<p>SLAC's are not god...get over yourselves, class size stops being a determining factor once you hit advanced courses</p>
<p>Lower tier schools have smaller de facto class sizes because so many students skip.</p>
<p>One way to create small class sizes is to develop a curriculum with lots of unpopular courses. Another way is to hire professors who can't teach. Once word gets around, their classes are smaller.</p>
<p>Interesting to hear the various perspectives on whether or how class sizes matter. Most of the posts have focused on how the quality of the class experience depends (or not) on class size. I have a different question: what are your experiences on whether/how the class size affects your chances of discovering something you’re really excited to study (particularly for those planning to go on to grad study and possibly Ph.D. in that field)? Of course there are some who know what they want to pursue before they go to college, or who are planning to go to a professional school, so for them it may not make any difference. But I know of other people who’ve had teachers who’ve really helped in figuring out what to pursue, not just through their teaching but also through personal contact and mentoring. So my question is whether small class sizes have a significant impact for this reason, if you’re more likely to get to know the professors better.</p>
<p>On post #57 and the link by kyledavid80:
Wish I had seen svalbard’s analysis earlier – it’s pretty much the same analysis that I did! Oh well, there’s some value to actually noodling through it yourself. He breaks out his results using all the Common Data Set intervals, whereas I just combined the results into the <20 and >50 a la USNWR. But his results (maybe using last year’s CDS?) appear very similar to the ones that hawkette and I got.
And on the assumptions btw my upper bound was also above 100 (not 50 as you thought), ie the same as svalbard. Interestingly, he made the same default assumptions for average class size in the >100 category: 150 for LACs and 200 for national univs. Also on the robustness of this assumption, I believe I’d mentioned earlier that the <20 and >50 results are not very sensitive to this assumption (unlike the averages, which are quite sensitive and hence the reason I’d suggested not using them) – if you care, you can do the sensitivities with a spreadsheet really easily and decide if it’s good enough for you for the colleges you’re interested in. Overall, while the analysis is not based on perfectly specified data, I believe it’s good enough to get a broad sense for the differences in class size, but obviously you don’t want to be looking for minute differences between colleges.
Finally, for the Stanford example, as to what it means to say that the average student will encounter a class of >50 students 50% of the time, it means that the average undergrad student would have 18 out of their 36 classes be classes with >50 students. This is very different from the impression created when it’s reported in USNWR that only 10% of Stanford’s classes are over 50 students – and this was the whole point of the analysis.</p>
<p>averages can be very misleading indeed. to take an extreme case, you say there are 10 guys in this room at 5' and another 10 at 6'; so the average is 5'6" when the fact is not even single one of them is 5'6" or even comes close. averages work only when most of the components come quite close to the average. same as class sizes, chances are you're least likely to attend the average class size.</p>
<p>i agree with the op. you need absolute and average numbers to get a clearer picture too. even better is to have a breakdown by year; freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior. the format of summary results should look like this;</p>
<p>classes/overall%/freshmen/sophomore/junior/senior </p>
<p>classes more than 100 20% 60% xxx xxx xxx
classes 50-99 25% 20% xxx xxx xxx
classes 30-49 35% 10% xxx xxx xxx
classes less than 30 30% 10% xxx xxx xxx</p>
<p>i just made up the numbers but i think the point is clear. and that is, the averages, as far as class sizes are concerned, are more misleading than any other stats.</p>
<p>How about students/faculty ratio? faculty members who never teach, staff that have really nothing to do with teaching at all. so students/faculty ratio can be very misleading too, but not as much as the average class sizes.</p>
<p>I don't like small classes where you rattle around in a half-empty room. It's like going to a poorly-attended concert. No spirit.</p>
<p>At Cornell, there are lots of seminar rooms and small classrooms. I think the feel of a small class depends a lot on the setting. I don't like meeting in echo-y rooms.</p>
<p>At one very large university:</p>
<p>common data set category, actual average enrollment
2-9, 5.8
10-19, 14.6
20-29, 23.9
30-39, 34.2
40-49, 42.1
50-99, 65.8
100+, 171.8</p>
<p>Dadx, I made a post a year or so ago on the same concept. I'll try to find it and the reactions to it.</p>
<p>concur with dadx's math. Pulling numbers from the Stanford CDS, it is clear that 50% of all S undergrads were in a class of 50+ last fall.</p>
<p>S attends Wake Forest. When H & I went to visit for Parent's Weekend many of S's friends told me that they love the school, yet feel that so much is expected of them, that they don't enjoy all of the activities...football games, etc. Their point was, that they are always engaged. The school is tough...they don't call it "Work Forest" for nothin'. The educational experience exceeds that of many schools and the students are willing to work hard to achieve their goals...grade deflation and all. Forbes Magazine just came out with a college ranking that ranked WF at #19 for post-graduate success...I am not surprised!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also on the robustness of this assumption, I believe I’d mentioned earlier that the <20 and >50 results are not very sensitive to this assumption (unlike the averages, which are quite sensitive and hence the reason I’d suggested not using them)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What do you mean, 'not sensitive'? If you assume an average of 100 instead of 150, or 150 instead of 200, the number of student-classes is very different (because you'd multiple another 50 by the # classes over 50 or over 100, depending on which you're looking at). </p>
