Hamilton College Top Questions

The College is small, the academics tend to be challenging, and the community is extremely tightly-knit. Students are busy, often involved with seven days' worth of extracurricular activities and obligations, and relationships between faculty members and students are quite close.

People rave about the Hamilton Community. The praise is warranted. I love it there. I have one more year to go, and I'm going to miss the place afterwards. Hamilton is small and, with very little effort, you can get to know many people very well. Personally, I really love the food service at Hamilton. Whenever people visit me at school, and if we go to one of the dining halls, they usually remark at how much better our options are than at their school. I am kind of a health nut, and the food meets and surpasses my standards everyday. You probably shouldn't pick a school because it has great food, but you may want to avoid school's with shitty food. It makes a difference.

I know it sounds cliché, but Hamilton truly is a community of its own. The campus is small, the town of Clinton at the bottom of the Hill is adorable but there isn't much to do for college kids, and so most students stay on campus every weekend which helps create a really closeknit atmosphere. There are always familiar faces on your stroll to class or the dining halls. Professors know not just your name, but you personally. Sports teams cheer each other on at games, attend each other's parties. At Hamilton, everyone is on a first-name-basis. The Administration is insanely helpful. They will bend over backwards to make your life easier. I once received an internship opportunity past the internship scholarship deadline, and one of my professors worked with the administration to obtain a research grant for me to make it possible. Incredible! The Campus Police are also very accommodating, surprisingly. I'll always remember hanging outside late at night the first night of one of the school breaks after most of the campus had emptied out. My friends and I were approached by Campus Police and were expecting to be told to go back to our dorms. Instead, they asked us if we were cold, and then opened one of the closed campus buildings for us to hang out in instead. It was 4AM!

The best thing about Hamilton is the study body by far! From the minute you step on campus people smile and say hello and welcome newcomers. Maybe it is the small size but at Hamilton you really feel like you are part of something. The professors know everyone's name by the second week of classes, the women who work in the dining halls share personal stories and bring in pictures of their kids for students to look at and the staff are more than willing to help any student in need. Location wise, Hamilton is in the middle of nowhere and there is really nothing to do in town if you don't want to hit one of the two bars. On campus Hamilton shells out a shitload of cash to bring in big bands - Eve 6, Gym Class Heroes, and Ingrid Michaelson to name a few. We may not be good at sports but people come out to support our football team in the fall, hockey in the winer, and our NCAA Div III Champion women's lacrosse team.

It's a small place, which has it's ups and downs. The bummer is that you seem to know everyone on campus, the good part is that it isn't at all overwhelming. What you need to know is our campus is segregated: Light Side and Dark Side. The dark side is everyone who doesn't wear a polo shirt and madras shorts and listen to Bruce Springsteen or Journey or Dave Matthews on a regular basis. The light side is everyone who does that.

Hamilton College can really be whatever you make of it. If you choose to limit yourself, it can feel like the smallest campus on earth, but if you extend yourself it can feel like there is always a new person to meet and a new club to join. When I tell people that I go to Hamilton they either smile and say "wow that is so great, blah blah blah I know someone who went there, I went there ect." OR they look at you like you are dumb and go to some special school for idiots and go "ohhh...that's so great..." Overall, we like to refer to Hamilton as resort Hamilton. For the most part, students are on a 21 meal plan with several great dining halls serving whatever you ask for, and a completely vegan hippie station that is to die for, a diner open until 5am Thursday-Saturday that serves amazing breakfast sandwiches to drunks (they are included in the meal plan) and a pub on campus. There is definitely a lot of academic pride at Hamilton, doing poorly and not caring about your studies is really looked down upon. As far as sports teams go, if a team is good and made up of cool people they get a lot of support. If they are not good, and the people are jerks, no one could care less. For the most part people stay on campus to party, but older students take our free jitney down to the bars and back which are full of Hamilton students.

professors are great- approachable, reasonable, good to converse with, etc. small class size is amazing no core curriculum is excellent, can take what interests you no matter what great music department Clinton is very tiny college town, 2 bars on college street are very highly attended though great parties at Hamilton for entire campus.

Hamilton has nothing around it which means that the extracurricular activities of a Hamilton student involves alcohol, drugs and sports. I do not mean for this to be a negative portrayal of the school, but in reality the majority of the Hamilton population enjoys partaking in these activities. Nonetheless, there are still many other events available for those students whom to do want to drink or participate in IM or varsity sports.

I love the size of Hamilton. It's about 1,800 students. Some people would find this too small, but I wanted a community campus where I would see people I know or recognize every day. I wanted small classes where I could develop relationships with my professors and have in-depth discussions and debates during class periods. I have certainly found everything I was looking for and more. Hamilton was my first-choice school and I'm thrilled to be a student. They also have an interesting program for a select group of freshmen. I was one of them: a January Admit. My year, about 28 of the "Jans" went to Ireland and 5 did their own things (like take night classes at Harvard or journey through South America). It was such a fantastic experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. I formed such close bonds with my fellow Jans in Ireland and I'm still close friends with most of them today.

Bottom line, you have to love snow. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do in the area outside campus, so you go on hikes in the "Glen" or cross country ski or just drink hot chocolate and watch movies. There's always stuff going on, like concerts and speakers. The campus and administration are very interested in bringing entertainment to us, since there's nothing around.