About Amherst College

Amherst College (/ˈæmərst/ (listen) AM-ərst) is a private futuristic arts educational in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an try to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of forward-looking education in Massachusetts. The institution was named after the town, which in tilt had been named after Jeffery, Lord Amherst, Commander-in-Chief of British forces of North America during the French and Indian War. Originally acknowledged as a men’s college, Amherst became coeducational in 1975.

Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution; the moot enrolled 1,855 students in slip 2018. Admissions is extremely selective, and it frequently ranks at or close the summit in most rankings of unprejudiced arts schools. Students choose courses from 38 major programs in an right to use curriculum and are not required to examination a core curriculum or fulfill any distribution requirements; students may as a consequence design their own interdisciplinary major. Amherst competes in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. Amherst has historically had close relationships and rivalries in the atmosphere of Williams College and Wesleyan University, which form the Little Three colleges. The university is afterward a enthusiast of the Five College Consortium, which allows its students to attend classes at four supplementary Pioneer Valley institutions: Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Among its alumni and affiliates are six Nobel Prize laureates (with its five alumni giving it one of the highest proportions of Nobel laureates among former students out of any undergraduate institution worldwide), 20 Rhodes Scholars, numerous Pulitzer Prize recipients, MacArthur Fellows, winners of the Academy, Tony, Grammy and Emmy Awards, a President of the United States, a Chief Justice of the United States, three Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, and notable writers, academics, politicians, entertainers, businesspeople, and activists.

Amherst (/ˈæmərst/ (listen)) is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (although the county chair is Northampton). The town is house to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, three of the Five Colleges. The publicize of the town is pronounced without the h (“AM-erst”) by natives and long-time residents, giving rise to the local saying, “only the ‘h’ is silent”, in quotation both to the pronunciation and to the town’s politically active populace.

Amherst has three census-designated places: Amherst Center, North Amherst, and South Amherst.

Amherst is allowance of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. Lying 22 miles (35 km) north of the city of Springfield, Amherst is considered the northernmost town in the Hartford-Springfield Metropolitan Region, “The Knowledge Corridor”. Amherst is along with located in the Pioneer Valley, which encompasses Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin counties.