the Sam Jackson College Experience

all the exciting parts, none of the heavy debt burden

Apr 18, 2008 0

Yale vs. Williams, or, the importance of dialogue about college life

Yesterday, EphBlog challenged me and other Yalies to defend Yale against Williams and other small liberal arts colleges. We stepped up to the plate and demonstrated a lot of Yale’s merits which were previously unknown to a lot of the EphBlog audience; likewise I learned more about some of the advantages of Williams in greater detail.

My final conclusion was that more education and understanding would be better for everyone, since it became clear that both schools were great and had lots to offer and that it was in the best interests of students to find the place that is the best fit for them. (Also, a lot of David’s troubles seemed to stem from his assumption that Harvard = Yale, a common mistake!)

EphBlog is a great community which, as I have written before, convinced me to keep Williams on my college list for much longer than any other small LACs and much longer than really made sense given what I was actually looking for in a school. I find myself in a position where I really value a lot of the benefits of smaller liberal arts schools–intimate communities, lots of faculty interaction, and much more–but at the same time have a compelling need for the resources of a larger school. That’s why I was especially drawn to Yale–I thought it would help me bridge the divide between large and small schools, something of a happy compromise.

So, in the spirit of promoting discussion and communication, I am going to start a series where I discuss some of what Yale has to offer specifically compared to smaller schools, and how it compensates for some of its potential shortcomings in relation to them. Consider this part one, the introduction. Below is the first part of the original post that I wrote in response to David and others at EphBlog; it wasn’t completed and would have been very, very long but you can see the complete discussion at EphBlog.

The second post / first real post is available here: Yale vs. Small Liberal Arts Colleges: part 2 (Money Matters)

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Who is Sam Jackson?

photo headshot sam jacksonI'm currently a junior at Yale University and I've been blogging about college admissions and higher education marketing trends since I began my college application process in 2005. I now also write about my experience here at Yale. I just got back from studying abroad at Peking University this past Fall 2009 in Beijing, China! Click here to read my 'about' page.

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