<p>I know that this has been asked before, but still…</p>
<p>So I got a likely letter from Amherst yesterday, which was surprising and of course very exciting. I had tacked Amherst on to my list last-minute, mostly because I was attracted to the open curriculum, the undergrad-centered environment, and the ability to pursue my more humanistic interests. However I’m concerned about the quality of physics here because I want to major in it. Any feedback in that arena?</p>
<p>As a side-note, the University of Rochester is currently throwing money at me. Amherst financial aid will not be a problem because my EFC = 0, but I was wondering if Rochester physics and Amherst physics were even a contest. Thanks!</p>
<p>I was a 2012 physics major at Amherst. The professors are generally phenomenal, although I bet they are good at Cornell as well. However, Amherst’s department is very small so the professors go incredibly far out of their way to help you. I’m not sure you’d see that at a larger school simply because the professors have so many students to keep track of; at Amherst there are only 5-15 students per graduating class. </p>
<p>You also should not be too turned off by the fact that grad courses are not typically offered. Each semester the faculty asks the upper level students if they would like other courses taught (general relativity, optics, fluid dynamics, etc.) and if there is enough demand, the professors will teach those additional course(s). I ended up taking general relativity and high-energy astrophysics, both of which are outside of the major curriculum. Some of the other students in my class took advanced electrodynamics.</p>
<p>Bottom line is that I don’t think you’ll go wrong at either place, but I am obviously biased toward Amherst.</p>