My daughter has been accepted into Umass and UConn. Umass is in-state and seems socially a more happening campus. I am not sure if it is the right fit for studying economics and building towards a law degree. UConn offered her honors program with a generous scholarship that makes it same as in-state tuition. I think room and board will be just a bit cheaper in UConn. UConn appears to have a more popular economics program. But i’m not sure about the social life in a rural campus. Any guidance to nudge us towards either will be appreciated.
Any chance your daughter can revisit these schools now that she is an accepted student? She will be looking at them through a different lens than prior to acceptance.
Hopefully she will get a feel for which campus she likes better. Sometimes that’s all it is…a feel.
Re: pre law…she can do that at either school. Her LSAT and GPA will be key when she applies to law school. Her undergrad major isn’t as important.
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I wouldn’t worry about the relative strength of UMass vs. UConn for economics. In fact, Econ is one of the more popular choices for students who-cross register from the other schools in the Five College Consortium (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith). [It was a very left-leaning department in my day, having picked up a bunch of socialists purged from Yale’s Econ department.]
When I went there back in the Bronze Age, my friend group was thick with aspiring lawyers. They ended up at Yale, Cornell, NYU, Fordham, UPenn, BC, BU, and UVA, and were admitted to to many others. Also, UMass has a pioneering Student Legal Services office, which provides advice and representation to students and offers internships for students hoping to get exposure to the law.
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As one aspect to consider, UConn placed 60th nationally and UMass placed 114th in this analysis based on faculty scholarship in economics: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usecondept.html.
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I worked at UConn some years ago and can assure you that there is a very vibrant social life on campus. There are a lot of student activities and clubs and the students make a lot of connections with each other.
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With respect to cross-enrollment opportunities that may be available at UMass, Amherst College offers an excellent economics program: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.uslacecon.html.
they seem very similar and I don’t think you can go wrong. I know housing at UMass can be an issue after the freshman year, I don’t think that’s an issue for U Conn, maybe in Senior year? If that is a consideration I might investigate that.
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However, Amherst College ranks only at #141 in your previous list at https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usecondept.html , which is lower than #114 for UMass - Amherst.
That said, the research and publication output ranking that these lists are probably not as important for a pre-law student as for a pre-PhD student or other student focused on the cutting edge of the field.
Economics has a small set of core courses for the major, but commonly allows several upper level electives in the major. The student may want to check course offerings to see which department offers more interesting topics in upper level economics courses. Both UMass - Amherst and UConn - Storrs use single variable calculus in their intermediate economics courses (moderate math level).
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These analyses have not been normalized for school or department size. I’d recommend that those considering them avoid heterogeneous comparisons such as that above.
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Most any college and any major will be the right fit for a law degree.
So the questions to me are:
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Where does the student feel most comfortable - and for that, I don’t just mean socially.
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Academically - you have Honors at UCONN. All Honors programs are not equal - and some kids like Honors programs at one school - but not another. So is there something in UCONN’s that differentiates the academic or social experience in a way that would be beneficial to your student?
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UCONN is rabid for hoops - and I’m sure the social scene is just fine. It has an A party rating from Niche vs. UMASS A+ - so probably both fun schools.
Really this is a personal choice thing - with bonus points to UMASS (vs. really any school) for the quality of its food which is underrated (as some kids will not it if they don’t like the food). I’ve not eaten there but have a work colleague who went and fully supports its top ranking. Niche gives Uconn food a B which I suppose isn’t horrible.
There’s likely not a wrong choice here - just one where your student finds more comfort for whatever the reason.
Best of luck to her.
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They’re both large public flagships in a rural/semi-rural area. UConn overall is a bit better ranked than UMass, but I do feel that the cute village of Amherst with its shops and restaurants, the 5 college advantage (and Amherst college is only a mile away, easy to walk or bike to a class there), plus the better dorms and the fantastic food, make UMass a slightly better choice. UConn is in the middle of cowfields, but it’s huge enough to generate its own social life.
Academically, they both offer whatever she would need as a pre-law.
It is interesting that UConn offered her honors (main advantage is honors dorm) and enough scholarship money to make it a wash, which would probably be about 20K/yr, while you don’t mention UMass having even offered her honors (again, main advantage is honors housing).
I agree, she should go and spend time on each campus. If she can visit overnight, and sit in on some classes, she should. Also, if she has affinity for a particular group on campus (religious, club, whatever) she should arrange to attend a meeting or a service, have a meal with them if possible.
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My kids were accepted into honors at UCONN with a scholarship bringing costs down to in state Rutgers. They also received large scholarships from UMASS, but no honors (no honors at Rutgers either, but honors almost everywhere else).
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Yes, I think that honors college at UMass is being offered in a “holistic” fashion - in other words, if they did it solely by GPA/scores, they’d wind up with it heavily tilted towards Comp Sci majors and other more-selective STEM majors. They want a mix of majors in there, to form a more diverse student community, so it’s easier to get offered honors as a humanities student.
The honors campus-within-the-campus is very nice. Recently built, and tends to be quieter, less crazy/rowdy than the other freshman housing.
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Thank you all for really helpful responses. We will be visiting uconn soon. We already visited umass and really appreciated the food 
And yes she was not offered honors in umass. I feel really assured that either decision will work out well for her.
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Just wanted to post an update that she went with Umass.
UConn has a better looking campus, slightly better rankings and also gave her honors and very good scholarships. She felt UConn’s rural setting with not much outside the campus could feel isolating. Mainly the social and cultural aspects of the Amherst area swayed the decision.
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Just so that she knows, she can apply for honors campus after she gets a high GPA there - I don’t recall whether she has to have one or two semesters under her belt.
Enjoy visiting her! She is allowed to bring in family for free, for the really very good food in the dining halls.
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My S16 graduated from UConn with Econ/PoliSci. He would probably recommend UMass for the reasons @parentologist discribed.
Good choice
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