<p>all current nc students: what's been your biggest class (any estimates on number, too?) so far?</p>
<p>my intro to political science course was largest class size with about 400 students in it.</p>
<p>and on the other extreme, my smallest class size was my Calculus 1 class with 7 students. not sure why that was so small, all the other math classes I've seen had at least 20 or so.</p>
<p>class sizes vary widely. most intro science courses are going to be gigantic (400 or so) because that is just the nature of the course. however, all english, foreign language, and math classes are capped (i believe 35 for math and 25 for the languages). even within the science classes, there is usually one or two mammoth sections and then a couple smaller sections (at least that was how it was this past semester for psych 10). obviously, though, these will fill up faster.</p>
<p>wow...400? yeesh....maybe not for me....</p>
<p>thank you!</p>
<p>If you want to see what class sizes look like, go to <a href="http://www.unc.edu%5B/url%5D">www.unc.edu</a>. Click on Directories at the top of the page. Click on Directory of Classes. Click on Fall 2006. And then just look around. Maximum number of seats in each section is listed. It's not as bad as it sounds.</p>
<p>I don't think you'll find a university that doesn't have at least a few huge intro classes. Even Rice University which is very small and very selective school has big classes. You might consider getting your AP classes/credits in line, so you can opt out if you want.</p>
<p>some huge lecture classes also, sometimes, have small recitation sections to go with it. For instance, my huge poli sci class met for 2 hours a week and 1 hour a week I was in a small class with about 10 or so other students for the recitation.</p>
<p>To confirm what ldmom06 is saying:</p>
<p>You will find larger intro level classes at most schools (with the possible exception of someplace like Swarthmore where the biggest lecture hall seats something like 60 students) and even for upper division classes in the hard sciences. AP credits are quite valuable here. Son's 5 on AP BC calculus gave him credit for first year's calculus classes at UNC. Just for comparison, his best friend is at Penn. Son's advanced calculus class freshman year at UNC had 45-50 students and was taught by tenured professor that spoke English. Same/comparable class at Penn had 300+ and was taught by TA that spoke very broken English. </p>
<p>Unless you are never going to take a science class and go to a small liberal arts school you will probably have a few bigger classes in your college career so don't rule out UNC because it has a few bigger classes.</p>
<p>UNC does better - in some cases FAR better - in terms of keeping classes small than all of its USNWR peer group save Berkeley (link</a>).</p>