Amherst vs. Bowdoin for Government

<p>Hi! I’m also posting this on the Bowdoin forum. Hope that’s okay :)</p>

<p>So I was recently admitted to both Bowdoin and Amherst (yay!) but I guess the problem is that I didn’t expect to get into Amherst, so Bowdoin has always been my first choice…
I’m interested in majoring in government, so I was really excited to be going to Bowdoin, where they supposedly have the best undergraduate liberal-arts government program in the world… but then I got into Amherst. Are there any government majors at Amherst that could comment on the quality of the poli-sci program there? I’m sure its fabulous… I just need some reassurance that I’ll be making the right choice by going to Amherst. I just don’t want to become one of those people that goes to the college just because of the name. I’m turning down a lot of other good colleges because the quality of the education is what’s really important to me, not the prestige. If it turns out that Bowdoin has the better program, then I guess I’ll turn down Amherst as well. Is there anything that Amherst has the Bowdoin doesn’t have?
Ahhhh I just don’t know what to do… I’m visiting both of them this week for the accepted students days :)</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for any comments!!!</p>

<p>They are both so good, you should go where you feel you will be happier after your visit, unless there is a significant cost differential. Then you should go to the cheaper one.
By the way, nice job!</p>

<p>I don’t know much about Bowdoin’s program, but Political Science at Amherst is pretty awesome. There’s a lot of great professors, and a good amount of intellectual diversity. [Andrew</a> Bacevich](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bacevich]Andrew”>Andrew Bacevich - Wikipedia) and [Robert</a> Kagan](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kagan]Robert”>Robert Kagan - Wikipedia) are coming next year to teach one course a piece on American foreign policy, which should be pretty awesome.</p>