<p>Thanks for your smart informed input on this Boondocks. My D also has Williams and Yale at the top of her (lengthy and thus far unedited) college list, although she is not so much torn between the two, as torn among the fifteen. She attended an overnight conference at Yale last June and was smitten. The way she describes standing in an old stone courtyard listening to the bells of Harkness Tower gives me goosebumps. Well almost. Next week she flies to Williams for 3 days on campus and I fear she will love it as much, albeit differently. Over the next two months she also has fly-ins to Bowdoin, Amherst and several others. It may seem odd to us old folk but I think an open-minded curious 17 year in love with a variety of experiences and the life of the mind can actually feel equally attracted to Yale and Williams or Chicago and Pomona or Swarthmore and … at least for my D she seems (at least so far) to see equal value in the very different benefits of a Yale or a Williams just as you describe those opposing qualities. Go with your gut doesn’t seem to work in her case, since her gut seems as indecisive as her brain. Maybe she doesn’t know herself well enough and will by next spring when options are real. Probably no wrong choices in these cases.</p>