<p>Hey everyone, I've been accepted at Amherst and Reed, and I can't decide between them. Some advice please?</p>
<p>Reed is more intellectual; Amherst is jockier. Not to say Amherst students aren’t genuinely smart, but they don’t study and discuss the way Reedies do.</p>
<p>Amherst is more well-known. It has a very nice open curriculum and sends many students to top grad schools.</p>
<p>Reed is full of extremely quirky characters. From what I’ve seen, it’s definitely not for everyone. However, if that’s the type of scene you’re looking for you’ll likely love it. It also sends many students to grad school.</p>
<p>Both are excellent LAC’s. I suggest you visit them before making your decision.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Reed has a strong emphasis on learning through distribution requirements and Humanities 110. There’s a belief in not neglecting the breadth, at the cost of studying only depth. Reed’s is a classical academic model, you could compare it to the core curricula at places like Chicago and Columbia.</p>
<p>Amherst, on the other hand, has an open curriculum, which means their focus is on letting students decide. Amherst’s model is Brown inspired.</p>
<p>Reed is academically a far more demanding college with what some might call grade deflation, but everything it makes you go through, from the Junior Qualifying Exam to the Senior Thesis holds great importance in graduate school preparation. Reed is part of a select group of colleges that are known for their strict academic demands and despite grade deflation, are respected by graduate schools. Reed is also academia prep, in a sense, because a lot of Reedies go on to earn their PhDs and become professors.</p>
<p>Amherst is a less academically demanding and an easier college when compared to Reed. Amherst’s graduates do very well in professional school acceptance (business, law) but the college isn’t as concentrated in doctoral programmes as Reed is. </p>
<p>Eventually, it comes down to the academic model you believe in and feel you’ll thrive in, along with what your future aspirations are.</p>
<p>I want both! I’m interested in becoming a professor (as a career). But I’d prefer Amherst’s social life, and the five college consortium. Is Amherst really that slack?</p>
<p>If you’d prefer Amherst’s social life then you should go to Amherst.</p>
<p>which is the more prestigious? that’s another consideration</p>
<p>Both are well-respected in academic circles; Amherst is better-known outside of that.</p>
<p>And it’s Amherst, not Podunk U. If you prefer Amherst’s social life, go there–you’ll get a great education regardless.</p>
<p>Yeah, Amherst really is not a slacker school. You also have more options at Amherst with the consortium. If you haven’t visited, definitely do before May 1. The student bodies sound quite different on paper, and I’d imagine the feel would be too.</p>
<p>“Not to say Amherst students aren’t genuinely smart, but they don’t study and discuss the way Reedies do.”</p>
<p>I call B.S. I am an Amherst student, and I assure you that everyone here takes his/her studies very seriously. Even those students on athletic teams work hard and have passions beyond their regular commitments.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Reed, not having participated in class discussions and partied there, so therefore I will not make generalizations about it that do not reflect an intimate understanding of the school–nor should Keilinger.</p>
<p>“Reed is full of extremely quirky characters.”</p>
<p>Amherst is “full of extremely quirky characters” too, except Amherst students don’t make a show of their strangeness. You know those hipsters who are writing their novels on their Macbooks in a Starbucks? You won’t find students at Amherst who are like that, who are in-your-face about showing you what extraordinary individuals they really are. </p>
<p>“Amherst is a less academically demanding and an easier college when compared to Reed.”</p>
<p>Because on what? The fact that Reed deflates grades? Likewise, every Ivy League school is less academically demanding than Princeton because Princeton deflates grades, right?</p>
<p>“which is the more prestigious?”</p>
<p>Amherst.</p>
<p>“You know those hipsters who are writing their novels on their Macbooks in a Starbucks? You won’t find students at Amherst who are like that, who are in-your-face about showing you what extraordinary individuals they really are.”
Well, there are definitely people like that in the area. <em>cough</em> Northampton <em>cough</em>.</p>
<p>But overall you’re right, I think people underestimate Amherst’s quirkiness because it’s not showy about it. And it’s a terrific and rigorous school.</p>
<p>geesh…Amherst all the way</p>
<p>Hmm, I looked at the wikipedia site for Reed, and I saw this:
In 1961, Scientific American declared that second only to Caltech, “This small college in Oregon has been far and away more productive of future scientists than any other institution in the U.S.”
