<p>...between a college, a univeristy, and a technology institute?</p>
<p>as in harvey mudd COLLEGE, cornell UNIVERSITY, and Cal TECH? those are the schools that intereste me the most</p>
<p>Well a University offers graduate studies (at least masters), a college is just undergrad. Dunno about tech, just that they are for technical engineering?</p>
<p>Akajjred, I go to a college with masters degrees</p>
<p>I think most institutes are more specialized, though the only one's I'm familiar with are for technology (MIT, Caltech, Illinois IT, Georgia Tech, Rose-Hulman, etc etc.). </p>
<p>Colleges are also more focused in a general area, usually smaller with more undergrad focus I've heard. Universities are large research institutions, with mutliple schools or colleges under them.</p>
<p>some colleges are really universities- like Dartmouth College and Boston College- whereas some are actual colleges- Amherst College, Williams College.....</p>
<p>here's what i get so far:</p>
<ol>
<li>univ are bigger than colleges, and most offer research in more depth than do colleges. thus, a lot more ppl are attracted.</li>
</ol>
<p>2...does that mean univ offers undergrad more research opportunities?</p>
<ol>
<li>tech...don't even get me started. </li>
</ol>
<p>my question still holds: what the heck is the difference?</p>
<p>This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, as colleges are free to call themselves whatever they like (ie Boston College is really a university and Lawrence University is actually a LAC) but...</p>
<p>A university is typically an institution that offers both undergrad and grad degrees. As per your question, this does not mean that undergrads have more research opportunities, as faculty are usually much more focused on the grad students and undergrads often have very little interaction with faculty. Universities are often subdivided into colleges (like the College of Arts and Sciences at a larger University) and it is often difficult to take classes outside your "college" or to change your major between "colleges."</p>
<p>Colleges, as in liberal arts colleges, are smaller institutions where the main focus is on the undergrads, usually without grad programs at all. Because faculty are dedicated to undergrad education, students won't be "just a number" as they would be at large unis. This one-on-one attention leads to more research opportunities. However, LACs may have less specialized equipment than some large universities, as undergrad education, not research, is the focus.</p>
<p>Tech institutes are institutions that primarily focus on math and science. They may or may not offer degrees outside this area of focus (MIT offers creative writing, history, etc.). I was not personally interested in tech schools, so my knowledge here is limited.</p>
<p>so if I intend to do a biolgy major (specifications within biology to be developed later on in my junior and senior years of undergrad education) and my final goal is to earn a Ph.D in the specifications of my choice, which one is best?</p>
<p>It depends on what environment you would feel most comfortable in. No choice is "better" for everyone; it's all about what you want. Do you want to be able to lose yourself in a crowd, take large lecture classes, and see hundreds of strange faces every day? If so, a university may be right for you. Do you want to have personal relationships with your professors, receive a broad education across disciplines, and know a large percentage of the people you see on campus? If so, you may be better suited to an LAC. Do you want to go to a school where almost everyone is intensely focused on one narrow aspect like engineering or math? If so, a tech institute may be your ideal environment.</p>
<p>BC is a university but it behaves like an LAC, same with Wake Forest, Tufts, etc.., meaning that graduate programs are not the focus</p>
<p>and some universities are more like colleges (Wesleyan, Colgate, Bucknell, Washington & Lee)...</p>
<p>I believe all four of those are officially ranked as LACs, as opposed to BC, tufts, wake... which are ranked among national universities</p>
<p>That was my point, similar to you mentioning that schools named college (Dartmouth, BC) actually are universities. Tufts and Wake, however, are named university and actually are universities.</p>
<p>so would you get to do more research experience as an undergrad in a LAC or a university?</p>
<p>By definition, a university is a collection of colleges. Oxford University for instance, is composed of 39 colleges - some for men, some for women, some for postgraduate studies, etc. Oxford and Cambridge's colleges are actual semi-autonomous schools with their own campuses and faculties. In the U.S., our version of a university is much more streamlined - usually an undergraduate college, a graduate school, and perhaps schools of law, medicine, business, etc. "Colleges" are typically just the undergraduate school. Some universities prefer to call themselves colleges for historical reasons (Dartmouth, William & Mary). Some colleges stretch the truth to call themselves universities to be ostentatious (University of the South, Colgate University). Boston College is stuck - it's a major university whose alternative university name is already taken. Many universities started as undergraduate colleges, then added additional schools, so their undergraduate school retains the word "college" (Harvard College, Yale College) while the whole institution goes by "university." As far as "Technical" - that's just niche marketing. Any institution could call itself "technical" or "military" or "agricultural" or even "arts and sciences" (though they typically don't name themselves the latter since that's taken for granted. There's no standard for undergrad research or any other kind of experience - that's just a function of the emphases of the school, regardless of the nomenclature.</p>
<p>The distinction between college, university, and technical institute is about as meaningful as the distinction between street, road, and avenue. There's supposed to be a difference (avenues being bigger than streets, roads being more rural than the other two), but in practice the distinctions blur.</p>
<p>I actually think that U.S. News has done a good job of classifying schools as LACs vs. universities by their size and nature, rather than their names. Thus, Bucknell and Colgate are with the liberal arts colleges, even though they have "University" in their names, and William and Mary and BC are with the universities, even though they call themselves "colleges."</p>
<p>Well if you're looking for research opportunities, you can find them at either. However, because of the sheer size and the fact that graduate schools focus on research, you'd probably find more opportunities at a "university" with a significant graduate school presence.</p>
<p>D of a friend of mine was at Rider College in NJ when they became Rider University, this was maybe 10 or 15 yrs ago. The mom was proud of that since Rider was now in the same classification as, I assume, a Princeton or a Harvard, when in fact Rider U was the same as Rider C. So if this kind of thinking is prevalent (probably is since Rider went through the trouble of changing its name) I think the public perception (outside of cc) is probably that University is better or offers more than College.</p>
<p>Colgate, Wesleyan, Bucknell don't have university in their name to be 'ostentatious' (how is that ostentatious anyway?), but becuase they have very small < 10 people masters programs.</p>
<p>2331clk, so if I attend a university (like the one you mentioned) with a lot of research in focus (since there are grad schools within the same institution), doesn't that mean that there will be more competition for the number of research positions available to undergrads?</p>