Amherst is extremely selective. The average applicant ACT, for example, is 31. That would be a great # for an accepted pool. But that’s the applicant pool.
If you are unhooked, it’s extremely difficult. It could probably be calculated, but a true unhooked applicant (NOT an athlete, URM, Pell Grant eligible, or legacy), the admit rate for you is going to probably be in the 5% range. I’ve read that if you don’t have one of those hooks, you are in a pool of accepted applicants that average round 2300 SAT.
There are roughly 565 varsity athletes. I think 10% legacies (180 students). Pell Grant eligible 20% (360). Black or Hispanic URM around 30% (560 students).
That’s 1665 students out of roughly 1800.
Of course, some students are going to fall into multiple categories, so the 1665 “hooked” number is going to be less. But it’s still a big number. Just the athletes alone take a lot of the spots and significantly reduce the number of available slots.
A school like Brown (or even more so schools like Cornell) have this effect watered down. For example, at Brown only 17% are athletes, which is roughly half the % at Amherst. At Cornell (with 14,000 undergrads), the % of students that are varsity athletes is negligible.
In addition, Cornell, Brown, etc. attract a lot of people who just “throw an application in” even thought they really have almost no chance. Some do at Amherst, Williams, etc., too, but there’s no way it’s as many.
So the selectivity numbers, alone, can be misleading. For a true unhooked applicant (non athlete, non Pell, non URM, non legacy, non Questbridge), I’d say it’s harder to get into Amherst than Brown.
but thank you that makes it a little better haha 
