Visiting Middlebury College and Amherst College: 5 Lessons Learned About Choosing a College, Continued… August 19, 2009
Paul Partridge on What I Did On My Summer Vacation.
We were on our way to Bolton, MA from Vermont, so we decided to take a second detour, this time to the college town of Northampton, Massachusetts, home to five colleges: University of Massachusetts, Mt. Holyoke, Smith College, Hampshire College, and Amherst College.
Because we were a little short on time, we decided to focus on Amherst College; we signed up for the general information session and a student-led tour.
The first thing I learned was that Amherst is pronounced ‘Amerst,’ with the ‘h’ silent. These Massachusetts colleges are tricky. For example Worcester, MA, the home of Holy Cross College, is pronounced Wuster, not Worchester. But I digress.
The next thing I learned is to never answer a question posed during the information session. Here’s what happened. As a way to try to get the families involved in the information, the admissions rep warned that there was going to be a quiz at the end of the talk. I thought I knew the answer to her first question, so I started to raise my hand.
Whack! My wife slapped my hand down abruptly.
“Why did you do that?”
“Emma doesn’t want you to say anything.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t want to draw attention.”
Evidently every other high school student there felt the same way, because there was total silence in the room, and not a hand in the air.
(When I shared this story later with my good friend, he remembered the same all-I-want-to-do-is-blend-in dynamic when his daughter was looking at colleges. His way to break the tension was to announce, “Ali Whitman’s Dad! I’m Ali Whitman’s Dad! She’s with me.”)
Next was the tour. Amherst College is the quintessential New England college campus. And on a picture perfect summer day, it’s difficult to image that any college setting could be more perfect than this. I must admit I’ve had that same feeling on several other college campuses, and each time the one consistent element was “picture perfect summer day.” This “warning sign” was confirmed when I talked to a Middlebury grad and an Amherst grad, who both described long, frigid walks between classes in the depths of February.
So LESSON THREE is the Four Seasons Rule. When looking at any college, remember that there are four seasons, and you are only seeing the school during one of them. As you get down to your final two or three choices, it’s probably a good idea to visit the school at least twice, during two different seasons, so you can get a more balanced idea of what it’s like to spend four years on campus.
As I mentioned yesterday, my daughter has been leaning towards attending a university rather than a college. Amherst has less than 1,800 students, which is smaller than her high school, so I know she was cool to the Amherst College idea.
That predisposition was quickly changed by the tour guide. Funny, cute and personable, he easily captured his core audience’s attention. One of the first things he mentioned was how Northampton was home to 30,000 college students, and how Amherst encouraged its students to take advantage of all five campuses. Any Amherst undergraduate is welcome to take any course offered at the University of Massachusetts, Mt. Holyoke, Smith College or Hampshire College, and vice versa. Collectively, there are 6,000 courses available. The course our tour guide was most looking forward to this fall is at Mt. Holyoke.
An active concert goer, he talked about how he had friends at each campus, and how when he wanted to see a show at UMass, he called his UMass friends, and when he wanted to see a show at Smith or Hampshire College, he called his friends there.
In his opening remarks, he had instantly transformed Amherst from a small, parochial campus, to the epicenter of a vast university system. And Emma was a buyer.
This tour guide was good. But it got me to wondering: If he hadn’t had been so cool, had not devoted so much of his talk to the opportunities outside of the Amherst experience, I wonder if Emma would have been so captivated.
So LESSON FOUR is, the tour guide wields undue power and influence. If you have a good one, s/he can make the college seem like the best place in the world. But you need to form your own opinion – separate and apart from the 20-year-old leading the tour, however charming s/he may be.
And LESSON FIVE is similarly related. Many families do the bulk of their college research by thumbing through the pages of college guidebooks such as U.S. News and the Fiske College Guide. No doubt, these are great resources. But don’t just stop at the surface facts and figures. Dig deeper, and maintain an open mind.
For example, if you just looked at the numbers, you might dismiss Amherst as too small. But when you factor in four other colleges, 28,000 other students and 5,000 more courses nearby, you start to think about the school in a different light. Important lesson.