This really made my ears prick up. That said, this quote comes from 1961. Is this still the case?</p>
<p>Are Amherst and Reed gay-friendly, by the way? Does each have a reasonable gay population?</p>
<p>I know Reed is very gay-friendly, and I can’t imagine Amherst is unfriendly…</p>
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<p>Hey, don’t diss NoHo and the girls who happen to go to school there (i.e. Smithies!)</p>
<p>I think both Reed and Amherst are great schools, and as a future Smithie, I’m biased to the consortium and the area. BUT, I also enjoy the quirkiness and location of Reed.</p>
<p>I would pick Amherst, but really, you cannot pick incorrectly</p>
<p>[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>
<p>kwu, there is no doubt in my mind that Reed is academically more demanding. I’m sorry you don’t know enough about Reed, but it requires a Senior Thesis that has to be defended orally, and before you’re allowed to start work on your Senior Thesis, you have to pass a Junior Qualifying Examination which tests whether your knowledge in your major is adequate to carry out advanced research. This requirement is mandatory-EVERYONE has to pass the qual, write a thesis and defend it to graduate from Reed. It’s different even from Swarthmore, where only Honors students do something similar. Reed is a unique place and let’s not kid ourselves, Amherst may be many other things, but it isn’t as academically challenging as Reed. That does not imply it’s a slacker school, but it’s just different. Also, another thing to consider is that at Reed, it’s virtually impossible to double-major because you have to write two quals and two theses, whereas at Amherst double-majoring is far more common, and in some cases people even triple-major.</p>
<p>Both Amherst and Reed are prestigious in the correct circles. It’s not like Amherst or Reed earn you street credit-people will still ask you where they are, how come they’ve not heard about them etc. Conversely, both are prestigious in an academic context, especially with people who are well-educated and aware of education in America. I didn’t apply to Amherst, but I got into Reed and I’ll be going there, and I had the most telling experience concerning prestige-when at a family friend’s party, the night before Ivy League decisions, my mother and I met a Columbia and Harvard Business School graduate. I’d already been accepted by Reed, but Columbia remained my top choice at that point, so I started talking to her about it and she said it was great and she asked me what my other options were, and I said I’d got in to Reed, and her face immediately lit up. She told me she’d always wanted to go there but it was on the wrong coast and how brilliant it was, how she knew someone who went onto do some really cool stuff after graduating from Reed, and how much I’d gain from it if I went there. From that point on, she just talked about Reed even though I tried to talk to her about Columbia. It was a little odd when it happened, and I didn’t get accepted by Columbia eventually, but it just opened my eyes to the fact that prestige is after all relative. I happen to live in India and the person in question was of Indian origin, but had lived across the world, so if you happen to be in the right circles, you’ll feel Reed and possibly Amherst as well are prestigious, but ultimately both aren’t the kind of names you can drop into conversations with people and expect gasps. </p>
<p>However, Amherst is one of America’s oldest Liberal Arts Colleges, Reed is relatively new and not on the East Coast, so our name and brand value differs from Amherst and is perhaps less. Interestingly, a lot of Reed Presidents, including current President Colin Diver are Amherst graduates and he, himself has conceded that Reed is a much more academic place than Amherst. </p>
<p>As far as location goes, Reed has got Portland-one of America’s best smaller cities and one of the best music scenes , plenty of nature and rain. Amherst has cold, semi-urban Massachusetts with a consortium.</p>
<p>Paradox, how does Reed compare to Amherst as a feeder school to the top graduate schools in the country?</p>
<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<p>“Amherst is “full of extremely quirky characters” too, except Amherst students don’t make a show of their strangeness.”</p>
<p>No big deal, just curious: How can one recognize quirkiness if it’s not shown? </p>
<p>I think this is the first time I’ve heard Amherst students called “quirky” as a group. ;)</p>