<p>Everytime you visit and surf through Dartmouth's website, you see these large lecture like classes with 50+ students. I thought Dartmouth was dedicated to undergrad. Please are darthmouth classes really big? Comments?</p>
<p>I was told classes are capped at 55. That does not mean that all classes are that size.</p>
<p>Data on Class Sizes is available in each school's Common Data Set forms, which can often be found by searching on the college name and "Common Data Set"</p>
<p>The form asks for the number class sections in each of several categories. Here is the data for the Fall of 2004 with Dartmouth's number and Swarthmore's for comparison:</p>
<p>2-9 students: Dart 79 (17%), Swat 133 (37%)
10-19 students: Dart 206 (44%), Swat 134 (37%)
20-29 students: Dart 69 (15%), Swat 70 (19%)
30-39 students: Dart 43 (9%), Swat 14 (4%)
40-49 students: Dart 24 (5%), Swat 4 (1%)
50-99 students: Dart 39 (8%), Swat 7 (2%)
100+ students: Dart 10 (2%), Swat 1 (0%)</p>
<p>Total: Dart 470, Swat 363</p>
<p>They also give a similar breakdown for sub-sections, which would be lab groups, discussion groups for larger lecture classes, etc. This category is where the TA versus professor distinction would most often come into play. Here's that data:</p>
<p>2-9 students: Dart 14, Swat 39
10-19 students: Dart 42, Swat 33
20-29 students: Dart 15, Swat 8
30-39 students: Dart 4, Swat 0
40-49 students: Dart 2, Swat 0
50-99 students: Dart 2, Swat 0
100+ students: Dart 0, Swat 0</p>
<p>While there are difference in the percentage of large classes (30+ students), the most striking difference is the number of classes and class sections with fewer than 10 students, more than one out of three classes offered by Swarthmore last fall, even higher if you count the subsections. Those small seminar classes are rare at larger research universities and generally limited to upper level courses. I believe that my daughter has had five of the eight courses in her first two semesters with 12 or fewers students.</p>