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My son is now accepted by both the above. UC initially offered to give a grant of 25K and then agreed to review . Amherst hasn’t yet made the offer. My EFC is only 4K and hence I hope it will be comparable or he won’t go there.
His expected Major is Economics for now but may want to go to Medical school later. We have relatives in Ma but no one in Chicago.
I know that UC very good in Economics and Amherst is ranked as the 1st in liberal arts College. In the end for employment or higher educating which is better ? Is Amherst education is good or is it well-known as it has a lot of money.
We are US citizens but we are out of US for last 16 years and my son has never lived in US.
What is your advice.

By Kalitiha (Kalitiha) on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 10:20 pm: Edit

If the financial aid award is good, send your son to Amherst. It's more well known and prestigious. I think that he would get an excellent education there.

By Karthik (Karthik) on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 10:33 pm: Edit

This may be slightly OT, but when did UChicago results reach you?

By Asdf (Asdf) on Saturday, March 22, 2003 - 10:35 pm: Edit

Well, how does your son feel about distribution requirements? Amhurst has none, but your son would have to set aside one-third of his classes to satisfy distribution requirements at the University of Chicago.

Strictly in terms of economics though, University of Chicago is THE place to get an econ degree.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Sunday, March 23, 2003 - 02:09 am: Edit

I think for an Econ degree that U of Chicago is so highly regarded--rightly or wrongly (see also, the "Chicago" school of economics)--that it would be tough to turn down. For a lot of depts. it might be a toss-up or Amherst.

One thing occurs to me: they are _very_ different kinds of campuses and environment...any chance your son could visit both? I'd guess that not many people would be happy at both, regardless of major.

By Ivy___Hopeful (Ivy___Hopeful) on Sunday, March 23, 2003 - 12:06 pm: Edit

University of Chicago has five or six nobel laureates as professors of economics. They have the best economics department in the USA and one of the best in the world.

By Ravi (Ravi) on Sunday, March 23, 2003 - 10:01 pm: Edit

Karthik – He was admitted in December by early Action.
Thedad- He visited the Amherst in last summer and liked it. It is not possible to visit UC now. We are in the Middle east .
Again which degree has better value for jobs. Also Amherst does not have any higher education facilities while UC is very strong in it. Won’t students of same university gets preference for admission for say Law or Medicine etc

By Ravi (Ravi) on Sunday, March 23, 2003 - 10:39 pm: Edit

Karthik – He was admitted in December by early Action.
Thedad- He visited the Amherst in last summer and liked it. It is not possible to visit UC now. We are in the Middle east .
Again which degree has better value for jobs. Also Amherst does not have any higher education facilities while UC is very strong in it. Won’t students of same university gets preference for admission for say Law or Medicine etc

By Ravi (Ravi) on Wednesday, March 26, 2003 - 02:27 pm: Edit

bump

By Asdf (Asdf) on Thursday, March 27, 2003 - 05:24 pm: Edit

Yes, University of Chicago undergraduates are actually in the minority at the University. The majority of the stuends at UC are grad students, so undergrads get lots of interaction with grad students. I'd say a UC economics degree would be more prestigous than an Amherst one, but an Amherst degree should not be diminished.

By Lordj (Lordj) on Friday, March 28, 2003 - 01:36 am: Edit

I do not know much about UChicago. Things I know about the school come from my friend, who's a grad student majoring in Public Policy. So I guess my knowledge of the school is quite irrelevant to your case.
However, since I am currently a student of economics at Amherst, there are a few things I can tell that, I hope, might be helpful to you.
The department here is certainly not as big as that at UChicago, but consists of outstanding first-class professors who are very dedicated to their teaching as well as researching. That they are dedicated to teaching plus the fact that class sizes are very small means students get much more attention and can get to their instructors almost whenever they want (use of home phone and e-mail very much encouraged.) Amherst has no graduate student, so the professors rely on undergrads for assistance in doing research. If one is good, he/she can be a TA, take part in a project and might end up having his/her name on the credit list of a research paper, which means quite something later when he/she applies to graduate school.

Amherst is a fine town. The five-college consortium is awesome, even for an international student like me. One thing to consider though, food at Valentine sucks and your son might end up spending lots of money buying pizza @ Antonio's.

Surely you cannot go wrong whatever your choice is, but I hope your son will choose Amherst. Joseph Stiglitz is perhaps the most successful economics student Amherst has ever produced. He serves on the Board of Trustee and regularly gives lecture at the College.