Am I the only one not enamored with LAC's?

Parents Forum
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<p>mncollegemom,</p>

<p>Truman highlights and lowlights…</p>

<p>Students are bright, hard-working, and down to earth. No fake, pseudo intellectualism. They study hard but there is also a decent sized Greek system for parties.
ACT 25-75% range: 25-30. </p>

<p>About 50% of the grads go to grad school right after graduation.
Coursework is clearly geared for grad school placement in the social sciences, sciences, and humanities. Many majors require multiple courses in quantitative and qualitative research methods. Most, if not all majors, require a capstone/senior project of some sort; often a research project.</p>

<p>Emphasis on writing…multiple writing enhanced classes required for all majors. Junior level interdisciplinary writing enhanced course required for all majors.</p>

<p>Truman is not well known outside of Iowa, Kansas City area, St Louis area, Missouri, and parts of Illinois. Job placement is primarily in KC, St Louis, and DES Moines. They are trying to get into the Chicago market and I think may have a full-time admissions rep up there now. Most students are from Mo, Il, Ia, and Ks. </p>

<p>Truman is very well respected in the academic world. Lots of Tuman grads in grad schools at places like Iowa, Iowa State, Wash U, St Louis U, KU, Mizzou, and the Midwest Big Ten schools. A neighbor is on our local flagship medical school admissions committee and sees lots of Truman applicants. Says they are equal to and can compete with any applicant from the more well known state flagships and LAC’s</p>

<p>Dorms nice and recently remodeled. Campus is pretty nice. Kirksville is a poor, rural, and pretty conservative town.</p>

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<p>Haystack - I’m the opposite. I love LACs. I fear my bias is stopping my son from appreciating big Us.</p>

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<p>Haystack–great information. Your son seems to be looking at similar schools as our kids so that is why I wanted your opinion. Our DD is considering Medicine so good to know about med school placement.</p>

<p>Any feed back on kids staying on campus for the weekends or does it end up being a ghost town?</p>

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<p>Our impression was that students stayed on campus on weekends. Some said that the coursework was too demanding and they could not afford to leave campus.</p>

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<p>I’m with longhaul… I love an LAC but I have to admit that I loved my HUGE U too! D, a current sr, has definitely found some schools in the middle with enrollments around 5-6K.</p>

<p>S thought his LAC was too small but the he got into his major and has built absolutely incredible relationships with a few professors who really truly know him AND have written some awesome recommendations on his behalf.</p>

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<p>I was talking to one of my relatives who attends a larger university, we were discussing the class size of my DD’s LAC, when I said her favorite class last semester was only 12 kids and they sit at a conference table he was shocked.</p>

<p>He prefers the anonymity a large class provides. Small class size was the main selling point for my daughter, she wanted to know the professor and for the professor to know her as well.</p>

<p>It is not for everyone but do figure out what is most important for your college experience and choose your college choices accordingly.</p>

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<p>As long as we are playing the anecdotal game: I went to a LAC. My DD will be going to a large university, but she will be attending within the honors college, which limits some of the classes to those students, as well as the class size. </p>

<p>My DD’s high school is larger than many LACs. She said she didn’t want to go to a college smaller than her high school.</p>

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No problem with appreciation here. I’ve only directly experienced universities (5 so far, if you count study abroad) and am very fond of most of them – I’ve received a great education and gotten to know some amazing scholars. The diversity of students and courses has been much appreciated.</p>

<p>I’ve come to greatly admire LACs, though. My sister and boyfriend both attend LACs; they’re getting absolutely fantastic educations and establishing closer bonds with other students and faculty than most universities provide. I’ve been very impressed (and mildly jealous!).</p>

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<p>If you can get into a tip top university (top 20 or 25), fine. If you want engineering or another pre-professional major, then forget about LACs. Otherwise, for undergraduate academics alone, I think the top 25-75 or so LACs are often superior to universities in the same range. Many university choices in that range will be OOS public schools. A LAC will give you smaller classes, better aid, national drawing power, and possibly a nicer campus. </p>

<p>2000 young adults at a selective LAC is not the same dynamic as 2000 teenagers at a random HS.</p>

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<p>Much emphasis is placed on the gestalt (cumulative) measure that we conveniently call ‘fit’ - rightfully so. College/university size is part of that measure. My son is at a LAC, which seems - at present- to be a really great fit for him. However, college years are a time of growth and transition. Quite naturally, a LAC could be a perfect fit for freshman/sophmore years, but less so as junior and senior. How common is it for ‘fit’ to change for the student through their undergraduate years?</p>

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<p>I went to a smal LAC back in the day, and I thought I “knew everyone”. Now that I read alum magazines and facebook pages and look back at my yearbook, I realize I dont know half of those people!!</p>

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<p>^same! Or maybe it’s that the people we knew and were friends with are not the people who are always posting updates about themselves…</p>

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<p>Or more likely that its a reflection of our failing memory! :o</p>

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<p>It’s no big deal if you don’t like LAC’s. It’s no more right or wrong than preferring an urban environment to a rural one, or a heavy-sports culture to a no-sports culture. Everyone has different tastes. My D was only interested in LAC’s. My S, on the other, had both on his list - his #1 choice being a research uni and his #2 choice being a LAC. So it goes. That’s why they have both chocolate and vanilla.</p>

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<p>I’ve met people who sincerely believe that no school not bearing the word “Technology” in its name is worth the price of admission.</p>

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<p>Some LACs do offer engineering majors (e.g. Harvey Mudd College, Swarthmore COllege). Others offer, or even focus on, other pre-professional majors (e.g. Sarah Lawrence College in visual and performing arts).</p>

<p>But, obviously, fit is extremely important at small LACs. The students who fit well at Harvey Mudd and Sarah Lawrence would not want to switch schools.</p>

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<p>What a relief. I graduated from Iowa State University of Science and Technology. Woohooo.</p>

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<p>Clearly stupid people, then - so who cares what their opinion is?</p>

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<p>I really wanted my D to look at some LACs but she really wanted a large urban school. She was looking for quirky, and we had a hard time finding LACs that were the right kind of quirky. She was looking for skinny-jeans-and-band-shirt quirky, but we kept finding Birkenstock-quirky, or intellectual-quirky, or granola-quirky, or hipster-quirky. Who knew that there were so many sub-genres of quirky?</p>

<p>Anyway, she did wind up in the urban environament she was looking for, and she did find her kind of quirky amongst that student body. In a way, it worked out beautifully, because as she gradually morphed from indie-band-quirky into accountant-quirky, she was able to find new friends in that same sub-genre.</p>

<p>I still like LACs, myself, but I’m not the one in school.</p>

40

<p>(A) Everything is relative. My D went to a HS of about sixty students so a LAC with 1500 students will seem HUGE to her.</p>

<p>(B) Teenagers can change minds very quickly. My D had said she only wanted to go to a small school. Her first visit (as mentioned in another thread) though was to a very large university. And she’s in love with it. So go figure.</p>