<p>I'm just wondering, but how large are the classes at Stanford? For example, would a freshman get plently of attention? I'm just wondering how it's like at other elite colleges. Thanks.</p>
<p>Stanford tries pretty hard to get all students, especially freshmen, some experience with small classes. For example, here's my schedule:</p>
<p>IHUM, Introduction to the Humanities - my lecture has like 300 people, but my discussion section has about 15. </p>
<p>PWR1, Program in Writing and Rhetoric - about 20 people in the class.</p>
<p>Math 42 - lecture has like 50 people, section has around 15 people if everyone shows up.</p>
<p>Psych 17N, Language and Society - about 25 people.</p>
<p>In my experience, Stanford tries to address the problem of not getting enough individual instruction through its freshman seminars program (my psych class is a freshman seminar). These are usually fewer-credit classes, usually capped at a certain number of students, and usually taught by a professor fairly renowned in his or her field.</p>
<p>Professors love for students to come to office hours; you can talk one-on-one with a professor about a question or comment regarding the class, or just discuss interests.</p>
<p>Some stats about class size:</p>
<p>-7:1 professor:student ratio
-75% of classes have 15 or less students
-only 2% of classes have more than 120 students (these classes will also have smaller sections and profs will have office hours) </p>
<p>Some of your introductory classes, like IHUM, may have 100+ students, but you will also have sections with about 15 students. There are a few other classes with a lot of students, like Human Behavioral Biology which often has 500+ students since the prof/class is so popular. </p>
<p>This quarter, I have a class with about 40 students (10 people in my lab section), another class with about 20 students, and then a class with about 14 students. I have a 1-unit seminar with 25 students or so and a social dance class with about 80 students. Last year most of my math and physics classes had 25-40 students, IHUM had 100+ with 15 people in my section, and then PWR and my intro sem had about 15 students. </p>
<p>That said, a lot of profs really love it when students come to office hours. Even in my spring IHUM lecture with 100+ students, I met with my prof a couple of times and I'm pretty sure that he would still know me by name (he did last year at least). If you want attention and are willing to seek it out, you will have no trouble finding it. If you don't seek it out the profs won't seek after you though, you do have to initiate it. Most profs are very friendly and approachable so if you're willing the take the time to get to know your profs it's pretty easy to do. All the dorms have faculty nights where you can invite faculty members over for dinner and get to know profs on a more personal level. </p>
<p>Sorry the post is so long. Hopefully that answers your question!</p>
<p>Stanford has introductory seminars that are extremely small (capped at 16 people). They are usually on extremely interesting subjects.</p>