<p>There is often talk about class sizes at various schools, usually based on assumptions about "small" versus "large" class sizes at a particular school.</p>
<p>How many students and parents who care about class sizes actually look at the schools' on-line class schedules to determine the actual class sizes, particularly for those classes in the student's major?</p>
<p>(However, it does seem that some schools do not post enrollment limits and actual enrollments in their on-line class schedules.)</p>
<p>Umass posts limits. In my DDs experience, the only classes with more than 20 students had very experienced instructors who had taught the class before, knew how much work it would be (for them) and could handle that many students and were very responsive.</p>
<p>I am one of those people who likes looking at the online course offerings. My son’s school does have the cap and enrolled numbers listed for each class each semester, including the past semesters for the same class.</p>
<p>I do pay attention to the cap number in classes he is taking and how many are actually enrolled to get a sense of how big some of the first level classes are. I can see the cap they allow each workshop and lab to be which are considerably smaller, so I know they have that time to be in smaller groups.</p>
<p>I looked online at the course offerings over the last few years at D’s school (and a couple other schools she was considering), focusing on the courses she’ll actually have to take. I was looking at class size, variety of elective offerings, how frequently required classes are offered and how many different professors teach those classes. All of the schools she was considering were large state flagships. This information was all on line and quick and easy to find. Ease of navigation of school websites and ease of finding information was also something we paid attention to. </p>
<p>Class sizes at the school she is attending really run the gamut. She’ll have classes with 8 students, and others with 260. She’s a freshman this year and although she has had one big lecture and one tiny seminar, most of her classes range from 18-40 students. She doesn’t seem to prefer one over the other. Since we did look at this when she was making her school decision, there were no surprises.</p>