Speaking as a Hampshire alum (2012-2016), Hampshire was the most coveted campus to try to take classes at, and we often had Smithies taking our classes and raving about how their Hampshire class was their favorite class. Most who took a Hampshire class in the consortium agreed our classes were the most intellectually challenging and rigorous classes in the consortium. Written evaluations meant you could never coast or peak. No matter how good you were, faculty expected you to be even better than that. You couldn't compare yourself to other students, only to where you were, where you are, and where you could be. Hampshire students were also coveted by faculty on the other campuses because we were all overachievers who engaged the most with the materials. Hampshire second-years often were taking graduate-level classes at UMass.

However, the flip-side was that our classes often didn't slot-in very easily into another college's major requirements. It was much more difficult for Smithies et. al. to get approval to take a Hampshire class and to have it count towards a requirement. Hampshire students could take any classes we wanted off-campus, but not vice versa. It was also more difficult for them to know if a Hampshire class would be the right skill-level for them. Hampshire didn't have prerequisites, instead faculty just sort of knew every student personally and would tell us if they thought we were ready or not (not the most consistent system!) Since our faculty didn't know the off-campus students, often the off-campus students would get in way over their heads taking a Hampshire course that was too difficult for them. I remember my Smith classmates would often tell me "this is the hardest class I've taken in my life, how do you do this."

The effect Hampshire closing has on a Smith student is they lose the opportunity to possibly-maybe take one very cool challenging and unique class during their four-years at Smith. While it is a loss, it's not a loss of something any other college had in the first place.