Amherst Tour

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We were in the area for something else this weekend and drove through the Amherst campus. It’s the first SLAC that either DC or I have seen, and we both thought it was beautiful.

Is this just a case of different-strokes-for-different-folks, or did we miss something?

Compared to other Liberal Arts Colleges, it has a very lackluster and underwhelming campus. DC thought he wasn't going to want an LAC after Amherst (first tour) but loved all the others. It's pretty in terms of being in New England, but the actual buildings and amenities are pretty piss poor.

D'24 had a very similar reaction. Sure the memorial is nice, but it looked like the college was still in the beginning stages of being founded-where are the buildings! It was shocking to see the buildings that weren't the science center. Campus needs a massive touch up.

Luckily, that's what Amherst is currently right in the middle of!

Renovating a single building that has asbestos issues isn't going to transform a meh campus.

"Renovation" is an understatement: https://ibb.co/Vtc6nqf

It seems like half this thread is desperately searching for ways to hate this school, only to completely fall flat when the only thing they can muster is "pretty but not stunning campus." Get a life.

I'm in the middle of this take. As a student, you notice the lack of facilities very quickly, and, while it is amazing we are getting a new student center (really just a 4 story play place, doesn't do much for students), we desperately need more academic buildings. Math/Stats should have more lab space and be upgraded and most of the humanities have terrible cramped spaces that the college has abandoned working on since the 19th century. It is completely fair to assess that Amherst "looks" beautiful if you've not been in New England for long and don't care at all about the type of buildings you walk into, but the gap between the science center and every other campus building is wide.

PP here, also an Amherst student. Again, this is a really uncharitable description of the new student center: a new dining hall with significantly more capacity will help finally solve Val's overcrowding issues, and on top of that, the plans feature many different lounges that can be used as study spaces—if you've ever been to Smith or Williams, for instance, you'll see how a good student center can actually make a campus feel alive.

I agree that most academic buildings are in need of renovation—and guess what, the college does too! See the campus framework plan: https://www.amherst.edu/offices/facilities/campus-framework-plan. At the very least, Barrett and Chapin will eventually get improvements. On top of that, you're totally ignoring the recent Lyceum construction, which was literally intended to help mitigate that exact problem with the humanities.

You're also conveniently ignoring that our housing stock is significantly higher quality than literally any other elite college I've been to (I've heard WashU is better, but have not personally seen the place). Every dorm I've been in at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Penn has been markedly worse than anywhere at Amherst with the exceptions of Moore and Cohan (The Quad and KCHECH at Penn's bathrooms give Moore a run for its money, though), the former of which is slated for a future renovation, and the latter of which is intended to eventually return to being all singles. Places like Jearns, the Greenways, and Lipton are borderline luxury housing.

I do think that Amherst's campus needs improvements—Frost is a hellhole (again, slated for a future renovation), the Mead is the most lacking art museum I've ever been to, and Keefe is a total dud of a student center—but even though most current students won't be seeing much change, the college does have plans for improvements and is meaningfully investing in them. The geothermal heating construction, for instance, is incredibly annoying, but I honestly think that it's a far more important thing to spend money on than any shiny new building, and so I deal with its presence.

Again, I recommend reading the campus framework plan. Pretty much everything is slated to get an upgrade. https://www.amherst.edu/offices/facilities/campus-framework-plan

Most LACs (other than Williams) have similar or better housing than Amherst.

I haven't seen enough of them to say which are "better," but I will say that Amherst and Middlebury were the only LACs we visited where freshman (without accommodations) have a shot at getting a single room. For a kid like mine, that's very attractive.

[Anonymous]

It's funny how much influence things like weather and quality of the tour guide have in determining if kids like a school (or not).

My oldest and I first toured Amherst over 10 years ago on a picture perfect fall day, and we had a stunningly beautiful and well spoken student guide. We later found out she had been a fairly successful model for a notable perfume brand. Suffice to say, my son ended up smitten with the campus and 5 years later graduated from Amherst. He never did meet that student since she had graduated by the time he got there, but jokes to this day that his teenage hormones definitely had an influence on his impressions of the college. He loved his 4 years there so it all worked out but had we had a different tour guide it's quite possible he may have ended up elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's funny how much influence things like weather and quality of the tour guide have in determining if kids like a school (or not).

My oldest and I first toured Amherst over 10 years ago on a picture perfect fall day, and we had a stunningly beautiful and well spoken student guide. We later found out she had been a fairly successful model for a notable perfume brand.

