Excellent Record of Pre-Professional Preparation

Colleges and Universities A-Z Amherst College
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Although the educational emphasis is on a liberal arts education, Amherst has an excellent record for professional schools.

On per capita basis, Amherst has the 2nd best record for admission to top law schools and 9th best record for admission to top medical schools among U.S. universities and colleges. WSJ did a similar type of analysis over 15 years ago for feeders to top law, medicine, and business schools with very similar findings. https://www.inside-higher-ed.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/wsj_college_092503.pdf. Although the professional schools analysed were different in the two surveys, Amherst’s record may have improved even more during the intervening period.

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I think what this is illustrating is many people would not see this as a contradiction.

Taking a step back, there are quite a few people who believe college is really too early to try to be teaching people how to be really good at a specific profession. A lot of that practical education actually happens on the job, of course–interns in medicine, junior associates in law, various similar entry positions in different business fields, and so on. And then even the educational step before that often comes after college–the MD or JD obviously, and then while MBAs are not always required, they are often helpful, and those typically come after both college AND work experience. For that matter, med schools and law schools are also increasingly interested in people having some sort of prior practical experience.

OK, so you are entering college with like none of that, and a lot of people very much believe you are not in fact ready at that point to start a specifically professional education. Instead, they think you should continue getting a good general education. Even med schools do not require specific degrees, just a broad education that includes the various subjects considered important for future health professionals.

And so it is absolutely no surprise that independent LACs like Amherst are considered by many to be excellent colleges for pre-professionals. Because they are very much still PRE professionals, and Amherst and such are great at providing the general educations such people think you should be getting in college.

Indeed, this is really no different from the LACs that are not independent but are instead embedded in prominent private universities. Colleges like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and so on ALSO do not offer professional degrees to their undergraduates. Harvard and Yale, of course, have some extremely important professional schools (not Princeton), but they do not make those schools available to their undergraduates because they are similarly in the tradition of thinking it is too early for that when you are still just in college.

OK, so I don’t think a lot of people question whether Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and so on are good places to go for college if you are interested in a professional career. And that is really no different from why LACs like Amherst are also very good for the same purposes.

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as an Amherst grad who went on to medical school, i don’t know why this is even in question. my Amherst education was critical for preparing me for a medical career. Amongst the myriad reasons for such, the most obvious to me was how Amherst taught me how to communicate especially in writing. Even my science classes required me to write out my answers - i don’t remember taking even one multiple choice test there. For example, in organic chemistry, we had to write out and explain why the reactions occurred to demonstrate our thought process to the professor. I don’t think a larger class would allow for that depth of critical thinking on a test that larger universities would likely require. in my non-science classes, there was a huge emphasis on clarity and conciseness in the grading of the papers because i had developed bad habits in high school on overdoing it with vocabulary and run-on sentences (yes, i still have this tendency, haha!). In the end, i credit my Amherst education on developing my ability to think critically and across disciplines. These skills, clear communication and critical thinking, are indispensable in any medical career path and are probably some of the hardest to develop.

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I agree with NiceUnparticularMan and jcpharm. In fact 9 of the top 20 institutions for undergraduate admissions to law school and 6 of the top 20 institutions for medical school are liberal arts colleges. Liberal arts colleges do not offer pre-law or pre-med curriculum per se; however, they do emphasize the development of critical thinking and effective writing skills. These soft skills and the ability to approach complex problems from an interdisciplinary vantage point are highly useful in law, medicine, and business.

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