Harvard vs. Williams: Which Is Better for an Undergraduate Who Wants to Study Writing?

The central tradeoff is intimacy versus scale: Williams is more likely to give a writer repeated, personal contact with professors and a small workshop community, while Harvard offers a much larger literary ecosystem, more course options, and broader access to visiting writers and publishing activity. For an undergraduate whose priority is being known closely as a writer, Williams has a meaningful structural advantage because of its small classes, seminar culture, and faculty-centered residential campus.

At Williams, creative-writing students can build relationships with English faculty over multiple courses and often encounter peers in several workshops, readings, and literary activities. The college’s tutorial offerings can be especially valuable for a serious writer: they require sustained one-on-one or paired discussion, close reading, revision, and independent intellectual work. A smaller student body also makes it easier to become a visible participant in campus literary life rather than one writer among many.

Harvard’s English and creative-writing offerings provide substantial breadth, including workshops across genres, literature courses, student publications, readings, and connections to the Cambridge-Boston literary scene. Its student writing community includes established outlets such as the Harvard Advocate and the Harvard Review, and its size can make it easier to find niche interests, from poetry to journalism to hybrid literary work. The tradeoff is that students must be more proactive in seeking faculty attention and creating a close cohort; large institutions offer resources abundantly, but not always automatically.

For the specific goals you named, Williams is likely the better undergraduate environment for developing as a writer. Harvard may be the more compelling choice for someone who wants maximum range, a major urban-adjacent literary network, and many extracurricular publishing paths, but Williams more consistently delivers the close mentorship and tight-knit workshop culture that help young writers revise, take risks, and receive sustained feedback.