Founded in 1965, Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It is one of the five Colleges of The Five Colleges consortium. The school’s mission statement declares it “committed to educating students for life, labor and citizenship” through “a curriculum without grades or prescribed courses”, encouraging students to “take intellectual risks”, and “[teach] them how to think independently”.
Hampshire has an open curriculum; students design their own course of study with assistance from faculty advisers. All students are required to take one first-year seminar and complete distribution requirements in the arts, humanities, natural sciences,social sciences, and world cultures. Most students choose an academic concentration in their second year; concentrations are interdisciplinary programs of study leading either to a bachelor of arts (B.A.) degree or a bachelor of science (B.S.) degree.
The college operates on a 4-1-4 academic calendar (four months of classes followed by one month off each semester) and offers graduate degrees through partnership with nearby institutions including Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Hampshire was founded as an experiment in alternative education after the founders’ experiences at other colleges shaped their dissatisfaction with traditional higher education; they sought to create a nonhierarchical environment where learning was student-centered rather than grade-oriented. The founders initially conceived Hampshire as providing educational opportunities for women that were not available at other schools; while men were admitted from the outset, women comprised the majority of Hampshire’s student body until 1981 when gender balance among undergraduates reached 50/50.
In keeping with its founding principles, Hampshire does not award conventional grades or rank its students; instead it evaluates each student’s progress via narrative evaluations written by faculty members and submitted twice yearly. These evaluations include detailed feedback on strengths as well as areas needing improvement; they also assess each student’s progress towards meeting Concentration goals set forth at the beginning of the sophomore year. Students may be awarded Honors if two faculty evaluators recommend such designation based on exceptional work during a given evaluation period; this distinction appears on transcripts but does not affect class standing or GPA calculation for transfer purposes nor does it confer any special privileges beyond recognition at graduation time . A small number (~5%)of graduating seniors are elected by faculty vote into Phi Beta Kappa each year .
Admission to Hampshire is competitive: for fall 2016 , 6235 applications were received for 455 places in the freshman class .