UC Berkeley vs Amherst

tk21769
Sun, 11 May 2014 11:06:36 +0000

Almost all available department rankings are graduate program rankings. That fact that Berkeley has top 10 graduate programs isn’t completely meaningless to an undergraduate. Some of that quality, at least, must trickle down to undergraduates. How much of it? That depends on several factors such as class sizes and the availability of top professors to teach and advise undergraduates. It is the reputation of those professors, through their research output (not their teaching ability), that drives up the graduate program rankings. Undergrads don’t benefit from their presence just by osmosis, not in the classroom anyway. There may be a “honey pot” effect that benefits undergrads in research opportunities or recruiting just by having distinguished professors around.

However, Amherst is a richer, more selective college. It has much smaller classes. It has far better need-based aid (although that is immaterial for the OP unless s/he actually got it.) It has more national drawing power (enrolling top students, top talent, from all over the country.)
http://chronicle.com/article/Interactive-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=164465
http://chronicle.com/article/Interactive-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=110635

If Parchment is to be believed, applicants admitted to both schools choose Amherst over Berkeley by a 2-to-1 margin (Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.). 6 college rankings all have placed Amherst in the top 10 (averaging #6). The same ones rank Berkeley between #2 and #140 for (averaging #50). These are undergraduate rankings (except the Washington Monthly, which is ranking “contribution to the public good”.)
http://50topcolleges.com/Amherst.html

Compare the economics courses offered at both schools.
https://www.amherst.edu/course_scheduler?tab=search&result=1
http://schedule.berkeley.edu/srchsprg.html
Berkeley econ courses enroll as many as 689 students this term (Spring 2014).
The instructors who answer your questions in the smaller discussion sections and who grade your work often will be grad students, not the distinguished professors who drive up Berkeley’s reputation. At Amherst, even Intro to Economics is limited to 25 or 30 Amherst students per section. Those sections are taught by professors with doctorates from top schools (e.g. Yale, Stanford, London School, Penn). They are professors who, by choosing to work at Amherst, are committed to teaching undergraduates. If a Berkeley student can accelerate out of the most heavily-attended elementary and intermediate courses, s/he might begin to get the small classes and faculty attention available at a LAC. S/he might even get a few professors who are more distinguished in their fields than even the best professors at a top LAC like Amherst. I doubt many students place out of econ (or philosophy) courses, though.