Tufts VS Amherst (social scene)

Corbett
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 19:10:38 +0000

There are proportionately a lot more athletes at Amherst. The US Dept of Education has the following numbers:

Amherst: 563 varsity athletes out of 1,795 undergrads, or 31.3%
Tufts: 722 varsity athletes out of 5,196 undergrads, or 13.9%
https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/institution/search

So if you are concerned about an environment with lots of jocks, Amherst would not be a good choice. Note, however, that the jocks at Amherst are likely to be much smarter and better socialized than the ones you may have encountered in high school.

Both schools have a lot of privileged students. A recent NYTimes analysis put the percentage of students from the Top 1% at 18.3% for Tufts, and at 21.1% at Amherst. On the other hand, Amherst is wealthier than Tufts (on a per-student basis) and can offer better financial aid to lower-income students. The same analysis found that Amherst drew 24.4% of students from the Bottom 60%. This may not seem like a lot, but the comparable number for Tufts was only 11.8%.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html

As noted above, it’s not a good idea to apply to any school ED unless you are positive that you want to go there. Doesn’t sound like you feel that way about either school.