<p>im crossing off middlebury - its too isolated</p>
<p>Amherst - superior in nearly every way. Smaller, yes, but superior faculty and academics. And think about this: at UT Plan II, the very program you are a part of somewhat sections you off from the rest of the school. At Amherst, EVERYBODY is that smart and that dedicated to academics, which really helps you fit into a college community. </p>
<p>And I love how everybody assumes that a large university automatically has better resources than any other school, let alone an LAC. It's pretty much completely variable. At Amherst, you have all the research opportunities, etc., of a larger university, because they may not have a thousand labs, but they also have a fraction of the student population. Amherst doess have world class facilities; but instead of having 500 bio majors on campus, you might have 30. Another point about resources: the UT system has about 11 billion dollars in endowment as compared to Amherst's 1.33 billion. But the UT system also has 190,000 students, compared to Amherst's 1,600. It works out to a $58,000 per-student-endowment for the UT system, and $807,00 at Amherst. Simply put, Amherst has all the facilities and opportunities of any other school, concentrated on a much smaller population. Plus, you'll get to work much closer with professors in research, working on essential studies central to their research, as opposed to menial jobs like washing glassware, as a freshman.</p>
<p>And as far as graduate school, Amherst beats out the others hands down. According to the Wallstreet Journal, in their list of the "Top 50 Graduate School Feeder Schools," released in 2005 I believe, they ranked Amherst 9th in the list of all schools (Unis AND LACs) sending graduates to top grad schools in law, medicine and business. They ranked second highest out of all LACs (second to Williams). They ranked right behind MIT, and in front of other very strong Unis such as Columbia, Brown, UChicago, UPenn, etc. UT did not make this top 50 list. Link: <a href="http://www.collegejournal.com/special/top50feeder.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegejournal.com/special/top50feeder.pdf</a></p>
<p>IMO, Amherst is just too good of an opportunity to pass up.</p>
<p>lol i didnt know UT had 190,000 students....????? then it would be the largest university in the world by 4 fold. it has 50,000 grad/undergrad. ><</p>
<p>the UT SYSTEM has 190,000 students...i mentioned it that way because you can't get a specific endowment figure for UT by itself, the figure is given as an endowment for the UT system as a whole</p>
<p>yeah true that. although the other campuses are sucky sucky sucky and accept like 99% of applicants...>< but seriously go amherst if they give you good aid, or you can afford it, etc, its probably too good of an educational experiance to pass up.</p>
<p>so im guessing that i should just stop wondering and go to amehrst</p>
<p>but wait (suppose somehow i got off the waitlist at brown)</p>
<p>should i go to brown or amherst</p>
<p>Just have faith in yourself and do what you think is best for yourself!!!</p>
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<p>Superior faculty - no way. The only advantage Amherst can claim is smaller size and greater selectivity. Whether you agree or not, world rankings like the London Times certainly recognize the prominence of UT's faculty. A major research university will almost always have this advantage to even the greatest of LACs, because the professors at research universities are on the forefront of research in their fields (and have to be).</p>
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<p>This is where economies of scale come into play. There are certain things like libraries, museums, performing arts spaces, computing resources, etc. where the fact is greater buying power is all that matters, not a meaningless per capita ranking. (By the same token, there are other countries wealthier than US on a per capita basis, but certainly not more influential or wealthy on a global scale.) Compare any resource at Amherst against UT for examples. UT's Blanton is the largest and one of the top university art museums in the country. UT's academic library is the fifth largest in the US. Are all 48K students going to need all 8+ million volumes at one time? Or does the fact that there are so many volumes mean there is more likely to be a given resource at UT for one student looking for it? UT's Ransom humanities library has literally millions of rare and priceless literary manuscripts, books, art, and other humanities artifacts (which, according to the New York Times, are valued at over $1 billion). For decades, the British press has complained about UT "absonding with Britain's cultural heritage" as UT kept buying up the literary archives of British authors that even the British Library could not afford to keep up with. Even Ivy league universities like Princeton and Columbia are in awe of this collection. UT's Performing Arts Center is a massive complex of theater and perfroming arts venues of various sizes for optimal performance settings. The NSF recently announced UT will be aquiring the most powerful academic supercomputer in the world, to complement its already outstanding supercomputing resources. Oh, and of course the athletics facilities are also top notch. Amherst really can't compare in these regards. So does it matter that 50,000 students at UT share it when something is only there in the first place? The collections in the Ransom Center, Benson Collection, or LBJ library are one-of-a-kind or extremely rare. Amherst has nothing like them, its smaller size and greater per capita wealth do nothing to change this.</p>
<p>That's cool, I guess. If you plan on living in the library.
