Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts is a small liberal-arts college focused on preparing students to service their local and global communities as purpose-forward professionals. Amherst (the town) is a large town of 38,000, and is only 90 minutes from Boston. The town has just about anything you’d need, though, from outstanding food to cultural experiences like the Emily Dickinson Museum. The school itself, though, is home to just under 2,000 students from all 50 states plus D.C. and Puerto Rico and 70 countries — offering an intimate experience with a global perspective. The open curriculum offers flexibility, while an exceptional faculty and outstanding courses encourages depth and the building of true expertise. Amherst also has a strong global impact that goes beyond the diversity of the student body. 45% of students take part in a study abroad experience as part of their Amherst educational journey.
The name Amherst carries cache, and lots of students want in. They most recently received over 13,700 applications for less than 500 spots, and the acceptance rate for the Class of 2028 was a mere 9%.
In this post, we’ll break down our top five majors at Amherst. We believe strongly in these majors, and we’ll go into why below, but think of them as a jumping off point. With 42 majors to choose from, these 5 are exceptional offerings that will spark your imagination.
If you love Vanderbilt, send us an email. We help top students get into exceptional colleges.
What do we mean by best major?
You may be wondering how we picked these top five majors, and it’s a fair question. With so many exceptional majors at Amherst, it is hard to pick just five. But when we assess the majors, what we’re looking for are a few factors in particular. First, we want to see a lot of resources. That means a wide variety of courses with new ones added frequently, dedicated professors, and lots of research and field-based options. Next, we look at what comes after Amherst. Amherst is especially known for getting students on an impressive professional track towards graduate, law, or medical school. 80% of graduates across the board at Amherst self-report that they continued on to graduate or professional school, but some programs really stand out from the rest.
Environmental Studies
Sustainability is at the core of Amherst, and it can be felt all the way from the fields of their own farm, Book & Plow, to the classrooms where students pursuing an Environmental Studies major. Courses like “The Resilient Earth” and “Ecosystem Ecology” bring together theory and practice, preparing students for careers in a wide range of fields, whether they want to be in the literal woods or they dream of advocating for the environment in the legal arena. The faculty in the Environmental Studies program is hugely impressive, and we love how the professors are actively involved not just in the theory of the field — but in the practice of it, too. Students in the major are also highly-encouraged to participate in study away programs, which are study abroad options that also include domestic offerings. Pre-approved programs including a tropical rainforest studies program in Australia, a Himalayan Environment and Society in Transit program in Bhutan, and a Wildlife Management Studies program in Tanzania.
Education Studies
The Education Studies program at Amherst “examines the history, purpose, politics, and consequences of education.” The essence of the Education Studies program in interdisciplinary learning, requiring students to take courses across “the humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields,” and for many students, it makes sense to pair the Education Studies major with a discipline-specific major that will inform their next steps educationally, like history or math. One of the things we love is that students in the program engage in the field, seeing educational approaches and realities in the real world, not simply through the classroom setting. There are community-based research opportunities nearly from the very beginning, and collaborations with community partners offer opportunities for students to get hands-on experience.
Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought
The Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought major at Amherst is an impressive option for students who want to start an educational path through a career in law. The program puts the legal field into “the context of a liberal arts education,” and students develop the analytical, research, and writing skills needed to pursue independent work and research. The major is intensely personal, though, and there is no single way to pursue it. Instead, students in the major create their own assortment of introductory, middle, and high-level courses. Amherst constantly looks to add new courses to the Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought major that reflect current events and present-day struggles. Recent new courses include “The Legal and Cultural Lives of AI,” and “Islam and the Modern State.” Seniors can also choose to pursue an honors thesis through a two-semester course sequence that offers opportunities for independent research and one-on-one faculty advising.
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is a very popular major at Amherst, and students love the program. They take courses in a wide variety of subjects, from physics to psychology, and benefit from a major with deep roots. Amherst was the first college to offer a major in neuroscience at the undergraduate level, and they have spent decades building the program. They continue to invest big, and in 2018 the Neuroscience Program moved to the new state-of-the-art Science Center. The facilities offer opportunities for all types of research, whether you’re interested in the links between the chemistry of the brain and mental health or if what you’re really interested in is understanding the nervous systems of birds. If you want to pursue this major, though, you’ll want to declare early. They recommend that students declare in their sophomore year. And if you want to explore the past of the program, you can see 50 years of neuroscience at Amherst.
Psychology
The Psychology major is interdisciplinary and benefits from the diversity and depth of the faculty and research opportunities at Amherst. Students are able to jump into research nearly from the get-go, including both opportunities during the academic year and summer research options. Through in-class work and research, students in the major gain a deep understanding of psychology through the perspectives of biology, culture, and society. Students can also zoom in on issues like stereotypes & prejudice or athletic performance. While the program doesn’t make you a minted psychologist, this type of work is exactly what future psychologists need to be doing to start their careers. We’re especially excited by courses like “Music Cognition” and “Psychology of Play,” and students in the major are constantly offered new opportunities for learning and research.
Amherst is also part of the Five College Consortium, a collective of colleges including Smith, Mount Holyoke, Hampshire, and the University of Massachusetts, which opens up the door to even more resources, exploration, and opportunities for discovery. The bringing together of the intimate, close-knit experience Amherst offers with the heft of the Five College Consortium is truly impressive! Whereas Amherst offers 400+ courses each term, there are over 6,000 courses available through the Five College Consortium.
Picking a major is a key part of the college application experience, even if you may change it once you start school. We help students focus in on an area of study to increase their chances of acceptance.