Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Together they are now known as the Five Colleges, or the Five College Area.
The College is widely known for its alternative curriculum, focus on portfolios rather than distribution requirements, and reliance on narrative evaluations instead of grades and GPAs. It is known particularly for facilitating the study of film, music, theater and the visual arts. In some fields, it is among the top undergraduate institutions in percentage of graduates who enroll in graduate school. Fifty-six percent of its alumni have at least one graduate degree and it is ranked 30th among all US colleges in the percentage of its graduates who go on to attain a doctorate degree (notably first among history doctorates).
Read more about Hampshire College: History, In The Media
Famous quotes containing the words hampshire and/or college:
“The New Hampshire girls who came to Lowell were descendants of the sturdy backwoodsmen who settled that State scarcely a hundred years before.... They were earnest and capable; ready to undertake anything that was worth doing. My dreamy, indolent nature was shamed into activity among them. They gave me a larger, firmer ideal of womanhood.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)
“Placing too much importance on where a child goes rather than what he does there . . . doesn’t take into account the child’s needs or individuality, and this is true in college selection as well as kindergarten.”
—Norman Giddan (20th century)