Amherst Academy

Amherst College

Motto	Terras Irradient (Latin)
Motto in English	Let them enlighten the lands
Type	Private Liberal Arts
Established	1821
Endowment	$2.032 billion (2016)
President	Carolyn Martin
Academic staff	291 (Fall 2016)
Undergraduates	1,849 (Fall 2016)
Location	Amherst, Massachusetts, United States
Campus	Rural 1,000 acres (4.0 km2)
Colors	Purple and white
Athletics	NCAA Division III – NESCAC
Mascot	Mammoths
Sporting affiliations	Annapolis Group NEASC AICUM 568 Group NAICU
Website	www.amherst.edu

Amherst College (ⁱ/ˈæmərst/AM-ərst) is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its president, Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher education in Massachusetts. The institution was named after the town, which in turn had been named after Lord Jeffery Amherst. Amherst was established as a men's college and became coeducational in 1975.

Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,849 students in the fall of 2016. Students choose courses from 38 major programs in an open curriculum. Students are not required to study a core curriculum or fulfill any distribution requirements and may design their own interdisciplinary major. For the class of 2020, Amherst received 8,406 applications and accepted 1,161, yielding a 13.8% acceptance rate. Amherst was ranked as the second best liberal arts college in the country by U.S. News & World Report, and 12th out of all U.S. colleges and universities by Forbes in their 2016 rankings. Amherst competes in the New England Small College Athletic Conference.