<p>I am a duke (Pratt) and amherst RD acceptee and having the toughest time deciding which school is better for me. </p>
<p>I want to pursue Med School but i'm afraid if it gets too hard, I'm gonna pursue finance as a back up. </p>
<p>I believe duke has a better finance option than amherst, but for pre-med, i believe amherst wins that one. However, amherst has no engineering school, and going business there would be a bad idea. </p>
<p>I'm also worried about the social settings. I think Duke may be too big, but amherst maybe too small. </p>
<p>First off, congratulations on Amherst. I really don't know much about that school, but I think the size issue can be greatly appeased by the fact that freshmen live on east campus, a smaller, more intimate setting that might help appease any anxiety with size. As for finance, I would be wary of using finance as a back-up. From what I've heard, the courses may be easier, but the competition is stiffer. One of my friends at Duke said that around 25% of Pratt wants to be Ibankers, and that's just Pratt. Spots at prestigious Ibanks are supposed to be some of the most sought after positions, so it may actually end up being more difficult than going pre-med.</p>
<p>I don't think that Amherst has an edge on Duke in terms of being premed. I actually think Duke has a rather large edge on Amherst. Duke has its own medical center and medical school, both of which are among the best in the country. Amherst has absolutely nothing even approaching that. You might say "so what, I'm just an undergrad," but trust me, you can use Duke's medical center to your advantage. I'm also premed, and I've worked in labs, volunteered, done internships, shadowed physicians and nurses, and even done biomedical research at the medical center and gotten a lot of exposure that way. That stuff doesn't really exist at Amherst, at least not in the same form.</p>
<p>I would also say that Duke really isn't that large. In terms of area, yeah it's pretty big but not that unmanageable, and in terms of the student body, it really doesn't feel like 6400 kids or whatever, it feels more like a couple thousand. I see people I know out and about all the time (even when I really don't want to). My personal opinion is that Amherst borders on too small; the couple times I've been there, I actually get kind of creeped out by how tiny the place is, and I feel kind of like I'm at a prep school like Phillips or something, but that's just my own opinion. I also know people who love that about Amherst, that's more your personal feeling when you visit.</p>
<p>Amherst does not feel too small, because it is set in a great community in a lovely college town filled with students. I think it is the perfect place to go to college. I hope you get some advice from Amherst pre-meds as I can't hrlp you with that.</p>