Bowdoin vs. Amherst ED1 for English

[stiff flame]

Schools: Bowdoin College vs. Amherst College
Intended major: English
Similarities: Both are highly ranked LACs in the Northeast. Both have small class sizes, good communities, and some nearby city

Bowdoin College
Pros:
-Gorgeous campus
-Friendly people
-Amtrak runs from Brunswick to Freeport to Portland to Boston, so there is easy travel
-Lots of community building opportunities
-Only 5 distribution requirements (not really limiting)
-It is flat land (not many hills)
-Financial aid is amazing (free apple products upon admission?? damn)

Cons:
-From my tour, I didn’t get much of an impression of the English Department/Writing community aside from your typical First-Year Writing Seminar. I don’t want it to be a b.s. sort of major that’s just there with no additional perks.
-6 hours from home is kinda far

Amherst College
Pros:
-Writing is their focus and they make it abundantly clear (especially in that info session)
-Open-Curriculum!!! We love!!!
-Gorgeous campus
-Amherst itself feels like a college town, 3 whole bookstores (that’s wild)
-The Five College Consortium is amazing
-Friendly people too
-Financial aid is also great (no iPads but we’ll survive)

Cons:
-The area is not the greatest. Amherst is wonderful but outside of it, there isn’t much (I was told to avoid Springfield like the plague)
-Stupid hills had me nearly passing out.

Tiebreaking considerations:
I want to get a feel from the community side of things—how receptive people are, how divided cliques may be, how dedicated people are, etc. etc. I also want to get a grasp on the writing communities within the campuses and towns themselves. My biggest gripe with high school is that I don’t have people who love English/poetry as much as me, so I want to be able to find my place and not feel like I’m constantly fighting with my peers. A collaborative space is preferred over competitive.

[deep python]

Amherst

[opal prism]

While I am not an English major, my fiancee is and she wanted to know if you're planning on grad school or not? @stiff flame

She said if you are, go with Amherst for the open curriculum which'll allow you to specialize prior to grad school, and if you aren't go with Bowdoin for the aid, location, and connections.

[stiff flame]

I’m not 100% sure. I want to be able to explore my options in college aside from the routes of teacher, publisher, or lawyer. I was hoping that as I progressed in my writing career, I’d have more confidence in knowing what career I’d want.

I guess for simplicity’s sake, I would be considering it.

[opal prism]

Can I suggest just going with what will make your undergrad the cheapest? Both are such solid schools that you'd have similar opportunities either way.

I wish I'd saved more before grad school.

[stiff flame]

Maybe. I have around 3 affordable safeties. If it came down to it, I would want to go to Ithaca College just because I spoke with a professor there who did introduce me to the course offerings

Thank you though

i’ll think about it more

[sinful arrow]

Hey there! I'm currently an English major in college, so it's super cool to meet more people studying it!

I haven't visited either Bowdoin or Amherst, and I unfortunately do not know anyone who attends either, so I can't offer any specific experiences about either, but from what I read online, I think you should be fine attending Bowdoin for English. During your undergrad years, the specifics of your department aren't as important because you'll still be taking a good amount of classes outside your major. In addition, Bowdoin has very amazing academics in general, so their English department will likely be pretty awesome too!

That said, you are right that Amherst has an incredible English program, and from what you told us here, it sounds like you really love Amherst because your pros for it are really strong, and as someone who went to a school with an open curriculum for my first year of college, I think an open curriculum is super beneficial for many of us studying English because it gives you more room to study writing and literature while also juggling other humanities subjects.

So I think that if Amherst really appeals to you, it's understandable to go for ED1 there.

[stiff flame]

Hey! I don’t think I’ll be applying ED anymore mostly due to financial concerns, but i really do appreciate it :) I think Amherst rn is gonna be my number one choice. I’ll see what happens in terms of money, because I still need to go over it with my parents

thank you tho. i’ve been falling in love with open curriculum haha