I am going to apply ED for one of these. Don’t suggest any other schools. My intended major is geology. Which one should I apply to and which will be easier to get into?
Well, from a statistical vantage, Amherst is tad bit easier–at 14% versus Brown at 8%. They are really two different environments–so, personal preference will come into play.
Brown is larger a little under 9000. It is also in a much more urban environment, and so while folks won’t mistake Providence for Paris, I actually like it a lot. It is not the Providence of the 80s and 90s where one needed to be on a constant vigil of street crime, but still retains a nice gritty charm. RISD, is an iconic design and art school, and shares Brown’s mantle of the artsy Ivy and related-type student body. That said, make no mistake about it, Brown is a very serious academic place. Oh, Providence has some very serious pizza, did not discount that feature!!
Amherst is much smaller, around, and at the pinnacle of liberal arts education, except for just a few graduate programs, it is entirely undergraduate based. It is one the great college towns, with about 6 six colleges in a 10 mile radius, and participates in the five-college consortium, https://www.fivecolleges.edu/consortium A very bucolic setting, some just love it, others find it a bit too rural and isolated. It does has a jock-ish feel to it, and I have read, that over 25%of the student population are involved with a varsity sport.
My own preference would be Brown, but some like Amherst better for the sheer reason that it has better FA. No bad choices here…
Sorry there, I meant to say, Amherst has about 1800 students…
Of the two, which has the application questions that you can knock out of the park?
“Well, from a statistical vantage, Amherst is tad bit easier–at 14% versus Brown at 8%.”
On the other hand, statistically, Amherst has ever so slightly higher SAT scores. Brown is much more famous and because of its reputation as the “artsy” Ivy it tends to gets thousands of applications from applicants who are highly unlikely to get in, hence the difference between 14% and 8%.
Realistically, the same applicant has about the same chance of getting in to either of them - that is, not very much chance.