Hi I’m an international student looking to apply to Amherst!
Could someone share a little bit about how strong the anthropology/ sociology majors are at Amherst? What have your experiences in class been like?
Background Information
i. Female
ii. Taking the IB Diploma (I take HL Social and Cultural Anthropology, HL Lit, HL Film)
iii. SAT I: 2290 (800 Math 800 CR 690 WR)
iv. SAT II: 790 Math 2 750 Lit
I’m also interested in the Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies major alongside the Film Studies major, so if anyone has information about those two I would love to hear about them as well!
Alternatively, if you have any other suggestions for LACs or even larger research universities that you feel might be a good fit for my interests, I would be grateful to hear them as well!
Colleges with dedicated anthropology and sociology departments may, as a generality, be stronger in these fields than those schools at which anthropology and sociology are combined. As well as Amherst, these LACs should be considered: Pomona, Hamilton, Reed, Grinnell, Bryn Mawr and Beloit.
If you have the money for apps and the time to fill apps out, I would apply to any number of the Ivies and top LACs as found by USNews or other rankings. In general, at top schools, significant fields of study like sociology will be decent. Strength of the department at a school really only matters if you’re thinking about grad school. Otherwise, you will still have ample opportunity to pursue a rigorous and enlightening study.
I was a sociology major at Amherst, and I really liked our department. It is small, but we have quite a few amazing professors (Himmelstein, Lembo, Gewertz, Dole, Mun are all fantastic). There’s a focus on qualitative research, so if you want to do big data (like many socio grad schools do), you might want to look elsewhere. Otherwise, I think we are pretty strong. Take a look at the course catalog to see if you like the classes! Also, you can take courses in the four colleges, which is a huge plus, especially for a small LAC.