattle and other major cities, and a slew of former Governors, Congressmen, etc. (and of course one former US President). Just look at the Wikipedia page on Williams alumni. Same goes for any of these schools -- none are an impediment to success in politics, but none are remotely a guarantee of success, either.

3. Most people choose HYPS (not other ivies, where it's more even) over W/A because most people, especially high achievers in high school, are overly concerned with prestige among their peers, parents, and so on. I promise you, however, that in terms of getting into top grad schools or for any career path you could choose, it won't matter which school you choose among their group -- your peers will be equally smart and talented, the alumni are equally accomplished, and the degree is equally well-regarded, and I'd say the education you get at W/A is better. But it's true, coming from the west coast outside of a small cader of private or elite public schools, no one will have heard of Williams or Amherst, in terms of the average person on the street. The fact that student who that would bother instead choose to go to an Ivy league school to me is actually a big advantage in terms of the composition of the student body at liberal arts schools-- they are there because of a genuine passion for learning, rather than just to get a name on a piece of paper (at least to a relative degree, there are always plenty of paper-stamp types at any school, of course)!

4. In short, go where you'd be happiest, as you'll make the most of your experience if you are focused on maximizing the current undergrad experience rather than always looking ahead to what's next. There is simply no wrong choice for your future among schools like these.