Discover Hampshire
Hampshire College was founded in 1965 to radically reimagine liberal arts education. Today, we’re more unconventional than ever, and we’re organized in a way that’s different from any other college in the world.
Your college experience here will be unlike anywhere else—and unlike anyone else’s.
You choose the faculty advisors you’ll work with to create your own curriculum to address the big question, challenge, or issue you’re most interested in. At Hampshire, your education focuses on:
We don’t think grades are an accurate or effective measurement. Instead, your performance is assessed with constructive, written feedback from faculty members, and based on reviews of your projects, your engagement in classes and community, your writings, your art, and more.
At Hampshire, you advance through a Divisional structure rather than the traditional school years. Each Division requires a portfolio review, including narrative feedback from each course, final papers or projects, community-engaged learning, other meaningful work, and a retrospective, capped off by a yearlong Div III project of your own design.
Beyond Hampshire's own substantial academic offerings, students can also take courses and draw on the resources of Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which together with Hampshire form the Five College Consortium.
There is no other undergraduate college that approaches learning this way.
View Some of Our Notable #HampshireChangemakers