my understanding is that it encompasses 5 colleges that are within 20 minutes of each other – Amherst College, Mount Holyoke, Smith College, UMass Amherst and Hampshire College.
if you enroll in, say, UMass (which is both much easier to get into than Amherst and considerably cheaper as well), you can then take classes – at will - at any of the 5 colleges for no extra cost (though your degree would be from the admitting college). It strikes me that this would be a great way to get superb professors and classmates…while taking a more affordable route…but am I missing something here?
Nope, that is really how it works. Of course, the students at each college have priority in registration for the classes. The only downside can be the travel time on the PVTA if you don’t have a car. My daughter never took classes outside of her school, Amherst college, she did however have students in her classes from the other consortium schools.
eta: I think there is a mandatory number of credits that must be taken at your home institution, but not sure about the numbers.
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I think the thing you are missing is that the logistics of traveling between campuses does mean that it is hard to take a lot of classes at the other campuses. Students shuttle, but you have to wait for the shuttle, and take travel time into account when scheduling. My impression is that most students take a few courses at the other campuses in their time at a consortium college, but most do not take a lot.
I also don’t know what the process is for class registration, and whether “home campus” students get first priority in registration on their campus. Some consortiums allow declared majors in certain subject to have first crack at registering, so there can also be rules like that.
I would not send one of my kids to the 5 consortium colleges assuming they will take lots of classes at the other schools (and both of my kids were accepted at MHC, but didn’t attend for various reasons, although I still like the school a lot).
Oh… and I am betting a student who would have trouble getting admitted at Amherst might also struggle to get a good grade in a class with 80% or more Amherst students in it. So that could be a factor, too.
The main advantage of such consortiums would be if your “home” college is missing some offering, it may be available at one of the others. For example, an Amherst CS major may be able to fill in the gaps in Amherst’s CS offerings by taking them at UMass. Logistically, commuting to the other campus may take time*, and there may be administrative limitations by both your “home” college and the college you want to take classes at (e.g. priority to students at that college before you can register).
*A few arrangements, like Barnard - Columbia and the Claremont colleges, are adjacent, requiring no or trivial commuting.
I appreciate these insights/details – very helpful…and intriguing…D did toss in an RD app to UMass in December and i’m intrigued to see what happens next.
Once a Hampshire student who took classes in the consortium at Smith and UMass told me the UMass was the best class he had in college.
I’ve heard it’s very easy to get from one to the other except for Smith–Smith takes a little bit more time because it’s across the river–but still not hard.