Amherst College Top Questions

no one feels out of place, unless you are unsure of yourself or not comfortable with your sexuality. But then again you could just find others in the same boat as you. Wear anythign you want. Yea all ppl interact, just not a lot. Separated by sports...usually. All over. Rich ppl. yea some. predominantely left. no

Many of my LGBT friends feel really marginalized here, or even actively discriminated against by some elements of our student body. These elements are small, but that can be enough to ruin someone's experience here. Most Amherst students come from a Prep-school background, and most are very well off. Some people are quite snobby and judgmental, but I've found many wonderful friends here.

Students are mostly left. However, because of the privileged nature of Amherst, it seems to me that most people are more interested in talking about left-y, political things than actually doing anything direct about it. The focus is so much on the academics here that I think it ignores the context of the world in which these ideas live. Really I think Amherst is a pretty accepting place. The one thing that is critical is to really dig into the place and be willing to meet people, or at least place yourself in situations where people will meet you. There are people here who don't do that and consequently have very few friends, but this is entirely their own lack of initiative (or it seems that way to me).

Racially diverese,. Everyone finds their own cligue. Kids are relatively relaxed about attire. Students are from everywhere. Very diverse backgrounds. Politically diverse as well. Everyone seems to be geared towards becoming successful.

Amherst students are from all over the country--and world. There are lots of students from New York, California, and Boston area however, and they show their pride. Particularly when it comes to sports. Amherst does a great job bringing in diversity but once all these diverse students get here unfortunately often they hang out with like people.

fairly homogenous, but as liberal arts colleges go, more diverse than most. really, as long as people can keep up academically and speak coherently, i think that they find a way to be comfortable and accepted here. i don't really know much about people's financial backgrounds- its not really relevant when you're in college to know how much money someone's family has. money isn't discussed as a big issue, especially now that the school has eliminated loans.

All different kinds of people go to Amherst. Part of my education here has been learning how to live with over 1600 different people. If we were all the same it would be pretty boring. It is never boring at Amherst.

Very few students would feel out place. there is typically a niche for most groups of people. you dont find many goths, and anyone too much like hampshire students tend to be slightly ostracized. people where fairly regular clothes, t-shirts, pants, not many polo shirts, a bunch of sweat shirts. people tend to come from the northeast and west coast. a great deal of students are on financial aid

People are pretty smart here and generally good at everything, so I have learned not to compare myself to others at amherst. I just remember that being a part of this community is a huge accomplishment on its own.

Nobody should feel out of place at Amherst. There are so many different types of people here, despite the size of the place. This is because everyone has more than one thing going for them: the science whiz might also be an a cappella singer, the soccer star a poet, the student body president a jazz guitarist, and so on. The great thing about Amherst is that its size allows people of different types to come into close contact and form far more interesting and heterogeneous social dynamics than you would find elsewhere. Most students have healthy, controlled egos; they have good self-esteem but don't talk about themselves too much.