<p>What do you love about Amherst? What don’t you love about it?</p>
<p>I haven’t seen a thread like this on here yet, apologies if there is one.</p>
<p>(MM and DC, I expect you both to infiltrate this too, but I’m mostly asking current students. :p)</p>
<p>This is a hard question, because I love everything about Amherst: the campus, the classes, the people, the parties. After mulling over it for a while, the only dislike I can come up with is the student body size. It’s nice to be extremely close to everyone, but there is no such thing as privacy.</p>
<p>-D of GA2012MOM</p>
<p>D of GA2012MOM;</p>
<p>The one thing that you said that you dislike is the student body size… How is that possible if you have 4 neighboring colleges? I know that Amherst kids hang out with UMass kids and Smithies - for the most part - so isn’t there some kind of variation to the faces you’re seeing?</p>
<p>^I wanted to ask the same thing.</p>
<p>Thanks for responding, D of GA2012MOM!</p>
<p>Yeah I mean I asked my sophomore friend at Amherst about social life and he told me that it’s not unusual to see the same faces all the time and to be going out 3 or 5 times a week but you meet new people from other colleges because of the consortium.</p>
<p>^^^^^</p>
<p>Sorry guys, D is gone till tommorrow, so I will attempt to answer. D has been at Amherst for 1 1/2 years now, and she has never gone to another campus for socializing, and she does her fair share of it! She does tell me that students from other schools come to Amherst, but that is mostly girls from Smith and Mt. Holyoke, but she has never met anybody at a party from UMASS or Hampshire. Some clubs, such as the BSU (Black Student Union) have parties on campus and invite students from all 5 colleges, but D hasn’t been to any of them. The only people she has contact with personally from other schools are the occasional student in a class that is taking an Amherst class that she is in. I’m sure there are students that go off campus to socialize at the other schools, but in her social circle, that is not the case. Her sport usually has a party together every week, and she goes to the frat parties and other random parties in dorms.</p>
<p>Thanks for that answer GA2012MOM.</p>
<p>What sport does she play?
Also, I thought that Amherst has no Greek life - I know that students go to UMass to pledge. However, I do know that Amherst has “underground” Frats that are not recognized by the campus. Please confirm this?</p>
<p>You are correct that the frats are unofficial, I’m not sure if that is the correct term, but they are still there. I sent you a pm.</p>
<p>Thanks GA20120MOM.
:)</p>
<p>The grenade has infiltrated the area.</p>
<p>Thank you, GA20120MOM (and D of GA20120MOM) for answering these questions! You responses were extremely helpful!</p>
<p>What I love about Amherst is that even though most students here are nerds and bookworms, we still party like animals. Even UMass students will attest to that.</p>
<p>Besides that, the only thing that stinks about Amherst is that it’s in New England and the weather is bad. But I’m from Wisconsin so I don’t have much to complain about.</p>
<p>The best part about Amherst is the people around you. I am a freshman and I can say that my classmates are some of the most brilliant people but are also some of the most fun and chill people I have met. I know it’s cliche, but most people here are very open-minded and unassuming.
Also, having a small class size allows you to get to know a lot more people than if you had a large class. Plus, there are plenty of people from UMass, Holyoke… and the other colleges that come to the parties here.</p>
<p>Only complaint: The food at the only dining facility, Valentine, could be better. It’s not bad, but I end up ordering a good amount of delivery food.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses gobadgers and PKWsurf21.</p>
<p>PKW, since you’re a freshman…what schools were you choosing between and what finally cemented the decision for you to go with Amherst?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I was picking between Amherst, Cornell, and Swarthmore. I was mainly choosing between Amherst and Cornell, however and not really Swarthmore since I thought Amherst had a better campus environment and fit for me (I’ll explain that part if in another post if you want). </p>
<p>Between Cornell and Amherst, I went back and forth for weeks. I stayed over in both, sat in multiple classes, and met with several professors. Let’s first start with Cornell.
