<p>Hi, I need help deciding between Amherst and Cornell please!</p>
<p>I’m going to college Undecided, but I think I may end up leaning towards the Humanities or Social Sciences (though I guess anything is possible, since I have a variety of interests). How good are these departments at Amherst relative to Cornell, and also relative to other colleges in general? I’m also interested in knowing how academically “well-rounded” Amherst is, since I’ll probably need to do a lot of exploration/experimentation in order to figure out my major.</p>
<p>One potential problem is that I’m not sure that I want to go to such a small school (basically the size of my high school!). Any thoughts or experiences? </p>
<p>Also, I know you can’t really rank LACs and universities together, but in your opinion at least, which would be ranked higher? Thanks!</p>
<p>I’ll try to answer your questions one at a time.</p>
<p>Well, if you’re looking into the Humanities, Amherst, as a LAC is the obvious choice. That’s what liberal arts colleges are for, lol. Amherst also has the Open Curriculum thing, so you can experiment when you get there.</p>
<p>The school can get a little small, I suppose. But there is typically a large presence of other 5 college students around at all times. From what I hear, the amount of people on campus (assuming that the regular 1,600 is there) swells to about 2,000 or more, most of the time. But, if you get sick of campus, go into town, take a class at another campus, or go into Boston for a weekend trip.</p>
<p>Can’t rank LACs and universities together, as you know. But Amherst’s acceptance rate is about 10-15%, and according to this article here: [Campus</a> Overload - College acceptance rates down](<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/2010/04/college_acceptance_rates_down.html]Campus”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/2010/04/college_acceptance_rates_down.html)</p>
<p>Cornell’s is about 18%. If you are concerned about prestige, Cornell is more well-known to everyday people. But Amherst has a old, and powerful alumni network. You’d be in very, very good company if you attended.</p>
<p>Just a nit, that linked article shows the acceptance rates aggregated across of all of Cornell’s seven undergraduate colleges. The college there that is most similar to amherst is its arts & sciences college (“CAS”), and CAS acceptance rates are always below the university aggregate rate. In the prior application cycle, the CAS admission rate was eight-tenths of one percent higher than Amherst’s. No data for this year yet.</p>