Reply to What’s the deal with Amherst?

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Tiny, mediocre campus in a lackluster town.[/quote]
Opinion. 
[quote=Anonymous] No academic highlights (like Williams tutorial, Swarthmore Honors, etc).[/quote]
Open curriculum? Consortium?
[quote=Anonymous] 
Racial and socioeconomic diversity on paper, but every group sticks with themselves.[/quote]
I'm always surprised when I see this repeated here. DC's friend group looks like it was made for a brochure.
[quote=Anonymous] 
Snobby, condescending students who think they're big shots. This struck us because the students we met at Yale and Brown were so much more friendly and humble.[/quote]
Opinion.
[quote=Anonymous] 
They tout small classes but only 62% are under 20 students- every other top ranked SLAC and nearly every top 20 university is ahead of them.[/quote]
Nice cherrypicking. They're ahead of Williams and Swarthmore on under 30. Either way, the "advantages" the other schools have are rounding errors.
[quote=Anonymous] 
They themselves said few utilize the 5 College consortium, so that's a moot benefit.[/quote]
The benefit also takes the form of being in a real college town with sports games, bars, and an actual full selection of amenities.[/quote]
The consortium is not a real benefit and few students use it. I don't know why people on DCUM still are lying about this when it's common knowledge at this point. If you want a consortium that bad, go to the Claremont schools or whatever they are.
What percent of LAC classes even have 30 students?[/quote]

I don't think this is true about the consortium. My kid is at another one of the colleges in this 5 college consortium and it's definitely a benefit. She has gone to many social events at other colleges. Her friend is taking a class at another school. They do use it. Plus there's just an overall benefit to being in an area that serves a lot of college students in terms of the infrastructure that serves them. [/quote]
So 1 student at another school takes class off campus (btw no one is saying other colleges don’t sue the consortium- Hampshire basically only exists to take classes at the other schools), and students go off campus to other ones for some things. These aren’t exactly dazzling reasons to go to a college- I went to many MIT and BU events while at Harvard, but I wouldn’t list MIT parties as a core reason to go to Harvard [/quote]Being in a real college town with a full suite of amenities, restaurants open late into the night, proper bars, and 40,000 other students does give Amherst an advantage over Williams or Middlebury. [/quote]

Have you been to Amherst?   There were only a few restaurants and bars on the main drag, I was shocked given that UMass is so big and nearby.  Apparently Mich of the social life is going to UMass parties.  Not ideal.[/quote]DC goes to Amherst; we are quite familiar with the town.[/quote]

Please enlighten where this “college infrastructure” is then because it certainly isn’t in the little shopping area next to the school.  We could barely find somewhere for dinner outside of that horrible historic Inn.[/quote]Protocol. Lao Hu Tong. Formosa. LiLi's. Miss Saigon. Bueno Y Sano. Amherst Oyster Bar. Royal Chicken and Kebab. Pita Pockets. The list goes on and on. If you go to Hadley (easily accessible by a free bus), there's pretty much every store you'll need: Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Home Depot, Michael's, Big Y, T Mobile, AT&T, a Chase Bank branch…the amenities are all there.[/quote]

DP here.  I went to Dartmouth and Hanover is similar in size, but farther from other little towns.  I remember Amherst being close to Northampton, which also has a bunch of great restaurants, shops and coffee shops.  The point is that if you have a bunch of colleges nearby, there's more places to check out, which makes Amherst more interesting than, e.g. Williamstown.  I heard that the kids at Williamstown drive to Northampton.[/quote]
That’s definitely not true, at least not because they need to. People go to North Adams or Pittsfield. It’s easier to go to Albany than it is to Northampton [/quote]Northampton is far nicer of a place than North Adams or Pittsfield.[/quote]
But if you’re going an hour out, just go to Albany-which has multiple times the things as Northampton. No one really mentioned niceness originally, so I’m not sure why we care.[/quote]

I am one of the Amherst detractors.  The Williams Inn was heaven.  Even the sandwich and coffee places were nicer.[/quote]
Students don’t go to the Williams inn.[/quote]

There were plenty there eating with parents when we were there.  But yes, kids likely tend to eat on campus  at all schools.

I’ve been on maybe 30 college visits between my two kids over the past three to four years.  Amherst is the only one I really disliked.  Obviously, thousands of kids attending the consortium schools feel differently and are happy to have that location be the place  where they spend their college years.  However, op is not alone in wondering why.[/quote]

You liked Wesleyan more than Amherst? 
[/quote]

Didn’t go there.[/quote]

It’s worse than Middlebury.  :lol: 
[/quote]

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