UMass Amherst — up
I’m not sure my son’s opinions will give much insight to future students but we visited UMass Amherst today for admitted students “Destination Day” and S24 really liked it!
I was a bit surprised how narrow & rural the roads were to get there from I-90, but it was an interesting ~30 minute drive. Once we reached Amherst S24 said, “I like this town” and once we reached the UMass campus (where my inner response was, “We’re on campus but it is still another mile to our parking lot?!”) his response was, “The campus seems big, but it is all part of the college. I like that there isn’t any town getting in the way.”
Most of the Destination Day events were not that interesting, the dining hall was a fiasco (way too crowded, too little time to find food between events, and impossible for my picky celiac son to find food in that environment), and it was really cold when we got there (20°F). BUT when we left my son said he really liked it, that he felt comfortable on the campus and could see himself there, and that it moved to the top of his list of the schools he has gotten into so far.
I tried to get more details out of him about what he liked. He said, “I like the way the walking paths are laid out.” 
I think what he meant was that there were lots of big buildings but there was plenty of space between them and it was easy to get around.
The programs are good for his interests, all the staff we spoke to were extremely kind and helpful, and the students seemed happy and really engaged. Overall the school is very big, but (at least for his college — engineering) it seemed like the departments create a smaller community to be part of. But the large total size means there are lots of other opportunities that a smaller school might not have.