What's the appeal for Amherst?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tiny, mediocre campus in a lackluster town. No academic highlights (like Williams tutorial, Swarthmore Honors, etc). Racial and socioeconomic diversity on paper, but every group sticks with themselves. Snobby, condescending students who think they're big shots.

This is exactly what my DS didn't like about Williams - that and the campus is even more remote than Amherst.

Any reason to think the every group sticks to themselves phenomenon is unique to these schools?

Exactly.

And for the predominantly white colleges that have students coming from predominantly white high schools, let the kids REACH out to the URMs.

[Anonymous]

More like Amworst, am I right? Ha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Add socializing, car and other costs, easily adds up to 100k.

At least Amtrak runs through the area. Around holidays the trains are filled with college kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tiny, mediocre campus in a lackluster town. No academic highlights (like Williams tutorial, Swarthmore Honors, etc). Racial and socioeconomic diversity on paper, but every group sticks with themselves. Snobby, condescending students who think they're big shots.

This is exactly what my DS didn't like about Williams - that and the campus is even more remote than Amherst.

Any reason to think the every group sticks to themselves phenomenon is unique to these schools?

Self segregation is common, but what may set NESCAC apart is that the schools are so small that a high concentration of wealthy kids really sticks out. There are, I am sure, snobby rich kids at big state schools but other kids are less likely to notice them.

[Anonymous]

Has always been for near-miss kids.

Imagine thinking your kid or any kid “missed” because they went to Amherst instead of Harvard. 🙄

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is a tremendous appeal. Has always been for near-miss kids. They all want to be at Harvard or Brown. That's the chip on the shoulder that you are observing.

That wasn’t my son’s experience at all. He was one of the highest ranked (#8) debaters in the US, perfect grades, near-perfect SAT, etc. Two dozen kids per year from his hs go to Ivies and he was at the top of that cohort. And was only interested in LACs. Chose among Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore. Had a great experience at Amherst, with many classmates who very deliberately chose a top LAC over a research university (Ivies included) where you sat in a 400-student lecture hall for intro bio or Econ.
He later went to a top-2 law school, graduating top of class, law review editor etc. There are many, many students of that caliber at AWS-level LACs. Not everyone has the Ivy fetish.

Amherst College, Northwestern University, and Dartmouth College are probably the 3 best schools in the country for debate. Northwestern awards 2 scholarships per year for debate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think think anything OP said about Amherst is correct, except the comment about diversity. It is, and always has been, at the top of the pack for SLACs and many kids there turn down lots of other schools. (I was admitted everywhere I applied and chose Amherst.). It’s a gorgeous campus in a great college community with cool college towns, and great professors who are really engaged with the students. Their commitment to diversity is super intense, though, so there’s no way my white UMC kids from MoCo are getting in. So I’m definitely not talking it up to them!
On the “different groups” point….my experience from some decades ago is that the only group that really didn’t mix much was the prep school kids from NYC (the Dalton folks, etc., not the Regis kids). Those are also the guy that go into I-banking so maybe what PP experienced—-but those kids are at every top school. I went to Yale graduate school and I found the Yale undergrads in my program pretty insufferable, but, again, there may be some selection bias there.

At any rate—hope everyone finds a good spot for their particular student!

True story - admissions director from Amherst visited my NoVa public many years ago, at a time when Amherst was looking to diversify its admissions pool beyond New England and Mid-Atlantic prep schools.

He made a presentation to a group of seniors the counselors had decided might be Amherst material, and then invited questions. Crickets.

He then pointed to me and said I must have a question. I asked him whether a middle-class kid from a NoVa public might feel out of place at a school with so many private-school kids. For whatever reason, the question triggered the AD and he started yelling about how there were kids from Harlem and from all different stations and walks of life there. In retrospect, it was a softball question for an admissions director, but he appeared to be seriously angry and offended.

About two hours after the presentation, I got a call to come see my guidance counselor. I thought he was going to chew me out for offending the AD, but he said that he'd gone over the grades and activities of some of the invited students with the AD and that the AD had indicated that he could essentially guarantee that three of us would be admitted, if we chose to apply. I don't know if the AD had any idea I was the kid who had set him off during the Q&A session.

