<p>This article might be worth a read:</p>
<p>The COFHE survey compares student satisfaction with academic quality, campus life, etc. among 31 schools, including the top LACs, Ivies, and selected other private unis.</p>
<p>It just really depends on what you want from your college experience.
My older daughter for example attended a very small high school- her graduating class for several reasons was unusually small ( 18) and while she went on to attend a very small college, at about 1300 it was more than 4 times the size of her high school.
In high school she was able to participate in anything she wanted- she was a star art student, was in vocal ensemble, on the track team and in the musical and still had time for her volunteer job. In college she ran a student support group, participated in vocal ensemble and utilized the art studio while a biology major ( she also works in computer services)
I expect that if she had attended a larger school, she would have been more likely to have stayed within her field. Just the physical logistics of going from one end of campus to the other for diverse activites may have made involvement in them impossible. The smaller school gave her more opportunities to lead IMO than she would have had at a larger U. She isn't a natural leader and is actually on the quiet side, but the diverse group of friends she found at Reed- across several majors encouraged her to widen her horizons.
Her sister on the other hand while of similar temprament loves her comprehensive high school of 1700. She so far as a freshman has only participated in one activity ( track) but the many academic and extra curricular offerings enriches the school environment. I expect she will chose a small university or larger LAC for her undergrad degree rather than an extrasmall LAC because she really wants not just socioeconomic diversity and diversity of majors but racial diversity which can be very hard to find in most LACs</p>
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At LAC's the classes are small and the professors (actual professors ALWAYS teach classes at LACs) care whether you are in class because you are one of 15 or 20 people instead of 500!
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<p>To some extent you are comparing apples and oranges. Large classes with a lot of teaching assistants primarily occurs at public universities. In general, classes are smaller and there are fewer teaching assistants at private universities. I am not aware of any public liberal arts colleges of note. Thus, to compare LACs with ALL universities is not a true comparison.</p>
<p>There are a number of reasons to attend a LAC, but those reasons do not deal with quality of the institution but rather deal with the type of person who needs to attend a LAC. For example, if a student is used to being the big fish in a small pond, he or she may not be able to handle being the small fish in a big pond. Or if a woman does not like being around men, she should attend a woman's LAC.</p>
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There are a number of reasons to attend a LAC, but those reasons do not deal with quality of the institution but rather deal with the type of person who needs to attend a LAC.
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<p>Hogwash.</p>
<p>The reasons to attend a liberal arts college are mostly related to the exclusive focus, of both faculty and budgetary resources, on undergrad teaching.</p>
<p>I think the Harvard student responses to the COFHE survey pretty much sum up the best possible reasons to attend a LAC. </p>
<p>The reasons I can think of to attend a university of comparable quality would be access to certain offerings -- both breadth and depth -- that won't be found at most LACs (such as certain languages, substantial astrophysics faculty or theoretical math), often a wider range of extracurricula activity of the particular type the student might seek, and usually higher grade sports.</p>
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The reasons to attend a liberal arts college are mostly related to the exclusive focus, of both faculty and budgetary resources, on undergrad teaching.
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Double Hogwash!</p>
<p>Are you suggesting Wake Forest University cannot focus on teaching undergraduate biology because it has a graduate program in biology? There is no way to back up your position!</p>
<p>"Are you suggesting Wake Forest University cannot focus on teaching undergraduate biology because it has a graduate program in biology? There is no way to back up your position!"</p>
<p>I don't think ID said anything of the sort. What he said is very true, and it would hold at Wake Forest just as it holds true for Harvard. Read what the Harvard students said. </p>
<p>A graduate program means that the university has a stake in its graduate students. The faculty are paid to do research, and the graduate students are PAID to assist them, or are paying for the privilege. There will therefore be fewer research opportunities for undergrads because the budget (and the prestige of the school) is focused elsewhere. The faculty retain their positions through their research, not necessarily (or even usually) through the quality of their teaching. There will be TAs. Faculty will be harder to access, and the quality of advising will be lower. If this is true at Harvard, why wouldn't it be true at Wake Forest?</p>
<p>Needless to say, good students will do well wherever they go, but I think ID gave excellent reasons for attending a LAC. And there are excellent reasons (which I cited) for attending a good university as well. Nice to have choices!</p>
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Are you suggesting Wake Forest University cannot focus on teaching undergraduate biology because it has a graduate program in biology?
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<p>Actually, I didn't say anything about Wake Forest or any other university.</p>
<p>I said that the strength of the top liberal arts colleges is their exclusive focus on undergrad teaching. 100% of their endowment revenues and operating revenues go towards undergrad education. Their faculty tenure decisions are heavily weighted towards undergrad teaching. They do not have graduate school, professional school, and research-for-hire subsidiaries that compete with the undegrad education subsidiary for the corporation's focus on undergrad education.</p>
<p>Those are all positive attributes of liberal arts collleges that exist independently of what may or may not be the case at research universities.</p>
<p>My graduating class had 22 people in it, so going to a smaller college made sense. I want to know my professors and classmates, and feel like I truly know the school that I'm going to. Personally, I think that I would feel lost at a big university. Also, I felt that LACs were more friendly and had more of a specific feel to them than the larger universities I looked at. Small classes, community, small, nice campus, and a dominant "theme" running through the school was very important to me.</p>
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<p>For example, if a student is used to being the big fish in a small pond, he or she may not be able to handle being the small fish in a big pond. </p>
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<p>This is a big issue. It's a lot harder to be a star at a university. At a 1200-person college, there's a much greater chance that an inexperienced freshman will be cast as the lead in a play, or start on a sports team, or write a weekly column in the paper. On the other hand, there's less of a chance that the play will be Broadway quality, that the sports team will win championships, and that the column will reach thousands of readers. It's a trade-off; which is more important depends on the student's priorities.</p>
<p>You can have both benefits (wider opporotunities at a university, a closer-knit community and small group discussions at LAC) at Oxford or Cambridge. Both operate under a satisfying college system that really is the best of both worlds. Plus they're cheaper than Ivies (as surprisingly few people know) and both have unrivalved histories. Of course, the English university system assumes that you have already determined which subject you wish to major in, and switiching majors is for the most part not permitted. If you haven't made a decision than Oxbridge certainly isn't an option. I assume that even with all of their recent funding problems they still command a reputation greater than any American LAC (and of course, if you have British rather than American bias, greater than even HYP.)</p>
<p>hawaii -</p>
<p>I'm thinking about applying to Durham as one of my six UCAS applications, so I was just wondering if you would divulge the American stats/ grades etc. that you applied with. Which other unis did you apply to?</p>
<p>Much obliged.</p>