Are liberal arts colleges perceived as second tier?

<p>^^ Yeah. I just chose the two because of physical proximity. Personally I would vote for Swarthmore+Yale, simply because that would be a dream combination for my D.</p>

<p>Again, it’s hard to make generalizations across the board. Some LACs have fabulous labs and research opportunities; some do not. Some LACs are close to major research universities; others are not. Some universities are wonderfully equipped, but demand outstrip resources, which is why many students take more than 4 years to complete their degrees.</p>

<p>Of my two Ss, one did not need to have access to graduate level courses; the other did. For the first, the LAC environment worked out quite well (although I have written before about some of the downsides of his experience); for the second, having access to graduate classes was a crucial consideration in his choices. S1 is far more typical of the college student population than is S2.</p>

<p>Many LACs have programs to send their students for a semester or a year to a university. Some years ago, I met a young man who was a student at Wheaton College and was spending the year at Harvard, at the recommendation of one of his profs (a Harvard Ph.D.) because the LAC did not have the rich range of courses in the field he had become interested in as a result of taking a class with said prof. I think Williams has an arrangement with Columbia for students interested in engineering.</p>

<p>As for Swarthmore, I may be wrong, but I believe it is possible for Swarthmore students to take some classes at Penn.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>That’s correct. All students in the Tri-Co (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore) can take classes at Penn. I’ve heard we can take classes Wharton too, but I’m not sure about the truth of that.</p>

<p>TK21769 - See my post #33 re: PhD’s. Some of those studies show evidence that confirms findings that LACs have a high success rate for Ph.D. production</p>

<p>

I’m at THE TOP LAC and even I don’t think so.

That’s not their job. That’s like asking chefs at fancy places like Sizzler’s to dish out foie gras au torchon at fancier places like French Laundry. I’ve been to both and I enjoyed my meals at both places. Good grief, I don’t even know where the hell is Haverford. Seriously, students should stick to l’ecole des etats over anything south of Swarthmore in ranking.</p>

<p>^ You’re at “THE” top LAC? And what school would that be, pray tell? I hope you do not consider USNWR distinctions among the top 3 (AWS) to be meaningful.</p>

<p>You’re dissing Haverford? Dude!</p>

<p>

If you consider PhD in math at these places top tier, top LACs do very well. (Rutgers, Brandeis, UT Austin, University of Oregon, BU)</p>

<p>

I do. In this particular instance, I have NE bias.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Far, far more than “a good sprinkling.” That would be a reasonable description back in the 70s. (And yes, I think you are right about the reason.) Now, it is at least 26% according the the PR 366 Best Colleges.</p>

<p>^^ I was being understated.:)</p>

<p>Marite, of course I knew there is a sizable Asian population at Smith and the number of Korean names had registered on even a conscious level. But the idea of Smithies ever moving back to Korea…oh, ko!! I project a lot of cultural friction. </p>

<p>Middsmith: you go to THE top LAC? I had no idea you were at Smith. Fwiw, TheMom is a director-level employee at a UC and would, in many instances, say that an LAC like Smith provides the superior educational opportunity. We were biased in favor of research universities before we started doing the college search & selection process. Now, we’ve tilted the other way for many students. Our D certainly had a more spectacular experience at her LAC than she would have from any UC, everything from on-campus research starting first year to a junior year split between D.C. and Budapest. (The UC quarter system winds up being a pain in terms of aligning with most off-campus programs and even internal programs, like their D.C. program, shortchange the student.) Then, as Marite notes, there’s the whole class size and who’s teaching issue. I think D had two classes in four years with more than 50 students and had a majority with 20 or fewer. One of the 50+ classes had a discussion section; the discussion section was led by a full prof…the department head in this case.</p>

<p>Swarthmore’s honors thesis program, complete with oral defense in front of a panel of outside scholars chosen because of their expertise in the thesis subject matter, is much more impressive than anything Penn offers. I think Swarthmore would bridle at the notion that it doesn’t do a good job with the last two years. (Plus, it’s far more common at LACs compared to top research universities for students to take a full year, or at least a semester, abroad.)</p>

