<p>My son toured Amherst last fall, and it seems --fine. Good school, nice campus, hard-working kids. Nothing wrong with any of that, and yet we came away without a sense of what the school valued, what the kids were like (apart from fine, upstanding, hardworking kids), how it felt to attend. Can someone who loves the school explain its essence?</p>
<p>Anyone care to reply?</p>
<p>Interesting --my D did not get that sense at all; she visited the summer before her junior year of HS, and then went back at spring of junior year to visit again, sit in on two classes, etc. And we live in California so two visits wasn’t easy!n So her take on Amherst is not as a current student but as a prospective student. She submitted her application last night. I just asked her and she said she loved that the learning environment was more “collaborative” then competitive; students truly seemed engaged and interacted with each other in the classroom (rather than a massive lecture hall with a teacher lecturing and students writing everything in a notebook). She liked the lack of distribution requirements. She loved the diversity of the students (racially, culturally, income wise). She loved the campus feeling (that is standard to many LACs in the northeast though). She liked that she could take a couple of classes at Univ of Mass through the Consortium at no extra charge and there is a shuttle that can get to UMass. She loved the adjacent town/community and the fact that students were mingling with local families on the sidewalk and in the restaurants, etc. It was not a “town” vs “gown” feeling at all for her. These are just some of her takes on Amherst.</p>
<p>I understand what you mean. It’s definitely smart, collaborative, diverse, and a bit athletic, but I still haven’t been able to nail down the personality.</p>
<p>So far I think it’s just a very, very good school with too many types to fit into a box. Some students like that experience, and others feel more comfortable attending a school with a more specific personality.</p>