<p>
[quote]
Pulling numbers from the Stanford CDS, it is clear that 50% of all S undergrads were in a class of 50+ last fall.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, that's assuming that each student is only taking one 50+ class. It's probably true that some students will take more than one of those, so the actual percentage is probably less than 50.</p>
<p>kyledavid:</p>
<p>sorry, but the math is simple. Even if you assume a ~50 students in a class of 50-100, and 100 students in a class of 100+, the numbers are clear. ~50% of each and every undergrad at Stanford last fall was in a class of 50+.</p>
<p>^^ um, I don't see why that explanation means that it isn't possible for students to be counted twice, if they are taking more than one 50+ student class at a time.</p>
<p>^^ did you happen to take AP Stats? Let's assume that students ARE counted twice. Then, 100% of 50% of students are in a class of 50+. As Homer Simpson would say: Doh!</p>
<p>Bluebayou, I don't think you know what you're talking about.</p>
<p>Say you have a 100 student chemistry class amongst all the classes at Fictional State University. Take note of all the relevant statistics you're arguing about (number of people in 100+ person classes and percentage of classes with 100+ people). Now, pretend there's a new biology course added, and all 100 of those students also enroll in this class. Number of people in 100+ person classes stays fixed, percentage of classes with 100+ people goes up. Ergo, your logic is crap. Double-counting is relevant.</p>
<p>Regarding my post #66 above:</p>
<p>Not included were 94 lecture courses with only one student in them. How does that happen?</p>
<p>The numbers exclude:
Labs
Lab Lectures
Independent Study
Recitations
Seminars
Studio courses (art)</p>
<p>The classes in the 2-9 category were enrolled at 50% capacity on average. They would have had larger enrollments if students had been interested.</p>
<p>The classes in the 10-19 category were enrolled at 80% capacity on average. They would have enrolled more if there had been interest.</p>
<p>The rest of the categories were enrolled at 99-100% capacity.</p>
<p>One thing to consider is that some subjects inherently have larger class sizes. For example, Wesleyan University has a strong and large science program - but intro science classes are much more likely to be very large than, say, an intro sociology class that is capped at 35 students (which is the largest you're going to find in any class in the soc department). So that skews the statistics a bit.</p>
<p>I hope someone from USNWR stumbles upon this thread.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I hate small classes. I tend to feel less pressure, and thus put more genuine interest into classes that are larger. </p>
<p>I don't know why people keep saying that smaller is always better... I know many people who, like me, hate small classes, and love larger ones.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I hate small classes too.</p>
<p>Although I do not "hate" small classes, I never saw the benefit of them either. I did not learn more in them, nor did I receive more "attention". My smallest class had 6 students and was taught by two professors. Most of my classes had fewer than 30 students. I never saw a difference between classes with 6-15 students and classes with 25-30 students. Even classes with 60-80 students (I only had a couple of those) were very enjoyable. I only had a handful of large classes with 100-400 students, and those were generally excellent too. In short, a good university will generally make sure its classes are of an appropriate size.</p>
<p>For those of you who don't like small classes, this analysis also has the advantage of showing you which schools place an emphasis on them and which don't.</p>
<p>The point of the data isn't to advocate one over the other, but rather to give accurate information about the nature of the educational experience a student is likely to have at a given school. Students can decide which experience they prefer-but only if they have the information.</p>
<p>But to return to Dadx2's last question, I also think one of the advantages of small classes is that the professor will get to know you better (for better or worse). When the time comes that you need internships, career advise, mentoring, letters of recommendation, or referrals, having faculty relationships is critical. Kids who are assertive enough to create those relationships on their own may not need a smaller classroom environment to facilitate making connections, but most kids don't take advantage of opportunities outside of class to make this happen. Of course, if you don't want or need any faculty input in your future, then annonymity is fine-but most parents who pay for LACs are hoping that their kid will develop the relationships that are so crucial to future success in graduate school and many other fields of endeavour.</p>
<p>As I understand it, the research into the effectiveness of teach clearly shows that "interactive" learning is preferable to "passive" learning. That's why educators believe there is benefit to smaller classes with active, participatory learning.</p>