What's the appeal for Amherst?
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Anonymous
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Ok, let's not go crazy. It's a decent Thai restaurant. |
Anonymous
Let me guess, you were there far less than a day? This feels like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. I wouldn't read into the student body too much based on a couple of conversations on campus. I've never heard Amherst kids called condescending or big shots before TBH. Did you ask for directions to the admissions office when you were right next to a campus map or something? This is a great example of how a quick campus visit can color your view of a school. I think visits can be useful but remember to keep them in perspective and consider a longer visit if you get admitted. Otherwise, you talk to one of two kids having a bad day or observe how people are sitting in one location and make some fairly sweeping generalizations. I tend to think of Amherst as Williams but in a slightly better location (since so much of it was originally pulled from Williams). Taking into account the programs and locations, I agreed with some of your data-driven conclusions and strongly preferred Swarthmore and Pomona to Amherst and especially to Williams. |
Anonymous
But did you try the panang curry? |
Anonymous
With the perceived prestige of "name schools" like the Ivies these days, some counselors nudge students who don't apply early to an LAC to apply to other big places too. I saw this at a top DC private recently where they were practically pushing for Chicago, not even really a name school anyway, and Cornell. I rarely speak with parents or kids who are applying only to LACs (or LACs and Dartmouth, which would be the closest thing in the Ivy League). Maybe places like Brown and Princeton would make some sense too but instead they are still putting in applications to Cornell, Columbia, Penn, and Harvard, which are not at all similar. They are also applying to far more LACs. I remember back when we'd look at under 10 schools. No wonder acceptance rates have been dropping while applicant quality hasn't been going through the roof. |
Anonymous
Has is occurred to you that there are superstar students who could go anywhere - literally - but who prefer the benefits of a top liberal arts college? If not, I can assure you that there are. My DC being one of them. DC was the #4 - ranked high school debater in the US. For reference, top national debaters are hot commodities in the college admissions universe. They also tend to be top-of-call, 1560+ SAT types. They're the gold standard for the academic-docket admit. On DC's large debate team, of which DC was captain, the majority of graduates (large majority) went on to Ivies and equivalents (they favored Chicago and Stanford). Correct, one club at one public high school sent 15 seniors to Ivies/equivalents. And half of those students later ended up at Yale/Stanford/Harvard law schools, clerking for federal judges, etc. Just to give an idea of the cohort. MY DC chose one of the Amherst/Williams/Swarthmore colleges because they preferred an LAC over a research university. Not all kids are blinded by the Ivy brand. |
Anonymous
Same here. Complete turn off. |