We're Smaller Than You Think
UMass Amherst is a lot smaller than you think, or at least it feels that way. From your first contact with the New Students Orientation Program and First Week, you’ll find yourself building a tight community of friends with similar intellectual and social interests.
Personalize Your Experience
Choose special housing options and live with others who share some of your passions or cultural background, or take small classes in your Residence Hall, as part of the Residential Academic Program (RAP).
Make the most of the First Year Experience where you’ll bond with your class and dive into this great adventure together.
Consider Commonwealth College—a small college of 2800 academically talented students with access to all the resources UMass Amherst has to offer.
Seek out small classes and labs. Many are small enough for great intellectual engagement and for making connections. Nearly 70% of classes have fewer than 30 students and the average student-to-faculty ratio is 18:1.
Get one-on-one support from the enormous range of student support services at UMass Amherst—from your Resident Assistant down the hall to the Learning Resource Center, Career Planning, and the more than 20 African American, Latino, Asian, and Native American (ALANA) organizations on campus.
Take some classes at a small liberal arts college. Through the Five College Interchange you may take classes and take advantage of the academic resources at nearby Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, and Hampshire Colleges.
Find a student organization that fits your interests or helps you discover a new one. It’s an instant group of like-minded souls who share your love of camping, politics, science fiction, Buddhist meditation, starting something new, or changing the world.
While you’re building that tightly-knit community you’ll be able to take advantage of the generous resources of a major research university: Wide-ranging choices of classes and majors, faculty who are stars in their fields, hands-on research and internship opportunities, more co-curricular choices than you can imagine, housing options that fit every taste and need, and a diverse student body hailing from all 50 states and over 70 countries across the world.
It’s a win-win kind of a place.
