Hampshire College Top Questions

Describe the students at your school.

Tony

Very white student body. Quite a number of wealthy kids, but they are balanced off by the numerous receivers of financial aid. It makes an odd combination some times. People are friendly but there are also a great deal of introverts at hampshire. The sense of community is a little iffy. They only really pull together when some one throws a campaign about some issue or another. Hot topics are race and sex. Students are almost entirely liberals a couple of anarchists sprinkled in, and supposedly a few republicans. There are students who are politically active but mostly students like to talk about the hot topics mentioned above without an understanding of the big picture, and sometimes without an understanding of the small picture either. This being said Hampshire is proportionatly political when compared with other colleges that I have visited.

Adrienne

I'm not really into groups, but Hampshire has a lot of them. There's something for everyone here. Students are very socially and politically active. Students talk about everything at Hampshire, sometimes at parties you'll hear two or more students talk about a very intellectual topic or about their studies. And yes, we talk about our future, a lot.

Jesse

Most people at Hampshire are hippies or hipsters, so there are a lot of dreadlocks and green hair. But if someone looks traditional in whatever way, they aren't judged or excluded or anything like that. People are pretty laid back about appearances. There's a serious lack of racial diversity, because Hampshire doesn't have a ton of money to recruit minorities; but there's a huge LGBT community. Almost everyone assumes that they'll live in a cardboard box someday.

Wendy

I am queer and am part of the QCA, and this is good, but not great. There could be a lot more LBGTQ events, but I think Hampshire is very good compared to most schools. I am also at the very low end of the class spectrum here, most kids have parents who can fly them to exotic countries for vacations and send them money to buy hard drugs, but being a fairly lower class student, I do not even feel left out or picked on for it, just sometimes out of place.

Bobby

Hampshire students like to hide and/or ignore their privilege. With a lot of students, this means they pretend like they don't come from money and comfort. With a lot of students, this means they think racism or sexism don't exist at Hampshire. There are a lot of students, however, who try to hold themselves accountable and the institution accountable and try to initiate dialog and create a culture of accountability.