I've noticed that when you show up for the initial slide show before the tour, colleges often have an attractive female student giving the show. By chance or on purpose?

That aside, it's important to visit a campus during the worst season of the year - eg winter in New England, August in the South or Southwest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny how much influence things like weather and quality of the tour guide have in determining if kids like a school (or not).

My oldest and I first toured Amherst over 10 years ago on a picture perfect fall day, and we had a stunningly beautiful and well spoken student guide. We later found out she had been a fairly successful model for a notable perfume brand.

I've noticed that when you show up for the initial slide show before the tour, colleges often have an attractive female student giving the show. By chance or on purpose?

That aside, it's important to visit a campus during the worst season of the year - eg winter in New England, August in the South or Southwest.

Why visit a college in August when you likely will only need to experience the heat for a few weeks? The issue with new england schools is that the winter drags on for months on end and the further up you go, the less sun you will see not just at the end of your fall semester but a good half or even longer of your spring semester. The Southwestern climates fall off pretty quickly and are hottest in June, July, and early August.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid really liked their Amherst tour. I do find that my kid seems to prefer tours where they click with the guide but not sure that should be determinative. I also thought the town of Amherst was cute. We had a nice dinner in town.

Yes, my daughter is the same way. It’s kind of frustrating. Our Amherst tour guide turned her off on the school and just this week she was going to eliminate Tufts from her list but kept coming back to how much she liked the tour guide… Maybe we need to start doing the self guided tours 😂

Go on campus but do not go on a tour. Just enter buildings after students and talk to students lazing out on the quad. You will get a much better experience.

[Anonymous]

Wife and daughter were at Amherst recently and said the tour was fine and campus was nice. Daughter was at Williams in April. She liked Amherst campus more. To each their own.

[Anonymous]

It wasn't the prettiest college when touring. DC loved the "soulless" science center but was unconvinced by the campus. We did tour Williams before it, and Smith afterwards, so the expectations were higher than what Amherst delivers. It's definitely a more quaint campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[img]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were in the area for something else this weekend and drove through the Amherst campus. It’s the first SLAC that either DC or I have seen, and we both thought it was beautiful.

Is this just a case of different-strokes-for-different-folks, or did we miss something?

Compared to other Liberal Arts Colleges, it has a very lackluster and underwhelming campus. DC thought he wasn't going to want an LAC after Amherst (first tour) but loved all the others. It's pretty in terms of being in New England, but the actual buildings and amenities are pretty piss poor.

D'24 had a very similar reaction. Sure the memorial is nice, but it looked like the college was still in the beginning stages of being founded-where are the buildings! It was shocking to see the buildings that weren't the science center. Campus needs a massive touch up.

Luckily, that's what Amherst is currently right in the middle of!

Renovating a single building that has asbestos issues isn't going to transform a meh campus.

"Renovation" is an understatement: https://ibb.co/Vtc6nqf

It seems like half this thread is desperately searching for ways to hate this school, only to completely fall flat when the only thing they can muster is "pretty but not stunning campus." Get a life.

I'm in the middle of this take. As a student, you notice the lack of facilities very quickly, and, while it is amazing we are getting a new student center (really just a 4 story play place, doesn't do much for students), we desperately need more academic buildings. Math/Stats should have more lab space and be upgraded and most of the humanities have terrible cramped spaces that the college has abandoned working on since the 19th century. It is completely fair to assess that Amherst "looks" beautiful if you've not been in New England for long and don't care at all about the type of buildings you walk into, but the gap between the science center and every other campus building is wide.

PP here, also an Amherst student. Again, this is a really uncharitable description of the new student center: a new dining hall with significantly more capacity will help finally solve Val's overcrowding issues, and on top of that, the plans feature many different lounges that can be used as study spaces—if you've ever been to Smith or Williams, for instance, you'll see how a good student center can actually make a campus feel alive.

I agree that most academic buildings are in need of renovation—and guess what, the college does too! See the campus framework plan: https://www.amherst.edu/offices/facilities/campus-framework-plan. At the very least, Barrett and Chapin will eventually get improvements. On top of that, you're totally ignoring the recent Lyceum construction, which was literally intended to help mitigate that exact problem with the humanities.

