Amherst vs. WashU

SWHarborfan
Thu, 05 May 2011 23:57:57 +0000

Both excellent schools, but Wash U. has infinitely more resources than Amherst–libraries, research, larger peer group from which to choose. I know several students at Wash U. who have reported personalized attention at Wash U., not the experience of an impersonal, bureaucratic university. I also know Wash U. to have a fair amount of academic zealousness.

I think that you have to figure out if you are the sort to grow out of a school (Amherst is small) or do not mind the sometimes incestuous nature of a small LAC or will mostly embrace the intimate quality of a small LAC. Also, do you want a more rural campus or an urban one? Some kids don’t know that such a thing matters until they spend an isolating and freezing cold winter at Dartmouth or Cornell, for example. For some kids, the context is the kiss of death, so to speak.

Both schools are excellent, academically, although I would be more inclined, for example, to study physics or engineering or math at a major university with a vast faculty and some major research opportunities over a small LAC, no matter how elite or how exempt from marketing. I, myself, started at Wesleyan, and enjoyed it (although Middletown is no great shakes), and then transferred to CAL because one of my majors was Physics, and I had the opportunity to be involved in some very significant research in the area of particle physics, worked with more than one amazing Nobel laureate (who were indescribably interesting and eccentric and nurturing), and got to do some fun stuff at LBNL and did some collaboration with the Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva, Switzerland. I could have never had had such an exposure at Wesleyan (or Amherst).

Good luck choosing between two wonderful choices, although, given the date, you may have chosen by now.