<p>Furthermore, it’s inconsistent with Yale’s or Penn’s design to have hundreds of students parachuting in for the last two years. Certainly at Yale that would wreck the character of the place, which depends on people knowing each other for a long time. They take some transfers, but really very few.</p>

<p>If you’re a boy, and you want a combo sort of program, you should check out Deep Springs, the most selective junior college in existence. You do two years at a super-intimate LAC run entirely by the students, and combined with ranch work in the California high desert. Then you transfer to . . . well, it used to be Harvard more often than not, but some place like that.</p>

<p>^^ Yeah, JHS, I agree with all those points- about Swarthmore, Penn and Yale. </p>

<p>Yes, it was the Deep Springs that I had in mind when I described the 2+2 formula but decided not to mention it because it is so incredibly selective AND unusual. I do think there would be examples where that formula would work, and be a win-win for both institutions- perhaps in a less selective part of the spectrum of LACs and universities.</p>

<p>JHS:
Two CRLS grads went to Deep Springs and later transferred to Harvard (plug for much maligned CRLS here). But Harvard is not accepting transfer any more for the foreseeable future; Deep Springs grads will have to look elsewhere.</p>

<p>I agree with the rigor of the Swarthmore system. What Swarthmore gains by its proximity to Penn is not greater rigor but a wider range of offerings. That, to my mind, is the real advantage of universities over LACs.</p>

<p>TheDad: I’m happy to tout the excellence of LACs, but there are downsides, too, and I have noted them elsewhere. Like S1 being shut out of some classes in order to maintain small class size. S2 refused the chance to go to Budapest (much to my chagrin) because he did not see the academic advantage and wanted to stay with his friends. While he took some classes with humongous enrollments, half had 20 or fewer students in them.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Deep Springs is the ultimate in elite, even though – perhaps especially because – very, very few people have heard of it. Only those who are knowledgeable and tuned in know about it. It’s the polar opposite of the “ooh! ooh! is this school prestigious enough to impress the vast majority of people? how about this one? what do you all think?” approach.</p>

<p>“…I’m happy to tout the excellence of LACs, but there are downsides, too, …”
“… a wider range of offerings. That, to my mind, is the real advantage of universities over LACs.”</p>

<p>My family has experienced this as well. I was a big booster before both D’s went off to them, but for each the downsides became manifest. D1 became interested in a sub-area of her field that the LAC department simply didn’t offer, altogether. Later, due to scheduling , every other year/ every other semester type offerings she had to take a course she had no interest in, in order to complete her major; there were too few choices, when she needed them. Both of them encountered unanticipated clashes with prevailing campus cultures, which can be quite important in LACs. The next one will be looking more carefully at somewhat bigger ponds, with more room to maneuver socially and academically.</p>

<p>Which is not to say I think LACs are bad, just that there are downsides, to all situations but LACs included.</p>

<p>monydad, i don’t know the rules here, but what was D1’s interest and what school was she attending? also, what did she do after graduation?</p>

<p>Her particular LAC was not the issue, so much.</p>

<p>It’s not to pick on her LAC, because the issue is generic across most of them as a class. There was nothing particularly wrong with her LAC, quite the contrary, but it shares the same downsides most of them do. marite alluded to aspects reflecting the same thing, and her kids’ LAC was a different one, undoubtedly.</p>

<p>Actually D1s LAC probably had more courses in her field than most others. Its just that as a class they cannot match the breadth and depth of course offerings/ coverage that a research U can, in most areas, not just hers.</p>

<p>When she found out they didn’t offer courses in her (newly discovered) interest area, she looked into some other schools. Most universities offered it, none of the LACs she looked at offered it.</p>

<p>The few LACs that are parts of very close, feasible course- sharing consortia, are in a somewhat better situation in this particular. But not many of them have this, and in some cases, travel times limit its utility.</p>

<p>There were the good aspects as well, also generic.</p>

<p>After graduation: she found, by herself and not through her school, a dead end, sub-subsistence level job which she is now doing. The school did offer her some programs to gain some experiences that related to employment, but they did not lead to anything in her case. Next steps: unknown.</p>

<p>

I go to the school near by, at the top of the totem pole by some posters’ standard. =)</p>