What's the point of having a million books? Clearly not to read them all; no student will ever get through a fraction of a percent of the books at UT, or any other library for that matter. The only reason to buy all those books is simply to say that they have them, so whenever the topic of "college libraries" comes up, they can flail their arms around and proclaim at the top of their voices, "WE have the BEST, BIGGEST, SWEETEST college library EVER!!1!!" Great. But what does that actually contribute to the average undergrad's experience? It's like having forty cars...sure, people will step back and say, "Gee, that's a lot of cars." But how many can you really drive?</p>
<p>Anyway, the OP (and most kids deciding on colleges) are not really looking to be part of the next big scientific discovery. Sure, it'd be cool to say that you were in the lab where cancer was cured. But you can't really predict where that will take place, and it's not the point of undergraduate research. The point of undergraduate research is to gain experience and help prepare you for grad school or a career. And that can be done anywhere. And really, when your main objective in doing research is learning, what better place to do it than a smaller setting with more personal instruction? </p>
<p>I understand nwhat you're saying about UT and it's awesome size and power and international prestige. But the OP isn't even sure he wants to do research in the first place. If he does study bio, Amherst is a great place. If he wants to do anything else, Amherst is a great place. What he does want is to get into a good grad school, and Amherst can help him do that. Who knows, he might end up at UT doing graduate research curing cancer...</p>
<p>It should be really go down to your personal choice. Do you want a huge with school with massive amounts of resources (and students), all at your fingertips (particularly as a plan II student)? Or do you want a smaller school, where you'll really get to know your classmates (all of whom will be able to contribute to your own learning experience) and professors, and be respected enough to do serious research at the undergrad level?</p>
<p>It's a personal choice, and you can't really go wrong in either direction (unless, of course, finances are a concern).</p>
<p>hmmmm this is a lot to think about</p>
<p>I spent 12 years in Texas and live in Massachusetts now. People just don't realize the power of UT Austin unless you have lived in Texas. If you plan to stay in Texas, UT is a really great choice, esp plan 2. In fact, it would probably have a higher prestige factor than Amherst College. If you leave Texas, UT still has a great reputation, one of the best publics in the country. However, Amherst is the best LAC in the country.</p>
<p>The experiences are so different ... so you really have to think about what best suits you. Small college town vs big university town (and Austin is a great place). Small intellectual experience in a LAC, or an intellectual experience within the larger context of a public university.</p>
<p>I would pass on the other schools.</p>
<p>yeah i have pretty much narrowed it down to texas or amherst</p>
<p>texas costs around 17,000 a year (and i get a total of 13000 off for all 4 years; so the total cost would be around 17000 times 4 minus 13000)</p>
<p>my dad went to amherst and we didnt qualify for finacial aid....so it is much more expensive; however he is willing to pay.....</p>
<p>bump bump bump</p>
<p>Lol I just think you & your twin should have separate CC accounts.</p>
<p>haha we did - but then my account would always be signed in so he would jsut use mine - so it morphed into one</p>
<p>Don't let anybody convince you that you won't be part of a vibrant intellectual community if you attend UT. Austin has the highest number of books sold per capita. Does ACL stand for Amherst City Limits? Nope, it stands for Austin City Limits (everyone knows it's the live music capital of the world). I think I had my most religious experience watching the Flaming Lips last year at ACL. I'm kind of in the same situation as you with a decision between two different schools: UT and Uchicago. Remember that the four years that you spend in college aren't just spent learning but also living. Of course, education should be the most important aspect, but i believe UT's Plan II program is a perfect solution to someone who desires that close-knit feel.
