Amherst College

Date: Dec 22 2007
Major: History/Histories (art history/etc.) (This Major's Salary over time)
Amherst offers an extraordinary opportunity for a first rate, very rigorous education of the sort that actually change a person and the way they do things. It is a very tough ,serious school with a lot of work and high competition. For people who like challenges it's terrific, if not, it can be discouraging.

The access to faculty and the detailed, personal nature of the criticism you get from them is remarkably effective and helpful, much more so than at Ivy League schools, replete as they are with teaching assistants and faculty more interested in personal advancement. Amherst professors like to teach and do a terrific job of it.

The primary criticisms is characteristic of all hyper-competitive prestige schools: narrow minded faculty, heavily liberal and doctrinaire, but that isn't unique to this school.

Amherst is also an excellent stepping stone to first rate grad schools, all of whom respect it, and know how difficult it is. If you do well at Amherst you'll go on to excellent grad/professional schools.

Criticisms you'll see here from "minority students" reflects the somewhat lower standards in the admission processs, as at many upper end schools, and the resulting diffiulty of some of the students admitted under those preference systems.