<p>Are there benefits to going to a university (that has graduate programs) vs a college that does not offer grad programs? Obviously the benefit of not having to pack up and move to go on the grad school, but beyond that what might be the benefits of choosing a university?</p>
<p>For the right kid, attending a university means being able to take graduate level classes while still an undergraduate and having access to research opportunities not available at a liberal arts college. It also means an escape from the “everybody knows my name” intimacy of high school - the kid can get to know different kinds of people, get involved in different kinds of activities, and, in effect, create a new life for him or herself.</p>
<p>The flip side is larger classes, less personal contact with professors, and getting “lost in the crowd.”</p>
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A lot of students go to a different place for graduate school, regardless. In fact at the public U I attended it was commonly said that it was harder to get accepted into graduate programs if you had attended undergrad there (schools like to diversify).</p>
<p>Counterpoint to dodgersmom, at a college without graduate programs, undergrads sometimes have more opportunity to work as graders and assistants to the faculty. At university those positions are more likely to go to the (graduate) teaching assistants.</p>
<p>A student who enters more advanced will more likely find the typical advantages of a university with graduate programs to be greater (e.g. being able to take graduate level courses), while finding the typical disadvantages to be lesser (e.g. the big freshman level courses that s/he will skip due to starting more advanced). The opposite may be the case for a student who is not particularly advanced upon entry.</p>
<p>However, not all universities with graduate programs are large, so that size factor is not necessarily a distinguishing characteristic.</p>
<p>“college” and “university” are used as synonyms very often. Harvard College is a university, for example.</p>
<p>Well, not exactly. Harvard College is a part of Harvard University. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is another part of Harvard University, as are the law school, the medical school, the divinity school, the Kennedy School of Government…</p>
<p>As for the original question, there are pros and cons to both colleges and universities. They’ve been hinted at already. Besides the generalities about personal attention and undergraduates taking graduate-level classes, the feel of a large university campus is often different from the feel of either a college or a smaller university. (By this, I mean to suggest that Michigan State doesn’t feel the same as Brandeis, even though both are research universities.) For example, if your really want the rah-rah atmosphere of big-time college sports, you’ll find a lot more of it at Ohio State than you will at Oberlin.</p>
<p>Thank you for all of your insights on college vs uni. I hadn’t thought of the possibility of it being harder to get into grad if you go to ug at the same school (if they are seeking diversity). I do see that while college and university are technically different, people tend to use the terms interchangeably, so at times that can get confusing. I also see how entering ‘advanced’ (with credit for prereq classes) could make a big difference in the benefits/drawbacks of a large uni. Sometimes that is hard to sort out when people talk of huge classes at a particular school.</p>
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UCB, while this certainly falls under YMMV based on the individual schools, when you look at LACs and Us in the US system it’s fairly safe to say that Us have larger classes than LACs. As to how that will impact individual students, that also varies.</p>
<p>Other benefits of attending a university vs. a college:
-Larger and more specialized libraries
-More up-to-date research equipment and facilities
-A broader range of majors
-Greater breadth and depth in course offerings
-Opportunities for more specialization within certain majors
-More research activity, and hence, more opportunities to participate in research and a greater number of research projects to choose from
-Study and research opportunities in more specialized subjects, e.g., critical languages
-A more diverse faculty and student body, including more international students and faculty
-A broader range of organizations and other extracurricular activities in which to participate
-A broader range of social niches
-More lectures, concerts and other performances, etc.
