College Comparison VII: Class Sizes (% of classes with < 20 students)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>In order to assist some in their college search process, I have prepared a series of threads that will compare colleges on a variety of measurements. In making these comparisons, I have created three broad groups (private national universities, public national universities and liberal arts colleges) and provide comparisons involving 117 colleges (national universities ranked in the USNWR Top 75 and LACs ranked in the USNWR Top 40). </p>

<p>Following is a comparison on CLASS SIZES with a particular focus on the PERCENTAGE OF CLASSES WITH FEWER THAN 20 STUDENTS. For many students who enjoy smaller classes and the increased opportunity they provide for student-student and professor-student interaction, this is a critical statistic as it directly reflects the environment that an undergraduate will encounter at his/her college. </p>

<p>To aid in the comparisons, I have included the level of the highest-ranking public universities with each of the private groups for National Universities and LACs. This should help families appreciate the way that the very top scoring public compares with their private competition. </p>

<p>I hope that you enjoy the thread and find some helpful information. Good luck to all in your college search process!</p>

<p>% of classes with < 20 students , Private National University</p>

<p>78.5% , Yale
77.2% , Columbia
77.1% , Harvard
75.3% , Northwestern
74.9% , Princeton
74.2% , Wash U
73.2% , U Chicago
72.9% , U Penn
72.8% , Tufts
72.2% , Stanford
71.4% , Duke
70.8% , Caltech
70.6% , Brown
68.8% , Worcester
68.7% , Brandeis
68.2% , Emory
67.8% , Pepperdine
67.7% , Vanderbilt
65.4% , Rice
65.2% , MIT
65.2% , Tulane
65.2% , Yeshiva
64.7% , Johns Hopkins
64.1% , Carnegie Mellon
63.5% , USC
63.4% , Syracuse
62.5% , Dartmouth
61.1% , U Rochester
60.3% , TOP PUBLIC (UC Berkeley)
59.7% , NYU
59.4% , Case Western
58.1% , Cornell
58.1% , SMU
56.4% , Georgetown
56.4% , George Washington
55.8% , Wake Forest
55.7% , Boston University
55.0% , Notre Dame
52.6% , Rensselaer
51.7% , U Miami
49.5% , Fordham
48.4% , Lehigh
47.2% , Boston College
47.1% , BYU</p>

<p>% of classes with < 20 students , State University</p>

<p>60.3% , UC BERKELEY
54.1% , UCLA
50.0% , U VIRGINIA
49.7% , U IOWA
48.8% , CLEMSON
48.7% , UC S BARBARA
45.9% , U MICHIGAN
44.7% , WILLIAM & MARY
44.7% , U CONNECTICUT
44.7% , UC S CRUZ
44.5% , U PITTSBURGH
44.3% , U N CAROLINA
44.3% , UC IRVINE
43.8% , U WISCONSIN
43.0% , U MINNESOTA
41.9% , UC SAN DIEGO
41.5% , RUTGERS
39.8% , U FLORIDA
39.8% , U DELAWARE
39.7% , GEORGIA TECH
38.7% , U ILLINOIS
36.8% , PURDUE
36.6% , U GEORGIA
36.3% , U TEXAS
35.2% , U MARYLAND
35.0% , OHIO STATE
34.9% , U WASHINGTON
33.9% , UC DAVIS
33.8% , INDIANA U
32.0% , PENN STATE
24.3% , VIRGINIA TECH
23.6% , MICHIGAN ST
21.9% , TEXAS A&M</p>

<p>% of classes with < 20 students , LAC</p>

<p>96.3% , US Military Acad
85.1% , Claremont McK
80.0% , Haverford
78.5% , Scripps
75.7% , Bard
75.2% , Hamilton
75.1% , Swarthmore
74.8% , Williams
73.6% , Whitman
71.7% , W&L
71.5% , Davidson
71.4% , Sewanee
70.6% , U Richmond
70.3% , Vassar
70.3% , Barnard
70.1% , Amherst
70.1% , Pomona
69.6% , Middlebury
69.2% , Bryn Mawr
68.9% , Macalester
68.8% , Occidental
68.7% , Bowdoin
68.6% , Wellesley
68.5% , Smith
68.3% , Oberlin
67.0% , Kenyon
66.8% , Bates
65.8% , Carleton
65.6% , Grinnell
64.0% , Colgate
64.0% , Mt. Holyoke
62.9% , Colorado College
62.9% , Trinity
62.6% , Wesleyan
61.1% , US Naval Acad
60.3% , TOP PUBLIC (UC Berkeley)
59.5% , Colby
59.3% , Furman
58.8% , Harvey Mudd
57.6% , Lafayette
54.8% , Bucknell
54.6% , Holy Cross</p>

2

<p>Class size data is an important factor in evaluating schools and the classroom environment in which a student will take classes. With today’s financial pressures, there will be likely be some negative impact on college class sizes. </p>