Although Cornell had bigger name recognition, I felt like a number, a statistic for that college. The lecture I sat in was way over 100 students and in other classes the professor told me that I wasn’t allowed to sit in even though I was a prospective admitted student. That was a huge turn-off. But the campus was very nice with great state of the art facilities and they offered me the Presidential Research Scholar Grant so that was very tempting. The campus, however, was like an entire city which I didn’t like and the people on the floor where I was hosted were not my the people with whom I wanted to spend the next four years. Finally, the environment just felt more uptight than I wanted. I could have just been imagining it but that’s just the vibe that I felt over there. Plus the weather was miserable every time I visited (5 times, coincidence? i think not).</p>
<p>When I went to Amherst, I immediately felt comfortable in the area with the other students. I could honestly picture myself waking up every morning, walking across that campus to my class, then relaxing with those kids for the next four years. Plus, after I sat in one of my classes, the professor came up to me and asked if I was a prospective student since he didn’t recognize me. We then talked about what I wanted to do in the future and told me to e-mail about my decision, whether it was Amherst or another school. That showed me how much the professors here care.
My host for the overnight was great and the rooms were phenomenal but what really sealed the deal for me was listening to president Tony Marx’s speech. He is an amazing speaker and really stated the message that this place has the BEST undergraduate education you can receive. Maybe not the most well-known amongst friends and families, but in the academic world, it is known as one of, if not, the best place for your education. My parents and I then ran into him later on the street and had a nice 20 minute talk with him. At cornell, the president never showed up except for an impersonal “Congratulations” video tape they showed at the orientation. </p>
<p>So far, I haven’t been disappointed with this place. The people here are so friendly, the professors are always there to help and know each person pretty well, the college town has everything you want and more, the surrounding colleges like Umass and Holyoke bring in new faces, and the sports here are pretty good (Amherst football Beat Williams to go 8-0! NESCAC Champs)</p>
<p>I hope this long rant was helpful to you. If there’s anything I didn’t talk about that you want me to, whether general or specific or private, just pm me</p>
<p>Thanks for the detailed response, good sir. :]</p>
<p>Also, which school in Cornell did you apply to? I’m guessing CAS? </p>
<p>& I will definitely PM you if any questions arise.</p>
<p>Wow, thank you so much for that description!</p>
<p>Thank you so much. I have a different question to ask as a (possible prospective) athlete - is it true that parties are exclusive around sports teams? I know it seems like a dumb question, but a friend who did an overnight told me that it was the case.</p>
<p>Also - what exactly is the undergroups frat scene? I’ve never heard of anything like that.</p>
<p>i went on the football recruting visit and the party was not exclusive to teams, yet 80% of amherst students do play varsity or club, so you might feel a little excluded if you are not on a team. The party i attended was very large and was a special party for chrismtas, it is possible smaller partiers are more exclusive. my hosts roomate was not on any team, and my host told me he had invited him to parties but he didnt want to go. it doesnt seem like a very exclusive atmosphere</p>
<p>Sports teams frequently have exclusive parties, but those are usually earlier in the night, and even if they aren’t exclusive it’s pretty awkward to be the one non-teammate in the room. In general, though, parties are very non-exclusive–again, the only barrier to entry is the awkwardness factor of being an interloper. The party abstract17 went to is a very unique one. Typically you hang out with your friends (or team) earlier in the night and then go seek out bigger and better things when it’s late and you’re drunk.</p>
<p>Frats don’t affect the social scene much. They’re frowned upon by the administration and aren’t supposed to operate on campus, but most of them are closely tied to certain sports team so that’s really hard to enforce. It’s not (or it’s not supposed to be) common knowledge who is or who isn’t in a frat, so the whole thing is kind of shrouded in secrecy and doesn’t have a lot of impact on your everyday life.</p>
<p>Also, the 80% number includes intramurals–and even then I’m rather suspicious of it. I have to wonder if they double-counted in some way, because way more than 1/5 of the people I know have never played on any kind of sports team.</p>
<p>Haha thanks, I was only wondering because a friend of mine did an overnight there last year and said a few things that made me wonder. However she really didn’t see it as a good fit for her (too small), so I figured I’d take it with a grain of salt. </p>
<p>80% does seem a bit higher than the coach told me - maybe IM students and varsity athletes were counted twice? Idk</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>