Hampshire College

Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, MA. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in Massachusetts' Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Together they have since been known as the Five Colleges or the Five College Consortium. The college is widely known for its alternative curriculum, socially liberal politics, focus on portfolios rather than distribution requirements, and its reliance on narrative evaluations instead of grades and GPAs. In some fields, it is among the top undergraduate institutions in percentage of graduates who enroll in graduate school. Sixty-five percent of its alumni have at least one graduate degree and a quarter have founded their own business or organization. It is ranked #39 among U.S. colleges and universities by the percentage of graduates who go on to earn a doctorate degree according to National Science Foundation data.