Wake Forest is ranked lower than these (#28), but it’s a notable outlier in this regard. Only 1% of its classes have 50+ students, and 3.5% have 40+ students.
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As always, be aware that 50 classes with 2 students and 10 classes with 500 students means 83% “small classes” and pretty much every student will have a vast majority of classes with 500 students.
There also seems to be an implicit assumption that a class with 3 students is better than one with 30. I much preferred my elective engineering classes with 20-30 classmates where we could work as a group over my tiny philosophy/psych classes on my own.
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I’ve been following another thread about a disappointed parent whose child didn’t get into any of their electives for next semester. Sometimes big classes, and having graduated student TAs can facilitate more students getting into the courses they want and extra sessions being added.
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Teaching method also matters. A 15 versus 30 student lecture likely is going to be a material impact. If you change the 15 to the Socratic method then that is a much different experience. Timing also matters. At some schools, all the small classes are at the jr/sr level. At some you are guaranteed to have at least some small class your first year. Major can also have an impact on an individual experience. A popular major at a large school that works with lecture type classes (e.g. Econ) may never have small classes.
Your example,while appreciated, is not realistic. There is no school with “50 classes with 2 students and 10 classes with 500 students”.
Moreover, your cautionary advice is unnecessary as schools’ CDS report contains more than just two class sizes–only US News reduces the reported class sizes to two categories of less than 20 students and of 50 or more students.
US News uses three categories for class size
not sure how long they been using this format but at least the last few years
Classes with fewer than 20 students, 20-49 students and 50 or more students
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Perhaps a better example is 100 classes of 19 students and 19 classes of 500 students. In this case, 84% of the classes are small, but (if each student is in one class) 83% of the students are in large classes.
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Small class size is a fetish on CC.
Star professors (both famous for their contributions to their discipline AND fantastic and inspiring teachers) are going to have sell-out crowds. Why is that a knock against the university? I can still quote (over 40 years later) Sears Jayne on Hamlet (half the lecture hall was sobbing) or John Rowe Workman on Antigone- that’s how inspiring and mesmerizing and life altering they were as professors. Yes, I had a seminar of about a dozen students and two professors (don’t know how the university calculates THAT ratio) and it was a solid academic experience, but the dozen students sad to say were not as inspiring as a world famous Shakespearean scholar like Jayne.
Maybe we should ask the WHY about the big classes and not just assume it’s 500 kids asleep while a professor writes on a white board? (Fortunately, White Boards did not exist when I was in college).
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Great, but unrealistic, example for making the point.
It is one of the main selling points of LACs, of which there are vocal advocates of on these forums.
Of course, there are tradeoffs.
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To imagine a hypothetical distribution that might be realistic for well-resourced liberal arts colleges, note that “large” classes may enroll from about 30 students (maximum, introductory biology courses) to 60 students (maximum, introductory computer science), at least for one example I checked (introductory economics, N/A).
I agree that small class sizes are important.
However, small classes are not an exclusive offering by LACs.
One point that I tried to make by starting this thread is that elite private National Universities actually offer more (of course) small classes than do many elite LACs as well as a higher percentage of small classes than some elite LACs. (Columbia, Chicago, & Northwestern are the top 3 examples of elite private National Universities which do both.)
This thread does not address honors colleges & honors program classes at large public universities.
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This is not universal. Personally, I don’t think small class sizes are important. I think highly engaged students and highly engaged faculty are important. If that means 500 students in a lecture hall on the edge of their seats, and a phenomenal professor (who maintains office hours two afternoons and two evenings a week to accommodate everyone’s schedule for private meetings) I’m good with that.
I’ve logged on to some publicly available Zooms during Covid, and taken a Zoom class. The “famous” lecturers seem to be famous for a reason- they bring the content alive in a way that the readings, the notes, etc. just can’t seem to do it. The class had 14 students and was a snooze in every possible way, and reminded me why small classes don’t always work. You get the “I didn’t do the reading BUT” (and a vociferous opinion, based on nothing tends to follow) from at least one student per class. If you didn’t do the reading, can’t you keep your mouth shut?
So no. Small class size preferences are not universal!
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For the most part, I agree.
However, small classes facilitate direct individual participation discussions that involve all 19 or fewer students in a particular class.
Engaging all students in an active discussion is probably impossible for a very large class. I suspect that engaging class discussions is a primary attraction to highly selective LACs–where all students potentially are intelligent & motivated–just as with large public university honors classes and as with most selective National University small classes.
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I think parents like small classes for their kids because it’s more likely their kids will go to class.
My nephew is a freshman at a big state school. Has one class completely online and another large class he says no one needs to go to in order to get a good grade. A friend of mine’s D is at another big state school where one of the profs flat out said the kids don’t have to attend his large lecture class. For our money, we (and our kids) like being at colleges where classroom attendance and participation is expected from the first day of freshman year. It pushes them to get their work done and be ready for each class with really no option to get behind. It’s also great for meeting new friends and for learning from your fellow students.
Granted, hearing world famous scholars in a large lecture hall can be amazing and our kids won’t experience that but they are good with the trade off.
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Plus, one can read the world famous scholars books, reports, and studies.
There is also the reality of cell phone addiction. Students may physically attend class but instead of listening to the lecture they are on social media or shopping. As a parent I would think smaller class size means more likely they will pay some attention ( especially if their name may be called by a professor). But even in small classes the professors need to engage the students to listen to the lecture.
What a shame to pay all that money for college and not pay attention In class - but the allure/addiction is real and all too prevalent In society.
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An argument for SNHU or another online university- skip the high price tag and go right to syllabus?
My point upthread was NOT about reading famous scholars books. It was about the high level of engagement and interaction when a world class scholar AND instructor stands in front of the room. I miss live theater, and no, reading a script doesn’t do it for me. I know people who have read To Kill a Mockingbird 30 times who said that the current Broadway production left them gasping for breath. (I’m not ready for live theater yet but hope to soon). If you think that reading a book is a substitute for a world class lecturer- why send your kid to college at all?
You can buy a lot of books for one semester’s tuition…
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One can, sure. But it really does not take the place of some of the mesmerizing lectures I’ve had in high enrollment courses with world-renowned scholars. But to be fair, I’ve also had world-renowned scholars whose lecture styles were less-than-inspiring.
On the flip side, I have had courses with enrollments of 2 to 4 which left no room to hide, so having a mix was nice.
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I think this is the most helpful way to think about class size–by a student’s experience.