Amherst v. Duke

College Search & Selection
1

<p>So, as the title explains, I'm stuck between these two choices.
I have visited both and they are both very very nice, but I am still not sure. If anybody could think of any more pros/cons for either, please post. Any suggestions/opinions/thoughts/snide remarks are welcome :)</p>

<p>Amherst:</p>

<p>PROS:
• Close interaction
• Open Curriculum
• Location; Northeast + weather
• 2nd in LAC, 9th for feeder into grad
• 5 College Consortium
• Very much interest shown in me through emails/phone calls/early write</p>

<p>Dormitories:
• 4.5 Stars</p>

<p>Food:
• Better for social, than quality</p>

<p>CONS:
• Not well-recognized in general population (this is iffy. yes, some ppl have heard of it and know all about LACs, but for asians, this is not the case. it's still small)
• Not as many Asians (10% of 1697 = 170)
• Mascot/colors (VERY minor issue though)</p>

<p>Duke:</p>

<p>PROS:
• Larger = meet more people = more opportunities
• Name recognition (esp. in asian community)
• 10th in nation, 6th for feeder into grad
• Much more Asians (22% of 6400 = 1408)
• Athletics
• Progressive school
• Mascot and colors (currently, my high school is also blue devils)</p>

<p>Dormitories:
• 3.5 Stars</p>

<p>Food:
• Duke’s food service is known to be among the best in the nation</p>

<p>CONS:
• Location; not close to any major city besides durham, but what is there to do in durham?
• 10 required courses of 34</p>

<p>Being Asian and coming from a not-very asian city (western GA), I really would like to go to a school that does have a thriving asian community. so that is why the % of asians is up there.
I know that LACs value personal relationships whereas bigger schools may not, but technically, amherst and duke have the same student to faculty ratio.</p>

<p>Oh, and I'm thinking of becoming an economics or neuroscience major if that plays into any account.</p>

2

<p>Here’s a little something from the Duke board:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Also, the ASA (Asian Student Association) at Duke is a very vibrant group. They host a lot of events throughout the year, dances celebrating lunar new year, etc. There is also Duke Chinese Dance which has many performances and is very easy to get involved with.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>True. My freshman year, I had two classes with 5-7 people. There’s a lot of incredibly great (and small) learning environments at Duke, even though it’s a large research university. Kinda get the best of both worlds. :)</p>

3

<p>The feeder rankings are deceptive because they arbitrarily select a handful of top grad schools and rank the colleges accordingly.</p>

<p>"So for medicine, our schools were Columbia; Harvard; Johns Hopkins; the University of California, San Francisco; and Yale [Duke/Stanford/Columbia Med?],</p>

<p>while our MBA programs were Chicago; Dartmouth’s Tuck School; Harvard; MIT’s Sloan School; and Penn’s Wharton School [Stanford, Northwestern, Berkeley? Throw in Yale?].</p>

<p>In law, we looked at Chicago; Columbia; Harvard; Michigan; and Yale. [All the schools in the T14 should be considered. Where the heck are Stanford and NYU if one is going to include Michigan?]."</p>

<p>You shouldn’t be concerned about impressing the general population, since a majority of the general population has not gone to college. Duke is well-known because of its athletic programs. It’s not respected by the majority for its academics. And, those who do respect it for its academics will equally respect Amherst.</p>

<p>Your criticism of the size of Amherst’s Asian American population is legitimate, but you could easily find and befriend the Asian members of the community. Amherst’s diversity really transcends ethnicity, and generally speaking you could feel comfortable being friends with anyone if you wanted to.</p>

<p>Duke likely has the better Economics program (it offers a greater breadth of courses, and courses in the most advanced theory, perhaps) and a highly ranked graduate school of medicine, but Amherst was the first institution to offer the Neuroscience major and has an impressive list of alumni:</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/neuroscience/alumni_in_neuroscience[/url]”>https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/neuroscience/alumni_in_neuroscience&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Amherst also has two Nobel Prize winning economists.</p>

4

<p>Duke is better than Amherst opportunity-wise, you certainly aren’t passing on anything by choosing the bigger, more well-known school. </p>

<p>I wouldn’t give a second thought to Amherst. While a great school, you won’t have any opportunities at Amherst that you wouldn’t have at Duke, and you should focus on making your Duke experience better. In terms of prestige (which isn’t the same as opportunities) - like I said earlier - Amherst is one of those schools thats probably more prestigious among a select group of people (people who went there, other LAC fans), overall Duke has a much better name (international as well as national level) that will do more for you if its on your resume.</p>

<p>In terms of student experience, Amherst is probably better if you like the LAC student experience, but for traditional college Duke is solid.</p>

<p>Either way, don’t depress yourself into thinking Amherst was one chance in a million - anything you could have possibly experienced at Amherst (opportunity-wise, prestige-wise, name-wise) you’ll get with more at Duke.</p>