Questions from a prospective ED applicant

ACKB12
Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:15:11 +0000

Okay, here goes a response to your questions. I’m a rising junior at Amherst right now, and it sounds like some of your questions about the school were similar to mine when I applied RD and was deciding where to attend. If you have more questions, please let me know!


I’d say that the “Amherst experience” depends very much on the individual student, what activities he/she gets involved with, etc. It’s not that athletes have one experience of the college and non-athletes have another. For me, a non-athlete, my Amherst experience involves great classes and great friends–both varsity athletes and non-athletes.
Every Amherst student–at least the ones I know–complains that there’s not enough time in the day to do all the clubs and activities they want to do. The Activities Fair at the beginning of the year is always well attended, and I’d say many students participate in at least 2 extracurriculars–clubs, performance groups, publications. Academics are certainly the top priority for Amherst students, and athletics are very important to the varsity athletes. That being said, I know a starter on the varsity basketball team who really enjoyed tutoring in a nearby community and was really bummed that his practice/game schedule kept him from tutoring during the season. He was so dedicated to it, however, that he sent letters back and forth with his seven year-old tutee all season long.
I wouldn’t say there’s a divide between preppy and artsy; I also consider myself between the two and I feel right at home. To be honest, preppy and artsy are sort of the extremes. Certain groups (one or two sports teams, namely) seem to personify the “preppy” side – they often wear polos and Sperrys. On the other hand, there are certain individuals who fall on the artsy/“hippie” side of things, with most students comfortably in between. It’s also not like a “prep” can’t be friends with an “artist.” In my experience, the student body is generally a comfortable place for most people, no matter where they fall on that spectrum.
I would say fraternities have a small influence, but that depends on who you ask. For the people who are involved with the frats, it’s obviously a pretty big part of their experience. For the rest of us (the vast, vast majority of campus), it’s not such a big deal. We may go to a few of their parties throughout the year and probably know people in the frats (since Amherst is such a small school), but other than noticing when the pledges hold open the dining hall doors as part of their “hazing,” they’re not on the radar too much.
The social scene is what you make of it. For those who do like to go out on the weekends, parties tend to happen in dorms, and are especially concentrated in the suite-style housing called the “Social Quad.” Because these dorms are suite style, they are favored by groups of friends and teams who (often, though by no means always) turn the common room into a party venue on the weekends. It is worth noting that all freshman dorms are dry, which means substances are not permitted in the dorms, even if a resident happens to be over 21. Most Amherst students tend to have one or two things going on in a weekend–perhaps a friend’s birthday party–and then will move around campus following the music or the news they’ve heard about a party going on.


That being said, I would not in any way classify Amherst as a party school. There are some people who go out every weekend and drink heavily, but they tend to be a minority, and I’ve never experienced any pressure to drink at parties. There also are students who choose to stay in on the weekends–movies, games, etc–and they are in no way classified as the “losers who don’t party.”


It depends on what you want to double major in. Some majors have a greater number of required classes than others, so that effects how “easy” it is to double major; many Amherst students choose one of their majors as a language–those tend to have fewer requirements than, say, a major in the hard sciences. I don’t know the statistics who tends to double major the most, although I know it can be difficult for those majoring in the hard sciences. That being said, I have a friend who is an English and Neuroscience double major. I personally am choosing not to double major, as the two areas I would major in have significant overlap and many of my courses are cross-listed, which means I can only count them towards one major. Instead, I’ve designed my concentration within my major to include a lot of the content from that potential second major. There are also several “5 College Certificates” which are a fantastic, though underused, option. I believe you can find more information on the “Academics” portion of Amherst’s website.