<p>Aight, well I've only looked at universities so far and no LACs and I wanted to know if I was missing out. I want to go to a school in/very close to the city (Upenn, Columbia, etc) and I want to get a great education. LACs like Swarthmore, Haverford, Amherst, Williams, etc all seem to be small, suburbian, rich, white, preppy schools with limited resources compared to universities.</p>
<p>Am I missing out by not even giving the LACs a chance?</p>
<p>Well Boston College might be of interest since it's in, well, Boston lol. While BC still might have the rich, preppy feel to it, it's diluted with the business school (Carroll School of Management) and with research in science. I beleive they just bought a new 1.5 million dollar telescope or something like that to further research oppportunities in the physics department.</p>
<p>But still, LACs aren't my thing, and you shouldn't force them onto your list. You're not really missing much, as larger researche runiversities have much more to offer. And if you want some more attention and a smaller feel in a large university (which LACs offer) just remember that "you can make a big campus feel small but you can't make a small campus feel big." In other words, the advantages of an LAC can be found at a larger university.</p>
<p>Macalaster is a good LAC in the suburbs of Minneapolis/St Paul</p>
<p>Tufts is just outside of boston. It overlooks the city and is about a 5 minute ride on the T away</p>
<p>You don't think you are going to run into rich, white, preppy kids at the Ivies? What you will miss out on at a LAC is the individual attention by faculty who are rewarded for teaching excellence, small classes and potentially greater opportunities for faculty-student interaction in research and scholarly activities. The only thing that a bigger university gets you are more students, more athletics, and a greater variety of majors and courses.</p>
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You're not really missing much, as larger research universities have much more to offer.
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<p>Righty-o.</p>
<p>LACs may not be for everyone, but it's absurd for anyone to say that no one is "missing much" if they don't look into what LACs DO have to offer. Keep in mind that LACs can offer things that universities cannot, just as universities offer things that LACs cannot.</p>
<p>It's no tragedy if you don't look at LACs--thousands of kids look only at universities, and end up with a satisfying undergrad experience. But I'd still recommend you look at a few more closely.</p>
<p>What do LACs have that universities don't? Access to professors? You can get that a larger university. You just have to seek it.</p>
<p>I feel the same way about LACs, they just seem like college prep boarding schools for college students...if that makes any sense...</p>
<p>Well banana you may be in for a shock when the professor at the major university is too busy to meet with you because she is busy running her 2 mil NIH grant and supervising 10 grad students. It can be done but it is not often easy.</p>
<p>If you don't see the immediate appeal of LACs... then.. it's probably just not your preference. So many people don't know what they want, and if LACs don't appeal to you, good for you for narrowing your college list down :D</p>
<p>Guess you haven't visited Swarthmore. About as far from preppy as you can get. There are plenty of excellent non-preppy LAC's out there. </p>
<p>I find that often the people who say "LACs aren't for me" are the people who have never visited or spent time at one. While liberal arts colleges aren't right for everyone, neither are research universities. Until you've visited at least one of BOTH types of schools, you really aren't making an informed decision.</p>
<p>LOL, you want non-preppy, try Green Mountain, you plant and garden your food.</p>
<p>Well, being quite the leftist myself, I hate to say it BUT in the US I think there's a fine line between white rich-hippie culture and preppy culture.</p>
<p>Cre8tive: :) </p>
<p>Other definite non-preppy LACs: Reed, Carleton, Grinnell, Oberlin, Macalester, Skidmore, Vassar, Lewis & Clark, Hendrix, Earlham, Beloit, Pitzer, Occidental...but I'm probably missing several dozen more.</p>
<p>Non-preppy doesn't always mean "hippie" or even liberal. :)</p>
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LACs like Swarthmore, Haverford, Amherst, Williams, etc all seem to be small, suburbian, rich, white, preppy schools with limited resources compared to universities.
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<p>"Resources" in the academic world are measured, in large part, by the size of the per student endowment. The income from this per student endowment is what allows a college to spend $75,000 per student and only charge $40,000 per student.</p>
<p>The top-10 colleges and universities in "per student endowment are:</p>
<p>Princeton
Harvard
Yale
Grinnell
Pomona
Rice
Swarthmore
Stanford
Williams
Amherst</p>
<p>As you can see, five of these are liberal arts colleges, all of which have endowments of more than half a million dollars per student. These financial resources are what allow the very small class sizes and "boutique-style" education.</p>
<p>I go to a Shaker school, we send mutiple people to Green Mountain each year, our school defines non-prep prep school, and Green Mountain is the segue.</p>
<p>There's nothing wrong with not seeing the appeal of LACs. I don't, and I've seen several. A school with under 2,500 students just sounds like high school all over again. I want a rah-rah DI school with at least 5,000 students, good academics, and a nice city or town nearby. (I'm thinking UVa, Vanderbilt, Duke, Wake Forest, Villanova.) I'm willing to make the extra effort to get profs to know me, and as far as I can see, the benefits of attending a larger school far outweigh those of attending a smaller one.</p>
<p>This reminds me of the constant "Which is better, Harvard or Yale?" type threads. Both are great for different kinds of people. It's all a matter of personal preference.</p>
<p>IMO, you can make a big school small, but you can't make a small school big.</p>
<p>Is it hard to get into some major research opportunities at LACs?
Specifically in the medical/biology area?</p>
<p>Shouldn't it be easier to do lab research and stuff because of the small student population.</p>
<p>LACs are the best feeders out there, especially at the top level. Only HYP and Wharton are better feeders in to Wall Street, and barely at that, than places like Williams, Amherst, and Dartmouth. LACs are amazing at getting people into grad school because professors actually know students, so they are willing to go to bat for them come application time. Research opportunities are also often better, more grants and scholarships are available. Another benefit is that discussion sections are usually taught by Professors, which is very different from large Universities where this never happens. So UCLA can site a small student/ faculty ratio, but the truth is those numbers don't reveal discussion sections.</p>
<p>Also, LACs have incredibly strong alumni connections and student communities - school spirit goes far beyond how good the football team is. This pays off everywhere.</p>
<p>Finally, many LACs are just as diverse and liberal as other top schools. These schools include Wesleyan, Vassar, Swarthmore, Amherst, Dartmouth (LAC hybrid), etc.</p>