-A greater degree of name recognition/prestige, especially beyond a school’s region, or even, internationally
-A larger, and possibly stronger, alumni network</p>
<p>Different universities will have these benefits in different degrees, of course. And, as other posters mentioned, colleges offer benefits that are less easily available at universities, e.g., smaller class sizes, a greater degree of interaction with faculty, etc.</p>
<p>^The library thing is huge, my daughter went to a large research university and their library had something like 3.5 million holdings compared to my son who went to a local LAC where they had a very tiny library. Even though so much is digital in modern times, there are some books that simply are too special to find online.</p>
<p>Seconding that the library thing is a big deal. My small undergrad college shared a library with another liberal arts college and a small liberal arts university, and I hated that library. It didn’t subscribe to all of the journals I needed as a budding researcher and didn’t have a lot of holdings. My graduate university - the libraries are one of my favorite things about it. First of all, the holdings seem almost infinite - there is rarely an article I need that we don’t have, and if there is, I can nearly always ILL it. I can also borrow books directly from other Ivy Leagues; they come within 2 days. And second of all, they provide great study spaces. Our libraries have lounges and ancient art and coffee shops. I would say that the library is a must-visit on any college trip - even if you are not planning to be a dork like me, you’re eventually going to have to write a paper that might require a last-minute book or article. You want a place that can support that, not require you to plan 2 months ahead so you can order all of your books from other libraries.</p>
<p>I think zapfino’s list of benefits is pretty complete. While I loved my small college and would go there again in a heartbeat, we did have a limited range of majors and courses within those majors, I hated our library, and our alumnae network is strong but quite small. The only one I disagree with is a “more diverse student body and faculty,” though, as that really depends on which college you are comparing to which university. My small college had a MUCH more diverse faculty than most large universities. Larger school just means larger faculty, but not necessarily more diverse.</p>
<p>A lot of the putative benefits of a university over a LAC just don’t hold water, at least not for all LACs v. all research universities.</p>
<p>Libraries: While it’s certainly true that research universities have more extensive library holdings, most undergrads are not going to need many of the specialized holdings–and if they do, pretty much everything in the world is readily accessible through inter-library loan (which even faculty and grad students at top research universities depend on).</p>
<p>Research labs and facilities: LACs with top science programs are fully up-to-date in most areas. Granted, the LAC may not have its own particle accelerator for state-of-the-art high-energy physics experiments, but then most research universities don’t, either, and even at those that do it’s not likely an undergrad is going to get her hands on the machinery. </p>
<p>Research opportunities: These may actually be greater for undergrads at some LACs since there are no grad students at the head of the line for research opportunities.</p>
<p>Alumni network: Naturally larger universities will have larger alumni networks, but size isn’t everything—if it were, then the biggest state universities would have the most effective alumni networks. In my experience, what the best LACs lack in size, they more than compensate with the fierce loyalty of their alums which seems almost inversely proportional to the size of the school.</p>
<p>More majors, more specialized course offerings within majors: Yes, but . . . at the end of the day, you’re only going to have one major, or at most two, and LACs tend to offer the most popular ones. As for specialized and graduate-level courses, I think that matters more in some fields than in others. For someone who is a true math genius, I probably wouldn’t recommend a LAC, because that person might want to accelerate into esoteric, graduate-level math pretty quickly. For someone who wants to study English, history, or poli sci, the trade-off is that while at the LAC you won’t have quite the same breadth or depth of course offerings, you’ll still have no shortage of courses to choose from, and you’ll have all small classes and much more personal attention and develop much closer relationships with the faculty.</p>
<p>Bottom line, I think it’s mostly a question of personal preference. I’ve spent most of my life at research universities, public and private, both as a student and as faculty, and I certainly think that a self-motivated student can get an outstanding education at a good research university. My D1 opted for a small LAC, where she is also getting an outstanding education–in my opinion, equal to or better than what she could have gotten at a bigger school, in an intimate atmosphere that she’s just more comfortable with. I’d have found her school too small and, well, stifling; she’d have found mine just much too large, cold, and anonymous. Neither is “better” in the abstract; it depends on what you want, and what you value.</p>
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<p>I wish this could be stickied. It sums up the situation perfectly.</p>
<p>I spent a long time choosing between some large public universities and small liberal arts colleges. Eventually I chose one of the Universities.</p>
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<p>Except for the research (I’m a Poli Sci/Theatre major), these were the hooks for me. Internship opportunities also played into it. And my top choice amongst the LACs was right next to a large doctoral research university (that I was also considering) and even though I loved the campus I would have felt pretty insignificant. The whole environment at a lot of them felt very cramped as well. </p>
<p>As far as the ‘known on campus’ aspect goes, that’s not important to me as long as I have some sort of social life. Every sign points to professors still being accessible, but I actually didn’t want a whole lot of really small classes like the LACs were offering. Small colleges make a big deal of having little/no lectures, but I actually think there’s advantages in them and that it’s something I want as part of the college experience.</p>
<p>The college I chose is actually a Master’s-level university without a very large Graduate population, so I still think it’s personal enough but has the right level of anonymity.</p>