<p>So, I asked myself, which colleges did the best in the period of time when the economy was flush, ie, over the past decade? Below are the answers from USNWR data. Others can contribute their thoughts on what the future might hold for these colleges and the relative groups of Private National Universities, State Universities, and LACs. </p>

<p>Kudos to schools that had double digit gains-Columbia, U Penn, USC, Brown, Northwestern, U Chicago, Georgia Tech, UCLA-and raspberries to the double digit decliners-Cornell and U Rochester. </p>

<p>Sorry that I can’t include this for all of the 117 colleges mentioned earlier. I just don’t have the data. </p>

<p>1999-2010 Difference, Private National University, 2010 % of classes with < 20 students , 1999 % of classes with < 20 students</p>

<p>18% , Columbia 77% , 59%
14% , U Penn 73% , 59%
13% , USC 64% , 51%
12% , Brown 71% , 59%
11% , Northwestern 75% , 64%
10% , U Chicago 73% , 63%
8% , Harvard 77% , 69%
7% , Princeton 75% , 68%
7% , Tufts 73% , 66%
7% , Brandeis 69% , 62%
6% , Dartmouth 63% , 57%
6% , Boston Coll 47% , 41%
5% , Johns Hopkins 65% , 60%
5% , Rice 65% , 60%
3% , Notre Dame 55% , 52%
3% , Lehigh 48% , 45%
2% , Yale 79% , 77%
2% , Stanford 72% , 70%
2% , Duke 71% , 69%
2% , Vanderbilt 68% , 66%
2% , Georgetown 56% , 54%
1% , Emory 68% , 67%
0% , Caltech 71% , 71%
0% , Wash U 74% , 74%
-1% , NYU 60% , 61%
-2% , Carnegie Mellon 64% , 66%
-3% , Wake Forest 56% , 59%
-4% , MIT 65% , 69%
-16% , Cornell 58% , 74%
-20% , U Rochester 61% , 81%</p>

<p>1999-2010 Difference, State University, 2010 % of classes with < 20 students , 1999 % of classes with < 20 students</p>

<p>14% , GEORGIA TECH 40% , 26%
10% , UCLA 54% , 44%
8% , U ILLINOIS 39% , 31%
5% , U WISCONSIN 44% , 39%
5% , U VIRGINIA 50% , 45%
4% , UC BERKELEY 60% , 56%
3% , U NORTH CAROLINA 44% , 41%
0% , W&M 45% , 45%
-2% , U MICHIGAN 46% , 48%
-6% , UCSD 42% , 48%</p>

3

<p>What about pure number of classes in those sizes. You can offer 10 classes and have 8 of them under 20 or you can offer 4000 with 2000 of them under 20. To me there is a big difference in breadth and depth of smaller classes when using actuals vs percentages.</p>

4

<p>Well, at a large research university - there are 6000 students at WashU, for example - there are usually over a thousand classes on the roster.</p>

5

<p>Students should also recall that their major may render these figures irrelevant for their own particular experience. A highly popular major–or one in a field that serves as a gen ed requirement for others–may tend to have pretty big classes the first year or two. More specialized majors, or smaller schools within a university, will be a different story.</p>

<p>hawkette, I think you included Berkeley with the LACs in error.</p>

6

<p>Berkeley is in all three lists as a reference point to the top public.</p>

7

<p>Clemson class sizes for me (I’m an engineering major, the most popular major at Clemson):</p>

<p>English 103: 19 people
Math 106 (Calculus): 45 people (seated in round tables at groups of 9 to work on practice problems everyday)
Chemistry 101: 121 people (lecture style hall)
Chemistry Lab: 19 people
Chinese 101 + Lab: 22 people
Intro to engineering lab: 66 people (seated at groups of 8 again to work on projects and assignments during class)
Intro to engineering lecture: about 120 people (two lab sections combined together)</p>

8

<p>

</p>

<p>Whoops, thank you for pointing that out. I completely missed that explanation. I think I’m still in summer mode (not reading directions). LOL</p>

9

<p>There are a lot of gimmicks that go on around these numbers. Some schools have imposed mandatory caps of 19 students on courses that previously enrolled 20-30 students, not because they thought a 19-person class is better than a 20-person class (it’s not), but because they were cognizant of the effect on their US News ranking. The result is no real increase in small-ish classes (if you include the 20-something classes in that group), but a lot more students being closed out of courses they wanted to take due to the mandatory caps, and possibly being forced into much larger classes as a result. It’s a “costless” way to nudge a school’s US News rankings upward from a dollars-and-cents standpoint; but it imposes a real educational cost on the students, disguised as something that US News and its unwitting readers mistakenly read as a quality gain.</p>

