<p>What about the advisory scene? Many of the LACs (and smaller universities) assign undergraduate advisors and the program establishes regular contact. In some cases, the advisors also teach the student’s freshman seminar. Ideally they can recommend academic pathways, internships, mentors or perhaps extra work in the writing center based on first-hand knowledge, and stay on top of things. Is that really the way it works? If so, it would seem a plus for some students.
And how does it work at larger universities? I hear mixed reports. At a recent visit to “State U” I learned (from an Admissions person) that the academic advisors don’t know the students or the departments either - students must seek them out and they advise mainly on which classes to take next based on a computer program.
I know many people believe that college students are adults and should take initiative to find advisors, build strengths and develop relationships with professors. But I think my own experience many years ago - honors college at a Big 10 school - would have been enhanced by required, ongoing interaction with a skilled advisor, something that just didn’t occur to me at the time.</p>
<p>Our oldest went to a state U and the academic advising pretty much consisted of meeting with your advisor freshman year to sign up for classes during orientation. If the kids had questions they pretty much had to figure it out on their own or if they were lucky an older student helped them.</p>
<p>A friend went with her college senior son to meet with his advisor because they couldn’t figure out if he had enough credits to graduate or not-complicated major. He has to go another semester because he missed something early on. He is at a big, well respected, research U. This was his 3rd advisor because of staff turnover or sabbaticals.</p>
<p>However, could it be that the smaller schools need more advising, due to less frequent offerings of courses? I.e. if the junior/senior level course that you want to take is offered once every two years, you want to make sure that you are ready to take the course (in terms of completing prerequisite courses) when it becomes available to you.</p>
<p>The only down side I have seen in attending a LAC is the fact of some courses are only being taught once a year or every other year. My dd loves going to her LAC otherwise.</p>
<p>4thfloor: St. Olaf is about 3,100</p>
<p>Looking at the department web sites I was really concerned about the alternate year combined with sabbatical thing at Grinnell. Does anyone have particular experience there?</p>
<p>Wonderful article about the value of an LAC education. It is good to get that reinforcement!</p>
<p>ucbalumnus-in my experience and in talking with friends/co-workers, etc. over the years, it is far easier to get into classes at a smaller LAC and graduate on time than it is at a big U. I don’t really know of anyone that had issues getting the classes they needed, they might not have gotten the exact professor they wanted, but they could get into pretty much every class they needed without issue. Now, I know of some people that refused to take any classes before 10:00 and had problems getting all of their classes but that was hardly the school’s fault.</p>
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<p>Fine, don’t get hung up on the 3,500 - I’m thinking conceptually. Nothing about an LAC requires it to be in a remote setting. My daughter and son attend a top LAC and a top university respectively; both are in suburbs of major cities.</p>
<p>Other slightly larger LACs (over 3,000): Bucknell, Emerson, Ithaca.</p>
<p>Brandeis, Lehigh, and Dartmouth should maybe count, too, being quite small for universities and overwhelmingly undergraduate-oriented.</p>
<p>Another LAC that doesn’t get a lot of play on cc is Hope College. Its been a few years but my D chose Hope over St. Olaf, Gustavus, and Valpo. It has about 3k students and is reputed to be strong in the sciences (not my D’s area of study).</p>
<p>Dartmouth is a very interesting case. Though primarily an undergraduate college, it also has a top rated business school, a significant medical school (I think I saw one of their helicopters once), and a (small) school of engineering. There are also a bunch of stand-alone PhD programs (Math, Physics, Computer Science, etc.). So even though Dartmouth may feel “LAC-cy” in atmosphere, it would be not be a typical LAC, if one were to consider it a LAC. In many areas, it has the resources and the depth of offerings of a (small) research university.</p>