@International95 Hey, thanks for informing me. That’s definitely something I need to look out for. Do you have any links for that statistic?
I just read this: https://medium.com/@brunorigonatti/pack-your-diplomas-international-students-9248ed61b2e4
I go to a small LAC right now, and I would recommend internationals who do not want to get a PhD and want to work in the US after graduating to simply go to the big prestigious school over a small LAC. I love my small LAC, especially since I have no intention of getting into the finding work grind, and I love the small LACs I have visited, but I would recommend UChicago over Amherst and Pomona simply because reality will set in after four years. UChicago can offer many of the benefits of a small school, like small classes and such, and the small-school setting the dorm communities can provide. Yet it can also offer the opportunity of studying under unparalleled scholars: I would love to take a class with Mearsheimer.
International95, I went to U of C and had Mearsheimer for a class a long time ago. I don’t remember him that well, but he wasn’t famous then. 
I am very proud of my U of C education.
With that said, I think you don’t realize how prestigious Amherst and Pomona are. Not all LACs are the same, and Amherst and Pomona offers its grads just as strong an opportunity as the U of C for getting into top PhD and professional programs. Moreover, Amherst in particular has a much stronger alumni network for getting job connections after one graduates. Amherst may be small, but it has understood the importance of alumni networking for the past 200 years, whereas the College at the U of C is just getting on board now with connecting together its alums.
(disclosure - I went to the U of C but my daughter has just chosen Amherst)
I should add that you have no bad choice here. Go to the one you like best. There are different, but all of them will serve you just fine in terms of your future ambitions, whatever they are. You are not trying to choose between Cal Tech and Hobart Community College here.
In line with a previous post of mine in this thread, faculty quality is crucial for a student’s educational experience. Also, empirical research has shown that the more impact a faculty member’s research has, the more weight their recommendations will carry in the workplace and the more money graduates will earn. My opinion of the faculty quality and faculty research level of the economics departments of Amherst, Pomona, and UChicago appears to mirror average salary levels at these institutions. From Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors March-April 2015 edition the average men/women salary levels for professors at Amherst are $149,400/137,600, Pomona’s are $153,700/141,400 and at UChicago they are $225,400/189,000. Incentives matter.
Salary matters. So does cost of living, cost of housing and cost of schooling. 150k in rural Massachusetts is a ton of money.
Also, faculty quality also means different things at different colleges. I had a calculus professor at the U of C with an Eastern European accent so heavy that he could not be understood at all, but he was a world renowned mathematician. I’m sure it was great for his grad students to deal with him one on one. For me, it was a nightmare trying to learn from him in a large class. I had a political science professor who missed 2/3rds of the classes because he was off at conferences.
Look, no one is going to try to argue that Amherst or Pomona has a more renowned Economics research faculty than the U of C does (no university in the world does, actually). But the faculty at Amherst and Pomona are hired in large part because of teaching ability.
When Harvard wanted to improve its undergraduate teaching, they looked to Amherst to improve. “It’s well known that there are many other colleges where students are much more satisfied with their academic experience,” said Paul Buttenwieser, a psychiatrist and author who is a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, and who favors the report. “Amherst is always pointed to. Harvard should be as great at teaching as Amherst.”
So there are different ways of looking at the question. I’m my opinion, any choice is a good one, because the grads of all three of these schools all do remarkably well by any measure.
@ThankYouforHelp: A Harvard/Amherst comparison has little relevance to a UChicago/Amherst comparison. For example, in the NYT article you link to it states that at Harvard after four years some undergraduates do not know a faculty member well enough to get a letter of recommendation. UChicago is highly committed to undergraduate teaching and we both know that. When I was an undergrad faculty were most accessible and I got to know several very well. The summer after my junior year I was invited to live with the family of a faculty in return for taking care of the couple’s two sons. I published a journal article with the professor in my senior year.
In addition to being a college alum, my contacts with the UChicago’s econ department and the Booth School of Business include co-authoring a paper with a Ph.D. candidate who did the econometric analysis. It was published six months ago in a top accounting journal. IMHOP UChicago has unmatched opportunities for studying economics and other business fields. If a student is the right fit for a highly academic and intellectual environment, the college experience there is outstanding.
Uchi is rough, Pomona is weird. Go to Amherst and enjoy.
"@ThankYouforHelp: A Harvard/Amherst comparison has little relevance to a UChicago/Amherst comparison. For example, in the NYT article you link to it states that at Harvard after four years some undergraduates do not know a faculty member well enough to get a letter of recommendation. UChicago is highly committed to undergraduate teaching and we both know that. When I was an undergrad faculty were most accessible and I got to know several very well. The summer after my junior year I was invited to live with the family of a faculty in return for taking care of the couple’s two sons. I published a journal article with the professor in my senior year.
In addition to being a college alum, my contacts with the UChicago’s econ department and the Booth School of Business include co-authoring a paper with a Ph.D. candidate who did the econometric analysis. It was published six months ago in a top accounting journal. IMHOP UChicago has unmatched opportunities for studying economics and other business fields. If a student is the right fit for a highly academic and intellectual environment, the college experience there is outstanding."
Relax. All that is fine, But your experiences perhaps were a bit atypical?
Either way, I am just pointing out that the college experience at Amherst also is outstanding. It’s just a different type of outstanding, and for most students, a more intimate and supportive experience. The success of the graduates of both schools is undeniable.
For example, last year, 13 Amherst students got Fulbright awards out of a graduating class of 450 or so. Meanwhile, 26 U of C students got Fulbrights out of a class of 1400 or so. Both outstanding results. Pick any metric, med school admissions, whatever, it will show you similar equivalencies when size is taken into account.
Plenty of students turn down one for the other, depending on what is most important to them. Turning down the greatness of the U of C economics faculty for the undergraduate teaching focus at of the two historically great LACs is a legitimate choice. That’s all I’m saying.
@ThankYouforHelp: I completely agree that Amherst and Pomona are outstanding schools where students get a wonderful education and have a most pleasant college experience. Due to the more contained and smaller community feel of such schools for many they are ideal. You are correct in that a fit between a student and a school is crucial. But since Elijah PS expresses a specific interest in econ and is from abroad I thought it might be helpful to acquaint him with the point of view that UChicago may have multiple advantages for him that he might not have been aware of.
There is one other possible drawback of LACs such as Amherst in the contemporary knowledge environment. Can LACs cope with the explosion of knowledge and specialization of disciplines that has happened over the past decades? For example, in computer science sub specialties (e.g. data mining, cloud computing) develop. I wonder whether LACs have the resources to bring on faculty knowledgeable in and ready to teach such topics. Bigger universities, including state universities may have a resource advantage here. LACs may be great at developing liberal-arts education facilitated critical and creative thinking skills but do they have a problem educating students in the newer, technical, and more specialized areas of learning? It would be a shame if that is so because they are great schools that have a lot to offer many students.
Some people have greatly dismissed the fact that we are dealing with an international student here. This in itself should largely influence what OP’s decision should be, because OP can get a fine education at any of these schools. Suggesting that Pomona and Amherst can help graduates internationally as much as UChicago can just tells me about how much you understand the struggle of being an international student. This is not about the schools in themselves. This is about OP’s future. OP’s degree, or where it’s from, is not important to the lottery machine that will decide whether OP will be able to work in the US after four years. If OP is not able to, OP would greatly benefit from UChicago’s name while looking for working outside of US.
That is a very good point, International. I was just responding to the “quality of education” issues, the opportunity to get in to top graduate and professional schools (in America), and so forth.