I did not apply to Amherst, but one of the others did and ended up going there (I ended up going to an Ivy, as did the third student). My classmate who went to Amherst ended up making loads of money in Silicon Valley. He had nothing but good things to say about Amherst. We used to give him a hard time about a famous person in his fraternity.

Did you authorize your guidance counselor to share your private information such as your grades with the visiting admissions director ?

[Anonymous]

I've only ever known one person who went there. He's brilliant, kind, and humble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tiny, mediocre campus in a lackluster town. No academic highlights (like Williams tutorial, Swarthmore Honors, etc). Racial and socioeconomic diversity on paper, but every group sticks with themselves. Snobby, condescending students who think they're big shots.

This is exactly what my DS didn't like about Williams - that and the campus is even more remote than Amherst.

Any reason to think the every group sticks to themselves phenomenon is unique to these schools?

Self segregation is common, but what may set NESCAC apart is that the schools are so small that a high concentration of wealthy kids really sticks out. There are, I am sure, snobby rich kids at big state schools but other kids are less likely to notice them.

Our student tour guide said the thing he most disliked about Williams was the uncomfortable social dynamic with uber-wealthy kids, said the gap between them and the kids like himself on financial aid was massive. Small school in such a remote location intensifies, I'm sure. Amherst doesn't *feel* as small, and is less remote, but I can imagine a similar dynamic being an issue. Of course it was when I went to Harvard, too. As a PP said, it will be an issue at all the elite schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tiny, mediocre campus in a lackluster town. No academic highlights (like Williams tutorial, Swarthmore Honors, etc). Racial and socioeconomic diversity on paper, but every group sticks with themselves. Snobby, condescending students who think they're big shots.

This is exactly what my DS didn't like about Williams - that and the campus is even more remote than Amherst.

Any reason to think the every group sticks to themselves phenomenon is unique to these schools?

Self segregation is common, but what may set NESCAC apart is that the schools are so small that a high concentration of wealthy kids really sticks out. There are, I am sure, snobby rich kids at big state schools but other kids are less likely to notice them.

Our student tour guide said the thing he most disliked about Williams was the uncomfortable social dynamic with uber-wealthy kids, said the gap between them and the kids like himself on financial aid was massive. Small school in such a remote location intensifies, I'm sure. Amherst doesn't *feel* as small, and is less remote, but I can imagine a similar dynamic being an issue. Of course it was when I went to Harvard, too. As a PP said, it will be an issue at all the elite schools.

Two of our kids attended these schools. We are a typical DC area UMC family who don't have generational family wealth, aren't multimillionaires, but make too much to qualify for financial aid. The wealth gap among students is definitely an issue. Our kids had friends on both sides of that gap and socially it can cause issues because our kid isn't going on glamorous vacations every break or wearing designer clothes, but at the same time had some spending money to go to dinner occasionally or see a concert. There weren't many other students at these schools who were in the middle financially like they were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is a tremendous appeal. Has always been for near-miss kids. They all want to be at Harvard or Brown. That's the chip on the shoulder that you are observing.

That wasn’t my son’s experience at all. He was one of the highest ranked (#8) debaters in the US, perfect grades, near-perfect SAT, etc. Two dozen kids per year from his hs go to Ivies and he was at the top of that cohort. And was only interested in LACs. Chose among Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore. Had a great experience at Amherst, with many classmates who very deliberately chose a top LAC over a research university (Ivies included) where you sat in a 400-student lecture hall for intro bio or Econ.
He later went to a top-2 law school, graduating top of class, law review editor etc. There are many, many students of that caliber at AWS-level LACs. Not everyone has the Ivy fetish.

Amherst College, Northwestern University, and Dartmouth College are probably the 3 best schools in the country for debate. Northwestern awards 2 scholarships per year for debate.

