<p>Accurate statement or no? If you’re smart enough to get in are you generally going to do okay?</p>
<p>“Accurate,” yes. Academically speaking, you would have to be willfully and grossly negligent to merit 100 percent dismissal. In the event that one becomes academically delinquent, even then, the College maintains generous readmission policies.</p>
<p>The Writing Center, the Quantitative Center, Peer Tutoring, deans, professors, professional counselors, peer counselors, etc., etc.</p>
<p>The vast majority of Amherst students do not even contemplate such a worst case scenario.</p>
<p>In short, you will be okay, unless you are hellbent on not being okay.</p>
<p>Unrelated note: there are many kinds of “smarts” that the admission committee considers.</p>
<p>Among peer institutions, Swarthmore and Williams are probably more academically “gruelling” than Amherst. That said, the admissions people have enough choices to select students who can cut it (perhaps some purely athletic recruits or scion legacies might be at an academic disadvantage).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say Swarthmore is more academically gruelling… It’s certainly a great place, but I don’t think it can compete just yet with Williams and Amherst.</p>
<p>Enough with the hearsay.</p>
<p>Dad2 - What are you basing your “are probably more academically grueling than Amherst” on?</p>
<p>Did you go to all three schools?</p>
<p>Amherst is number 3 on the Forbes list. Don’t see where you’re getting your info Dad2.</p>
<p>The question wasn’t about the quality of the school. That’s a given. I think the OP wanted to know how “hard” it would be once he/she got in.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine a quality education not being challenging.</p>
<p>This migrated into a weird kind of thread. I’m not sure how one can really factually state one school is more or less difficult than another. Dad2 made an assertion and I will offer the following anecdotally in support of his theory. My S’s school which sends many kids to W and A and less to S have come back and reported on their schools. What they report would tend to agree with Dad2’s post. Now of course even though these are all different kids going to only one of the three, you can certainly make a leap of faith knowing that they were all of similar academic background and achievement in HS. Certainly not empirical data. More importantly, I think it’s somewhat irrelevant to the original post. My own experience would indicate that the OP’s statement is certainly true at the ivy’s that I’m familiar with… Yale, Columbia and Dartmouth… after that, I’d just be spreading more heresay.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t say Swarthmore is more academically gruelling… It’s certainly a great place, but I don’t think it can compete just yet with Williams and Amherst.”</p>
<p>Lol. Do you go to Swarthmore? Why don’t you put the USNWR rankings down for a sec? </p>
<p>That being said, not that I care about what periodicals say (nor do I need them to affirm how gruelling Swarthmore is)… I do think the wording of your statement is kinda funny given the title of this piece:
[The</a> Most GRUELING Colleges (PHOTOS)](<a href=“The Most GRUELING Colleges (PHOTOS) | HuffPost College”>The Most GRUELING Colleges (PHOTOS) | HuffPost College)</p>
<p>Haha, you got me there liminal. I was wondering why “gruelling” looked strange. I can’t even spell :P</p>
<p>That’s an interesting piece. It should probably include West Point if Annapolis is on there. I guess all of us applicants will be lucky if we get to decide for ourselves if Amherst is in fact grueling!</p>
<p>grueling*, thank you</p>
<p>What about the faculty? Are they focused on their own research agendas or is the focus on the students? Is Amherst one of those schools where the faculty tries to get to know students on a personal level?</p>
<p>Why is Amherst better than a big bad Ivy? I really wanna know, I’m not trying to be provocative. I want community, I don’t want to be with pompous d##@@s, and I want to think rather than merely achieve or comply. But I also don’t wanna be that guy who is too influenced by bad rumors. I need advice.</p>
<p>I’m still in high school, so I’m not as informed as I could be, but it seems to me that the undergraduate experience at many Ivies is not nearly as good as the grad experience there. LACs completely focus on undergrad, which not only leads to a better education in many cases, but also tends to be more conducive to having fun.</p>
<p>Sophomore Geology Major at Amherst taking Geophysics, Calc 3, Electromagnetism, and Russian. I definitely didnt stay up until 4am (waking at 730am) on the reg to get into Amherst. I have a physics exam this week, Calc and Russian exam next week, and then finals (shudder) is coming soon. Last semester I slept in the Geology building for a week during finals, at least 18 hours of studying a day. I know physics majors who are happy to get a 60 on exams, and History majors who have 30+ books to read over the semester. Im sure its similar at Dilliams and Swat too, whatever.</p>
<p>At least the Geology building is amazing. And the fact that they let you sleep there is pretty cool…like they let you study at the art museum on campus, which is like a mini-Museum of Art in NY. It’s an incredible school. I didn’t have the grades to get in there, but it’s an inspiring place whenever I visit my bro.</p>