Lack of Amherst College Consortium

[Anonymous]

I went to Hampshire and took classes at Amherst and Smith.

I also mainly used the Amherst and Mt Holyoke libraries.

A lot depends on the rules of your home school- it’s harder to take classes at other schools the more rigid your course requirements are.

But the consortium isn’t just about classes, it’s also social (I went to a lot of MHC parties) and shared resources like clubs, libraries, the buses, and access to faculty.

Amherst students advocating for easier cross registration is a good thing! It means the desire is there for more access.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I've appreciated about the consortium is living in a real college town with bars, late night restaurants, and easy accessibility to pretty much any chain store you can think of, as opposed to being in a backwater like Williamstown.

+1. My child is at one of the smaller colleges and can get literally anything door dashed in fewer than 20 min. This would not be the case without UMass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After much gaslighting about the 5 College consortium, it is timely to see an article from the Amherst Student (Amherst College's student news publication) that emphasizes the lack of 5 college collaboration.

The lack of engagement is not simply a reflection of student disinterest, but rather a symptom of deeper structural and informational barriers that make cross-enrollment and collaboration seem daunting and inaccessible. This striking gap between Amherst’s promotional narrative and the lived reality of its students reveals a disconnect between what the college advertises and what it actually facilitates.

was particularly striking.

The link to learn more: https://amherststudent.com/article/take-more-five-college-classes/

Gaslighting? That's a little much.

I have a kid at Smith. Yes, the bus takes a while and she said it would be hard to take a class elsewhere due to that. She doesn't have a car. A car would make it easy. Some students have cars, some don't. But of the 5 colleges, Smith is the furthest away. This wouldn't be as much of an issue for Amherst and UMass which are down the street from each other.

However, this article is mostly about classes. My daughter and her friends use the consortium all the time for social things. She often goes to parties at Hampshire, Amherst, UMass. She's dating a guy at Amherst. The consortium is what you make of it. The author of this article isn't using it; doesn't mean others don't. I think a lot do. The big party on Halla weekend for example was the woods party at Hampshire with lots of students from other colleges.

To get there, she will sometimes use the bus to get there, but often ubers back, and sometimes ubers there as well. Splitting an uber with friends keeps costs down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I've appreciated about the consortium is living in a real college town with bars, late night restaurants, and easy accessibility to pretty much any chain store you can think of, as opposed to being in a backwater like Williamstown.

+1. My child is at one of the smaller colleges and can get literally anything door dashed in fewer than 20 min. This would not be the case without UMass.

This is soooo true, love the infrastructure in the area. That Target is always full of college kids - so handy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of these consortia are a bit overhyped. Once a student is settled and integrated into their main campus life, the practicalities of having to leave to take a class elsewhere make it more challenging to utilize. It’s nice to have the options though.

We toured Smith and MHC and met tour guides at both that had enrolled in a class or two on other campuses (one was taking a particular architecture course at UMASS). With the PA schools, the connection and overlap seems most common between BMC and Haverford (understandable due to proximity).

Just speaking for the PA consortium, but apparently it's an important feature for Linguistics majors because there are important courses that re only offered at Swarthmore.

Same for the 5 college one, my understanding is that UMass is the one with the linguistics offerings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Hampshire and took classes at Amherst and Smith.

I also mainly used the Amherst and Mt Holyoke libraries.

A lot depends on the rules of your home school- it’s harder to take classes at other schools the more rigid your course requirements are.

But the consortium isn’t just about classes, it’s also social (I went to a lot of MHC parties) and shared resources like clubs, libraries, the buses, and access to faculty.

Amherst students advocating for easier cross registration is a good thing! It means the desire is there for more access.

The MHC library is something to behold, absolutely stunning and inspiring!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was at BMC I knew a decent percentage of folks who took classes (or even lived) at Haverford, and vice versa, but no one who took classes at Swat. Agree with a previous pp that schools in consortiums like to hype the opportunities but in reality the logistical hurdles make it unappealing and uncommon.

This, the BMC/Haverford Bico is very active. Class registration is the same system and lots of shared resources. The blue bus is easy back and forth. Swat is farther away and more complex. UPenn is an option only for classes not available in the trico which is mostly less common languages. And with the train to Philly shutting down will be difficult to get there and back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I've appreciated about the consortium is living in a real college town with bars, late night restaurants, and easy accessibility to pretty much any chain store you can think of, as opposed to being in a backwater like Williamstown.

Amherst is a poor shadow of a real college town, shockingly small and run down.

[Anonymous]

One of the reason my kid decide not to apply to Amherst was the tour guide's answer to a question about cross registration. She said "why would anyone at Amherst ever want to take a class at any of those schools, students only come to us".

Glad to see some students at Amherst don't share her opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the reason my kid decide not to apply to Amherst was the tour guide's answer to a question about cross registration. She said "why would anyone at Amherst ever want to take a class at any of those schools, students only come to us".

Glad to see some students at Amherst don't share her opinion.

That’s a horrible thing for a tour guide to say, obviously. I think that opinion is shared amongst a lot of humanities students, though. The stem students see things very differently and know that UMass offers a lot beyond the limits of the Amherst departments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I've appreciated about the consortium is living in a real college town with bars, late night restaurants, and easy accessibility to pretty much any chain store you can think of, as opposed to being in a backwater like Williamstown.

So basically you’re appreciative of nothing that has to do with a consortium.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I've appreciated about the consortium is living in a real college town with bars, late night restaurants, and easy accessibility to pretty much any chain store you can think of, as opposed to being in a backwater like Williamstown.

So basically you’re appreciative of nothing that has to do with a consortium.

Why such a nasty response? If the person’s student benefits from being in a college town around other higher ed institutions, even if not taking advantage formally of the consortium arrangement, what’s it to you? Sheesh!

[Anonymous]

My DC was accepted to Amherst and seriously considered it but in the end didn't choose it. I don't think Amherst tried to oversell the consortium, the focus was on particular majors like languages and EC like theater where the other colleges really added value. It fills in gaps but it depends on the student as to how valuable that is or isn't

[Anonymous]

There’s little serious reason to choose Amherst over its peers. It’s a depressing school with an emphasis on the humanities (no job for you unless you wanna obsess over law school or consulting applications!), the campus is nearly entirely rundown(Keefe, Frost library, Fayerweather, Cohan, the Octagon) or a building is excessively cramped (the church hosting multiple academic departments, the science center is stuffed to the max and classrooms are starting to operate outside it, because there’s simply not enough space for all the departments, various humanities departments in tiny homes bursting with faculty).

If you want to attend, by all means do, but we found Amherst did nothing to improve itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s little serious reason to choose Amherst over its peers. It’s a depressing school with an emphasis on the humanities (no job for you unless you wanna obsess over law school or consulting applications!), the campus is nearly entirely rundown(Keefe, Frost library, Fayerweather, Cohan, the Octagon) or a building is excessively cramped (the church hosting multiple academic departments, the science center is stuffed to the max and classrooms are starting to operate outside it, because there’s simply not enough space for all the departments, various humanities departments in tiny homes bursting with faculty).

If you want to attend, by all means do, but we found Amherst did nothing to improve itself.

Lol