How do UCLA and Amherst compare in class size?

If class size matters a lot to you, Amherst will feel much more discussion-based and professor-accessible from the start. It is a small liberal arts college, so most classes are relatively small, professors do the teaching themselves, and seminar-style courses are a normal part of the experience, not something you wait years to reach. UCLA, by contrast, has many excellent professors but also a large university structure, so intro classes can be quite big and often include discussion sections led by TAs.

Amherst fits students who want their default classroom experience to involve speaking up, being known by name, and having regular direct interaction with faculty. That is especially true in the humanities and social sciences, where small discussion classes are central to how the college works. Even in other fields, the scale of the school makes it easier to build close academic relationships early.

UCLA makes more sense for students who are okay with a mixed experience: some large lectures, especially early on, balanced by smaller upper-division classes later and smaller settings within majors, labs, or honors opportunities. In many departments, your first contact in a big course may be through a TA section rather than constant professor interaction in the lecture itself. Some students do very well in that environment because they like the energy and resources of a major research university, but it is different from a place where small classes are the norm.

So if your top priority is avoiding the feeling of being one face in a crowd, Amherst is much closer to what you are describing. UCLA can still offer meaningful faculty contact, but you usually have to navigate toward it more intentionally, while at Amherst that kind of classroom access is built into the school’s basic structure.