Completely disagree with 2020. If you have strong enough stats to apply to Amherst (but were still deferred), shoot for the moon, don’t take it as a sign you have to apply to “lesser” schools. My daughter did not get into Amherst on ED1, and when her counselor called Admissions, the feedback was “we already have one of those.” Amherst is a small school. If you get rejected or deferred, it doesn’t mean you aren’t qualified. She eventually got into ivies, and other world class universities, and got an OOS Regents and Chancellors Scholarship to Berkeley where she currently studies, looking ahead to business schools. Don’t despair! For all those deferred, there are as good and better colleges awaiting your app!
@preppedparent Did you read my entire comment? I noted that those deferred should still apply to other schools of similar caliber, but that it couldn’t hurt to make sure to apply to some lesser schools just in case Amherst isn’t an outlier. Your daughter, in fact, might be the outlier: most students deferred/rejected ED at Amherst probably wouldn’t have a good shot at the ivies.
It’s good to be optimistic, as well as realistic.
@2020 we are going to have to agree to disagree. <<Most students deferred/rejected ED at Amherst probably wouldn’t have a good shot at the ivies." Totally disagree. Amherst is very small with few seats. The larger research ivy universities have more spaces. They both take top students. Amherst is trying to put together a “diverse” class with multiple diversities, so they pick “one” of everything. Ivies are looking for leaders. Its very conceivable that a student wouldn’t get picked for Amherst, but would by an ivy or even two!
@preppedparent I’m sure you know more about Amherst than I do. Not like I go here or something.
@AmherstClass2020 Thanks for taking the time to share your insights as a current student. I did not read @preppedparent as trying to be an authority on Amherst, but instead using his/her experience with admissions at other schools with low acceptance rates. I think he/she was complimenting Amherst and its competitive admissions and stating that a rejection or deferment (i.e., likely rejection) from Amherst does not necessarily predict rejection from other schools of a high caliber, including Ivies. @preppedparent was trying to give your school a compliment, so I suggest taking it as such, as it will reflect better on you.
thanks, @Sunny66 exactly right.
Attending Amherst doesn’t make one an authority on college admissions, there or in general.
There is often significant overlap between top Us and top LACs, and indeed sometimes top stats students get into one/some and not others and there is little to nothing that is clear about why school X accepted and school Y didn’t. Especially when looking at very small schools. Thinking one can say “oh you will get into X because you got into Y” is just an extension of the ridiculous “Chance Me” threads on this site, in which kids try to predict the unpredictable.
The advice to have a good mix of reaches, matches and likelies is still good advice. A rejection from the ED school simply means the matches and likelies become more important, but they should have been on the list all along.
Naviance tells me that at the high school where my daughter attends, it is statistically easier for a student to gain admittance to most of the Ivy League than to Amherst, particularly Penn, Brown, Cornell and Columbia. Heck, no one was accepted to Amherst for seven years straight, while in the same time period, 15 were accepted to Stanford.
So your mileage may vary.
On a different note, I may be late to this party, but do we, the Amherst ED Class of 2021, or just class of 2021 in general, have some kind of facebook group or groupme? I’d love to get to meet some of you guys ahead of time 
Writing as someone who’s followed the Amherst threads here on CC for a number of years – there are plenty of kids who’ve been rejected from Amherst who’ve been admitted to Ivy’s and other highly selective schools. That one is a no-brainer.
Agree with Thankyouforhelp. D was accepted early to Amherst, which was a great surprise (she’s non-URM, non-legacy, non-athlete, non-first gen., comes from an affluent zip code etc). While she had strong scores and grades, I would figure that most applicants to Amherst would have similar stats. Her ECs were good but nothing stellar. No major awards apart from the usual (National Merit, AP scholar etc.), no book publications or groundbreaking research papers published. Interestingly, her school’s naviance showed her odds much better at Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth etc. as virtually no one has gotten into Amherst there in the last 3 yrs. Perhaps going ED gave her an edge…
@DannyK99 I don’t think there’s an official facebook group for the Class of 2021 yet. I don’t know how these things usually work, but maybe you could create one and post the link here? I’d love to start getting to know the class too
@dancingphysicist there is an unofficial one (fb page) – i don’t think they will pull together an official one until the RD’s come out?
Admission for any one student is always a crapshoot but statistically AmherstClass2020 is definitely correct as shown by the much higher yields of most of the the ivy league schools as well as Stanford and a few others. Amherst is a great school but LAC’s are not the choice for the majority of top students.
Is there an rd discussion thread?
“Hey guys me and another Amherst applicant made a GroupMe you should all join it!!
https://app.■■■■■■■■■■■/join_group/29441861/rnDWy3
Let me know if this link works btw” - @ricka8