You're also conveniently ignoring that our housing stock is significantly higher quality than literally any other elite college I've been to (I've heard WashU is better, but have not personally seen the place). Every dorm I've been in at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Penn has been markedly worse than anywhere at Amherst with the exceptions of Moore and Cohan (The Quad and KCHECH at Penn's bathrooms give Moore a run for its money, though), the former of which is slated for a future renovation, and the latter of which is intended to eventually return to being all singles. Places like Jearns, the Greenways, and Lipton are borderline luxury housing.

I do think that Amherst's campus needs improvements—Frost is a hellhole (again, slated for a future renovation), the Mead is the most lacking art museum I've ever been to, and Keefe is a total dud of a student center—but even though most current students won't be seeing much change, the college does have plans for improvements and is meaningfully investing in them. The geothermal heating construction, for instance, is incredibly annoying, but I honestly think that it's a far more important thing to spend money on than any shiny new building, and so I deal with its presence.

Again, I recommend reading the campus framework plan. Pretty much everything is slated to get an upgrade. https://www.amherst.edu/offices/facilities/campus-framework-plan

Most LACs (other than Williams) have similar or better housing than Amherst.

I haven't seen enough of them to say which are "better," but I will say that Amherst and Middlebury were the only LACs we visited where freshman (without accommodations) have a shot at getting a single room. For a kid like mine, that's very attractive.

I don't know about other liberal arts colleges, but 1/3 of Pomona freshman get a single. Singles, in general, aren't necessary for your first year, however.

[Anonymous]

Haverford has singles for almost all freshmen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny how much influence things like weather and quality of the tour guide have in determining if kids like a school (or not).

My oldest and I first toured Amherst over 10 years ago on a picture perfect fall day, and we had a stunningly beautiful and well spoken student guide. We later found out she had been a fairly successful model for a notable perfume brand.

I've noticed that when you show up for the initial slide show before the tour, colleges often have an attractive female student giving the show. By chance or on purpose?

That aside, it's important to visit a campus during the worst season of the year - eg winter in New England, August in the South or Southwest.

Why visit a college in August when you likely will only need to experience the heat for a few weeks? The issue with new england schools is that the winter drags on for months on end and the further up you go, the less sun you will see not just at the end of your fall semester but a good half or even longer of your spring semester. The Southwestern climates fall off pretty quickly and are hottest in June, July, and early August.

I grew up in Phoenix. It’s incredibly hot by out of state standards at least through October. Similarly, I find Florida unpleasantly hot and humid until November. If you weren’t used to it you’d hate it.

[Anonymous]

I currently know 2 kids at Amherst and 3 at Williams. All 5 are recruited athletes. This is stark to me compared to other schools. Are non-athletes separate socially or do they interact and integrate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were overwhelmingly underwhelmed. The college looked like a dumpy boarding school with no buildings-just hills. Such a small campus with acres and acres of unused land. Tour guide flexed the open curriculum to express joy never having to take a math or history course again, yikes. Outside of the science center, the buildings looked dilapidated. The school seems to be way over investing in bio and chem while having little opportunity for much else. We also much preferred the town where Smith College was compared to snoozefest of Amherst. At least Williams or other New England LACs have charming architecture and once in a lifetime views. Amherst, Mass could be anywhere in New England, very unremarkable.

Their acceptance rate is very low so you are unlikely to get accepted so its a moot problem to worry about the campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I currently know 2 kids at Amherst and 3 at Williams. All 5 are recruited athletes. This is stark to me compared to other schools. Are non-athletes separate socially or do they interact and integrate?

My DC just graduated from Amherst and was varsity athlete all 4 years. Says there is naturally some divide for obvious reasons but the divide had been overblown. Had close friends both on the team and non athletes. Same with other teammates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I currently know 2 kids at Amherst and 3 at Williams. All 5 are recruited athletes. This is stark to me compared to other schools. Are non-athletes separate socially or do they interact and integrate?

Non-athlete Amherst student here, some teams are more cliquey (football, lacrosse, hockey), others are more open (golf, squash, softball). This isn't unique to Amherst, or even LACs—a good friend of mine is a football player at an Ivy and notices a similar dynamic—but it's a bit more noticeable since athletes make up a larger proportion of the student body.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I currently know 2 kids at Amherst and 3 at Williams. All 5 are recruited athletes. This is stark to me compared to other schools. Are non-athletes separate socially or do they interact and integrate?

My DC just graduated from Amherst and was varsity athlete all 4 years. Says there is naturally some divide for obvious reasons but the divide had been overblown. Had close friends both on the team and non athletes. Same with other teammates.

Don’t you think she has a lighter opinion about it because…she’s an athlete?