Williams College — Attraction in Williamstown

I studied at Amherst College (Williams's "sister" college) while I was attending Hampshire College in the Five College Consortium down in the Amherst/Northampton area. Although I wasn't particularly fond of taking classes (nor of hanging out socially) at Amherst, I did it to propel myself into grad school at the Ivy League level -- I "worked" the consortium's "system." 🤣

I actually did give Williams a look back when I was initially applying to colleges, and I liked Williams more than I liked Amherst (Amherst was a VERY "preppy & upper crusty future yuppie of America" kind of campus): Williams was a little quirkier in it's campus culture and was more artistic than Amherst was, and it's campus was FAR more interesting.

Williamstown itself is a beautiful, charming college town (though not nearly as interesting as the Amherst/Northampton area is) and The Berkshires are really a STUNNING backdrop to the campus. I think if you had put Hampshire in the Berkshires, (where Williams is) you would have had my ultimate "dream" college, although you would lose all the combined academic strengths and resources of the consortium. 👍

As a Theater student, the Williamstown Theater 🎭 Festival was also a HUGE salient reason for me to consider attending Williams. In the end, I did not even end up applying to Williams, as I was pretty confident that I would NOT get in there. Williams was also a little too: "traditional" a college for me in both the social/academic senses as well.

Williams (and Williamstown) were both a little isolated for me though (I preferred the Five Colleges & the Amherst/Northampton area which was a little less "remote") but I've visited Williamstown multiple times, and spent a GREAT DEAL of time ⛷️🏂in the Berkshires themselves. I also had applied to MCLA in North Adams as one of my "safety" colleges, so I was interested in the possibility of attending college in the area at any rate.

The Summer after I graduated from Hampshire (I'd been living in downtown Northampton) I had the fortunate opportunity to work as an intern for the Williamstown Theater 🎭 Festival. This was a GREAT opportunity (and it looked good for my academic resume as I was about to start grad school in the Fall) and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed the experience.

Williams does really have FANTASTIC theater facilities, and the Festival itselfl is a VERY cultural and vital part of Williamstown's reputation as a summer theater...

Just visited. I spent three days on campus with a host student. It was really great. The people were amazingly nice, always helpful. There's a lot of diversity on campus on every level and the classes are wonderful. I always had this image in my mind of a large lecture-style class where everyone is on laptops scrambling to copy down whatever their prof is saying and that's just not the case here. The classes are really small, with like 8-12 students being average. A few entry-level courses are the exception. You'll get a lot of one on one time with the teachers here, which I like. The food is pretty good, I especially like the sandwich-making stations in Mission and Driscoll dining halls, as well as the always-there cereal. Paresky's snack bar was also quite appealing, as they serve breakfast foods, smoothies, shakes, and nachos after dark. The campus is gorgeous, there are no pictures that do it justice. If you have the opportunity to visit, I'd highly recommend it. The administration went above and beyond to make both prospective students and parents feel welcome in every way. They even sent us back to the airport with snacks for the trip. If you're considering Williams as an option, you're in...

Williams is not nearly as well known as the other top East Coast colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, Brown etc, probably because it is a lot smaller and doesn't have a graduate school (except for a couple of programs), but it offers the same quality of undergraduate education, and may even surpass them in some areas. It was ranked #1 college in the USA by Forbes magazine in 2014 (Stanford was #2). These rankings are always a little suspicious, but they are usually not way off. The top spot may be partly due to including the starting salary of graduates in the ranking.

My daughter picked it for these reasons:

high quality of education small classes no fraternities/sororities not having graduate programs (so the faculty cannot favor grad students when choosing student collaborators) remote (and beautiful) location, so fewer distractions outside classes East Coast (we live in California and she wanted to be exposed to a different cultural environment)

She's been there only a couple of months but so far everything matches or exceeds her...