<p>In a similar vein, some public universities have nudged their US News rankings upward by breaking up some classes taught as, say, a 100-person lecture with 5 discussion sections (the latter led by TAs) into 5 or 6 separate 19-person discussion “classes” with no lecture, each of the new “classes” taught by a TA except for one “honors” section taught by the professor. Again, there’s no obvious quality gain, and arguably a quality loss insofar as now most of the students have no exposure to the professor, only to their TA. But to unsuspecting readers of US News it looks like a huge improvement in the number of small classes, i.e., a huge bump in educational quality.</p>

<p>All this makes me deeply skeptical about these figures, which many schools have determined are highly vulnerable to manipulation.</p>

10

<p>They shouldn’t make classes led by TAs count. They aren’t really classes most of the time. It would be nice to see more statistics, 20-30, 30-40, etc, and average number of classes taken by students with XX class size. </p>

<p>Class size is a pretty important factor for me. Does any one have any other stats for class sizes?</p>

11

<p>^ Look up the common data set for all the colleges on your list.</p>

12

<p>“In a similar vein, some public universities have nudged their US News rankings upward by breaking up some classes taught as, say, a 100-person lecture with 5 discussion sections (the latter led by TAs) into 5 or 6 separate 19-person discussion “classes” with no lecture, each of the new “classes” taught by a TA except for one “honors” section taught by the professor. Again, there’s no obvious quality gain, and arguably a quality loss insofar as now most of the students have no exposure to the professor, only to their TA. But to unsuspecting readers of US News it looks like a huge improvement in the number of small classes, i.e., a huge bump in educational quality.”</p>

<p>I recall at my own alma mater, several years ago someone posted on CC that they were taking calculus from a prof. who had been my old advisor. I was really surprised, because that advisor was an engineering, not math, professor, and he was retired!!</p>

<p>It seemed to me like they must have broken down this intro calc class into “small” classes led by whoever they could find, like my old advisor, instead of the way it was when I took it: a huge lecture by an experienced, highly qualified senior math prof, then recitations led by TAs.</p>

<p>Now don’t get me wrong, this guy is a highly experienced professor (the poster said he was great actually), and obviously knows a lot more math then the legions of high school AP Calculus teachers who might be teaching intro calculus. But he probably doesn’t have the same training in the higher theoretical reaches of the subject as my calculus prof had. So is this approach really necessarily better for students?? In a field like math, where basically you have to go home, think about it, and do the problems, in either case? I don’t know.</p>

<p>True, it was a Calculus for engineers class, but that would still give full airing to the theoretical aspects of the discipline. Not that he necessarily couldn’t handle it, but one would ordinarily expect a math prof.</p>

<p>One of the most highly-rated courses there, for decades now, is an intro psych course with nearly 1,000 students in it. Why? Because the Prof is supposedly great, the lectures are outstanding, tremendous resources are put into it, refined over the many years. Would the students be better off if TAs taught the whole class, instead of just leading the recitation sections, and students did not have access to the lectures of this professor, so long as then class size of the lectures could also be the same (smaller) size as the recitation sections?</p>

<p>Point being, it’s not just the # students in the classroom, but also who is teaching those students. Experienced professor in the field? Retired Prof in a related field? Visiting Prof, imported for a year only, to fill a gap? non-tenure track, temp Lecturer, who does no research? Adjunct, with practitioner knowledge only? Grad student with no prior teaching experience?</p>

<p>Also, some classes clearly benefit from a more interactive approach to learning, but in others the lecture format, for lectures, works just fine or is actually preferable. Sometimes one can be wasting valuable lecture time listening to inane questions or digressions caused by fellow classmates.</p>

<p>Once the prof is essentially lecturing anyway, the value of doing this in a class of 30 vs a class of 600, to the student, is often quite marginal or nonexistent. IMO.</p>

<p>Where there are large lectures there needs to be additional resources available so that questions can be addressed, etc. But in my experience such resources are typically provided.</p>

13

<p>

</p>

<p>You can do it yourself. The Common Data Sets provide a complete breakdown of class sizes for the most recent fall semester.</p>

<p>You know how many “student-class” combos there are. For example, a university with 6000 students and an average course load of four courses is 24,000 student-class combos. If that school (I’m using Brown’s data here) has 41 courses in the 100+ student category, then we know that a minimum of 4100 student-class combos are in 100+ person lectures. Out of the total of 24,000, that means that 17% or one out of every six student class combos at Brown last fall was in a 100 person lecture. And, I think most would agree that Brown is one of the top universities in the country, noted for its undergrad focus.</p>

<p>So, take % below 20 students with a grain of salt. That metric is carefully selected to obscure differences.</p>

14

<p>There is a devil lurking in the details of this statistic:</p>

<p>It can also be a roundabout way of looking at which schools will have the BIGGEST classes.</p>

<p>Take Northwestern for example, by putting 250 students into many of its required economics classes, those classes only take up ONE space, as opposed to five, if, say, they were all classes of 50 students. Or Eight classes of 30.</p>

<p>I think average class size is therefore a more appropriate metric.</p>