Yes, please articulate what you like about Amherst and what you like about Stanford. Both are amazing schools. And what about your likely major – do they differ in terms of resources, professors, etc.??
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These are both great schools.
It has been a long time, but I got my master’s degree at Stanford so I might be able to answer questions if you have any. Feel free to either post questions here or to pm me.
Congratulations on your acceptances to these great schools!
And our son recently graduated with BSCS 2020 and MSCS 2021 happy to answer questions
You did so well. Will you please write, in a single post, what happened at each school?
@Alexhe, we miss you and want to know what you’re thinking.
WOW!!! Go to Stanford. Bigger pond. Better prestige. Bigger world. Better everything. Better weather! I am so happy for you! That is fantastic! Incredible! Yay! Yay! Yay!!!
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Congratulations on fabulous options! You can’t go wrong with either Stanford or Amherst, and I am quite impressed that you are not immediately deciding Stanford due to prestige reasons. Study after study have proven that college prestige does little to determine student happiness and ultimate graduate well-being, especially when considering the caliber of the schools we are talking about here.
If you have any questions about Amherst (current class of '25 here!), I could be more than happy to answer them!
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Hey guys, sorry for the late update.
tl;dr: I have decided to commit to Amherst!
Why I chose Amherst:
Smaller class sizes and closer knit community (I really enjoy and love the intimate discussion and conversational learning). The liberal arts enthusiasm and curriculum focuses more on actually learning. Closer to home and easier commute (I get a ton of nausea on planes + closer to sick grandparents and parents). Everyone that I have spoken to who attended/attend Amherst have said that they have no regrets and that the professors there are literally the best. Maybe only downsides are social life (?) but I suppose that is subjective.
Why I didn’t choose Stanford:
Although prestige is super high, Amherst isn’t too far behind (I don’t care much about prestige but I do understand that higher rankings/prestige probably mean better jobs, but I’m sure I can work hard enough at either school to meet whatever I need/desire in life). Far as heck. Also a lot more expensive compared to Amherst. I may consider Stanford grad school though.
Overall thoughts:
I am incredibly grateful for everyone who has helped me along the way. I don’t want to brag or say anything insensitive, but I think that my college decisions are somewhat predictable. Going to a decent public school that often sends a few kids to top schools means that our school not only values education, but we also have more connections than other schools. My family being in the upper-middle class range also provided me with a lot more opportunities than others.
However, I do think that you have to find a good relationship between what you want and what the school wants. Looking back at where I got in and where I didn’t showed a lot of trends in my processes. For Amherst and Colby, I actually put an immense amount of demonstrated interest into my application (multiple virtual seminars, back-and-forths with the admissions office(r), and visited the schools). The essays for Amherst were actually my favorite and I put in so much quirkiness and personality. For Bowdoin, I showed no literally no interest and lowkey didn’t want to go. For Williams, I showed a lot of interest but I didn’t submit a great essay (it was one from freshman year since we had no essays in school the other years). Conn College was one of my favorites, but no essays so I couldn’t really express my love. Hamilton essay was actually really bad but my mother went there so that might’ve helped. Middlebury had no essays so I couldn’t really express any of my interest besides the one info session I went to (also didn’t get interview for some reason). Cornell I loved but my 650 word essay was not good and very repetitive. Dartmouth I also liked but I rushed and applied the day of. Tufts was a surprise. I thought my essays were good and my interview went well too. Maybe applying for the engineering school was a bad idea (only school I applied engineering). I actually applied REA to yale and got deferred so I had some expectations. But, Yale and Harvard are literally the top schools in the ivy league so I didn’t have very high expectations. As for Brown, I literally loved it so much and I worked so hard on my essays and video and while getting waitlisted is disappointing, I’ll take it. Stanford was actually very unexpected and reading my essays again, I realized that they were very quirky and similar to other Stanford admits.
My process for applying to most of these schools included me browsing the college’s websites and compiling a list of values/missions, key investments/new constructions, and other basic stuff to write a “why school” essay. I think the first two parts are the most important because it covers the part of how you will contribute to campus and why the school should accept you. My guidance counselor actually said that most candidates are smart and talented, but your fit is the most important thing to the school. To me, I thought of “fit” as whether you are similar to the current students/alumni and whether you can be part of their culture and traditions. For example, at Amherst, people are not only ambitious but actually want to learn. The open-ish curriculum and small community allows everyone to take learning seriously and the exclusivity leads to a lot of social life and excitement—both of which are exactly what I want and am used to personality-wise. The ENST major and department also has a lot more humanities-based programs and courses. And for Stanford, people are also ambitious and entrepreneurial. Their major and new school also align with my interests. I suppose the stereotypes are true in a sense. These examples probably don’t make sense lmao—my tip for other people applying next year would be to ignore the acceptance rates (somewhat) and just apply to schools that fit you and research the heck out of them.
This is very long-winded and it’s late at night so dm me if you have any specific questions and I can try to answer them. Thanks again guys 
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Congratulations! 
And thank you for the detailed recap f your journey.
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Congratulations on making a wise, mature, thoughtful decision! Everyone I know who went to Amherst has gone on to a very successful, rich career. (I don’t mean rich monetarily but in terms of experiences.)
And now you’ll be able to come home on weekends occasionally!
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Congratulations! My daughter also just committed to Amherst class of 2026 with an interest in ENST, so perhaps you’ll end up in a class or two together! Best of luck next year.
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Great information–just curious what did you dislike about Bowdoin?
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TBH my impressions of Bowdoin came from my cousin who goes there (she preferred colby over bowdoin and although she says she’s grown to like bowdoin, it was a strange adjustment for her. she also mentioned the bubble that forms there.) and my friend’s brother (he’s a recruit so his college experiences are different from mine but even he says that there is a weird and significant divide between athletes and non-athletes, probably due to training schedules).
Bowdoin is a great school but I think compared to my other liberal arts schools, it wasn’t that strong in envsci and not that great of a fit for me. I still applied to see if I had a shot (also my friend’s brother is very attractive hehe jk).
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