Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,817 students in the fall of 2012. Students choose courses from 38 major programs in an unusually open curriculum. Amherst is ranked as the second best liberal arts college in the country by U.S. News & World Report, and ranked tenth out of all U.S.