An earlier poster's reply about the library system at UT made me laugh. His/her argument would make sense if every student was the exact same or if only one student went to UT. Good thing UT is filled with different students who will be checking out different books for their own different reasons. That's when a large collection of books is nice, when the library user's have varied interests.
Yep, I like UT.</p>
<p>OP, this really isn't a contest.</p>
<p>Given that finances aren't an issue, Amherst is many times more respected than UT-A, even w/ Plan II (which you really won't get a chance to explain to people, when applying for jobs). It is a better place to learn almost anything, and it is (frankly) a better place to establish relationships that will have to last you a lifetime.</p>
<p>In terms of the learning environment, UT partisans can tell you all about the larger library, the huge facilities, but ultimately you don't need a wonderous library, just one that is just a touch more comprehensive than your needs. What you really need are accessible professors, interested and intellectual students, and eventually, a degree with a name and an allumni network that opens doors.</p>
<p>A research university hires professors with an eye towards research; their teaching is a burden they bear in order to pursue their own interests. I've worked at a major research university, (as well as having attended one); no matter how selective a program you've gotten into, ultimately you aren't relevant to the interests of those professors. Even grad students are, to some degree, beasts of burden in a research environment. Imagine the perspective towards undergraduates.</p>
<p>The LAC/research university dichotomy goes even further. I'm not quite sure what the undergraduate/graduate student ration is at UT, but at almost all reseach universities, there are many many more of the latter; even Harvard is <40% undergrad (and they try to genuflect towards undergradate education more than most research universities). LACs are all (by definition) almost entirely undergraduate. This means you are the star, the focus of the teaching mission, not the grad student who otherwise are closer to the professors in every way imaginable.</p>
<p>Returning to the issue of engaged professors, LACs hire professors to teach, and provides them research facilities as an aside. The people who go there are interested in teaching. No matter how exceptional a student you are, you won't, in four years, meaningfully stretch the knowledge of any decent professor at any decent university, so the research credentials of the UT faculty are simply irrelevant. Their main advantage (from your perspective) is that in being rainmakers for grants, they buttress the finances of the school - an issue that is moot compared to Amherst's endowment.</p>
<p>Outside of Plan II, your student body at UT is not going to compare to Amherst's in motivation. This means plenty of classes with apathetic students, and teachers who (even if they walked into the classroom excited to teach) will be affected by that student apathy.</p>
<p>Lastly, the student and alumni networks need to be considered. To the extent that it can be argued that a Plan II student is the equivalent of an Amherst student, remember that your Amherst class will actually be four times larger than your Plan II class. This is four times the chance that a fellow student will end up near you wherever you head after undergrad. Relying on the networking potential of the broader UT population is just silly.</p>
<p>This comparison is almost trivial compared to the relative strengths of the alumni networks. Amherst doesn't just have a far higher performing alumni population; it also, courtesy of being a small school, has a culture of alumni taking an interest in their younger compatriots to an extent that no research university, with graduating classes in the several thousands, can match (no, not even Harvard; one H grad is simply less likely to intervene on behalf of another H grad he doesn't know, vs the grads of a good LAC).</p>
<p>I attended neither school. I'd take Amherst in a heartbeat, over any school other than HPY, and probably over them as well. LACs are just a better environment to learn in. Usually their disadvantage is that while everyone who has heard of them knows they are excellent institutions, many have not actually heard of them. This doesn't apply to Amherst; any institution that hasn't heard of Amherst College really isn't much of a prize to work for.</p>
<p>Look, I don't live in New England or Texas; as a Washington DC resident (well, the suburbs), working as the director of an R&D team at the SAS Institute, I'd value an Amherst degree over any UT degree. I have no regional loyalties to either school (I'm from Maryland by upbringing) and no axe to grind.</p>
<p>Do yourself a favor. Take the offer from Amherst.</p>
<p>-RS</p>