See more photos from Be a Mammoth, an open-house program that gives admitted students the opportunity to sample life at Amherst through the firsthand experiences of attending classes, meeting faculty, talking with enrolled students and touring the campus.
Amherst College anticipates that 19% of the students in the class of 2027 will enroll as the first in their family to attend a four-year college or university. This is the highest proportion of first-generation college students in modern record and a demonstration of Amherst College’s continued commitment to education access and equity.
“As a first-generation college student myself, I’m extremely proud of the continued success that we see here at Amherst in admitting and enrolling students who will be the first in their families to attend a four-year college or university,” said Matt McGann, dean of admission and financial aid. “It is just one of many signs of our unwavering commitment to making an Amherst education accessible to students from across our country and around the globe.”
This will also be the latest class to benefit from the changes of the Amherst Within Reach initiative, announced in October 2021. This initiative included significant enhancements to financial aid policies, resulting in increased aid for the majority of students admitted to Amherst. Of the projected incoming class, 38% will receive grants (institutional, state and federal) that fully cover at least tuition, and 15% will receive grants that cover the total comprehensive fee. (These numbers might fluctuate slightly until the academic year begins.)
As part of continued efforts to increase access and affordability, Amherst will no longer require advance deposits for enrolling students; this waiver has been in place since 2020 and will remain the policy for future enrolling classes. In addition to permanently waiving the advance deposit fee, Amherst will continue to maintain a test-optional approach for SAT and ACT score submissions, a formalization of the four-year pilot program that began in 2020.
“Each year, we admit a new class of talented, intellectually curious students with diverse backgrounds and experiences, and each year I’m amazed as I watch them join our community here at Amherst and enrich it with their own interests and passions,” said McGann. “I look forward to seeing what the class of 2027, and our fall transfer cohort, bring to our campus when they arrive here this fall.”
The class of 2027 is 50% domestic students of color and 13% international. They hail from 40 states, plus Washington, D.C. and the Northern Mariana Islands, and 31 countries. While this was the first class admitted with no preference given for students with a legacy connection to Amherst College, 6% of the class of 2027 falls under that designation. An additional 23 students are projected to enroll as transfer students to Amherst in the fall of 2023, 65% of whom are transferring from a two-year institution and 17% of whom are first-generation college students.
Final statistics for the enrolling students will be available in early fall.