Much differences in internship/job opportunities between Williams, Colby, and Hamilton?

Hello, currently I am deciding between the three schools to attend. I am pretty much set on these three schools unless I can get into Stanford( not interested in any Ivy.) So for Williams, I will have to pay around 18k a year including loans and work-study. Hamilton, about 6k. Colby, also about 6k but I have a presidential scholarship which allows me to do 10-week summer research each year for $3k as well as TA/RA during school year( I also don't have to work-study because of the scholarship.)

So basically, Williams is a target school for IB/Consulting but it is also the most expensive and the hardest to maintain high GPA. Hamilton tied for the cheapest, easy to get high GPA, and its trustee, David Solomon, is the COO and president of Goldman which mean GS will recruit a good amount at Hamilton. Colby is also tied for the cheapest and it will give me a lot of research/teaching experience in econ and other areas of study. Colby also used to have Bob Diamond from Barclays, but I am not sure if Barclay still heavily recruited at Colby. I also know for sure that I will not go into academia, so I don't know if RA/TA experience will help much in IB. I visited all the schools before, and they are all pretty similar in the social scene so I am not worry about fit.

Which one is my best option?

 
Best Response

From what I've seen, the recruiting dropoff between Amherst/Williams and the rest of the NESCAC is pretty steep. While Colby and Hamilton might have 1-2 big names in the industry, from what I've seen, Amherst and Williams have high-ranking alumni in literally every single bulge bracket bank, without exception. Also, econ research experience doesn't really matter for the job search. I'd strongly recommend going to Williams; an extra $12k a year isn't much in the grand scheme of things once you're making $100k/year upon graduation.

 

Agreed. OP it's up to you how you want to approach finances, but Williams is by far the best school. Have you tried reaching out to Williams' financial aid office? Say they're your top choice but other NESCAC schools are offering more and you'd like to understand the discrepancy or whatever.

Worked for me at a different top LAC and I think got at least an 8k bump / year (don't remember exactly anymore).

 

As a NESCAC alum, Williams is certainly worth the additional 12k. There is a drop-off between Amherst/Williams (this is from someone who did not go to A/W) and the rest. Midd probably slots in third well above Hamilton/Colby. You can definitely break in to IB/Consulting from Ham/Colby but it will be much much harder than from Williams.

Williams has an incredible alumni network with alumni that love to help out kids from their alma mater. Yes the additional 48k over four years sounds steep, but it would certainly be worth it.

 

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