As an aside to the main topic, it is quite odd to list Amherst as one of the three best debate schools in the country. To start, those three schools have very, very different debate formats and structure. Amherst is in Parliamentary (APDA), with student judges, and the whole circuit is basically student coached and run. With the absence of research and the after-dinner speaking feel and humor debateing in front of fellow college kids hung over from the party the night before, it feels almost like club or DIII debate rather than varsity or DI debate, although it has a ton of uber smart kids. It's not a difference in ability at the top levels, but the amount of work, structure, and competitiveness makes them entirely different. Nothing wrong with it (many consider Parli in the Northeast more fun), but Northwestern and Dartmouth are so different (policy debate (CEDA-NDT) /lots of professional coaching/lots of research and work and heavy travel) that it would be odd for a debater to consider all of them if they were really focused on debate. Dartmouth has an APDA team as well as a Policy team, so you could opt for the much lower commitment APDA team there, but you wouldn't have the structure/coaching/research that some HS debaters crave in college. The student judging in APDA would also be frustrating. Frankly, if you are a top high school debater who wants to do Parli in an APDA circuit in college, there's no particular reason you would focus on Amherst over any other top academic school in the Northeast that has an APDA team. It's not like they have a particularly unique program or set of debaters, and even if they did have a good current group (looks like they qualified 3 to nationals last year and were the #29 ranked club, which is OK, but not at all special), the students turn over every year and things change quickly. As long as a school provides halfway decent funding and you find one other debater to partner with, you can be team of the year or speaker of the year in APDA from almost any college that competes in the circuit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is a tremendous appeal. Has always been for near-miss kids. They all want to be at Harvard or Brown. That's the chip on the shoulder that you are observing.

That wasn’t my son’s experience at all. He was one of the highest ranked (#8) debaters in the US, perfect grades, near-perfect SAT, etc. Two dozen kids per year from his hs go to Ivies and he was at the top of that cohort. And was only interested in LACs. Chose among Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore. Had a great experience at Amherst, with many classmates who very deliberately chose a top LAC over a research university (Ivies included) where you sat in a 400-student lecture hall for intro bio or Econ.
He later went to a top-2 law school, graduating top of class, law review editor etc. There are many, many students of that caliber at AWS-level LACs. Not everyone has the Ivy fetish.

My DC is like your son, chose a SLAC over a T10 national research university as the LAC had all they hoped for. They also want to study law after graduation. What did your son major in college? Did he work between college and law school?

His major was philosophy. He worked for 2 years between college and law school, at an economics consulting firm in Boston. Without having taken an Econ course in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sounds very bitter, OP. Did your child get rejected?

I'm actually wondering if OP isn't trying to deter others from applying with this post. Don't know the campus well, but the kid we know there is awesome-- talented, smart, cool, kind. Not a snob type at all. Also, tte town is lovely (I have experience in the town just not with the campus).

I have to think this pist was meant to deter competition in ED!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amherst has a beautiful campus and facilities in a charming town. Objectively the OP has terrible taste and questionable grammar.

Compared to its closest peers, Amherst clearly has the ugliest campus of them all. Numerous buildings need renovation and the landscaping leaves much to be desired. Williams and Middlebury are far better.

Disagree. I found Williams to be middling at best and its location was a deal breaker. I did like Midd but the fact that everything was so spread out wasn’t appealing. Dartmouth was probably my favorite of the campuses we toured.

We loved the campuses of both Williams and Midd. The mountain backdrop is stunning. As for Williams, loved the variety of period architecture. Thought it was beautiful campus in a cute town with a great Thai restaurant!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amherst has a beautiful campus and facilities in a charming town. Objectively the OP has terrible taste and questionable grammar.

Compared to its closest peers, Amherst clearly has the ugliest campus of them all. Numerous buildings need renovation and the landscaping leaves much to be desired. Williams and Middlebury are far better.

Disagree. I found Williams to be middling at best and its location was a deal breaker. I did like Midd but the fact that everything was so spread out wasn’t appealing. Dartmouth was probably my favorite of the campuses we toured.

We loved the campuses of both Williams and Midd. The mountain backdrop is stunning. As for Williams, loved the variety of period architecture. Thought it was beautiful campus in a cute town with a great Thai restaurant!

Ok, let's not go crazy. It's a decent Thai restaurant.