I am curious what colleges have seminar style classes for all classes and years, especially sophomore through senior year. We are new to the college search process and the search engines don’t ask this. Thanks
Liberal Arts Colleges usually have seminar style classes for all years and almost all subjects.
This also depends on the student’s major. Some fields of study lend themselves better to seminar style classes, and some departments are so very small, that most classes end up being seminar style simply because there is no point in lecturing to five or six students.
Even at most LAC’s intro science classes will be lecture style. A large lecture at a LAC may have 60 students compared to 600 at a state flagship.
My child is interested in math or computer science. Also, my state has dual enrollment, so he will already have many of the intro classes under his belt before graduating highschool.
There’s a difference between a small class and a seminar.
I was a Classics major- and almost all the classes in my major were small. But the language classes were not seminars- professor at the front, students sitting at desks, questions asked, but not discussion based. Philosophy- all seminars, even some rather big ones. History- combination- some were lecture, some were seminars.
OP- can you clarify what you are asking?
My smallest class was two professors (from two different departments) and 8 students. Seminar. My largest class was several hundred students- with a world renowned professor who was a world class teacher/lecturer/performer. Wouldn’t have missed that for the world. Professor got a standing ovation virtually every single class.
So big doesn’t mean bad. Sometimes a class is big because a famous professor justifiably attracts a crowd- especially if the class is only given once a year.
The place my child takes classes now has a teacher at the front of a table and then a small group students around a table actively participating in class. I was hoping that there might be colleges that have a similar style of classes. I had word Seminars in the title because I read that they are more personal, and students participate more in presentations and discussions. I know my child gets a lot more out of the discussions in class than he gets from lectures.
Depends on the specific liberal arts college. At Grinnell, we were told 25 is the generally the max class size, even for intro science, econ etc. Dickinson said its largest class was intro bio, I think, and had us look into that classroom, which held maybe 45 students.
Google the Common Data Set for the specific school and look at Section I will list the number of classes with different ranges of students – you can see how many classes are larger than 25 or larger than 50.
Williams seems to tout that.
Sound like a Harkness Table.
If your child is female, I’d say Barnard. For M/F, you might look at Reed. As others have said, most LAC’s will have seminar formats for the majority of the classes. STEM classes, especially at the intro level, will be much harder to find non-lectures, but they will certainly be on the smaller scale.
Edited to add: I did not see the use of the pronoun “he;” I only saw “my child.” L-) So obviously Barnard would not work.
Bard and other small LACs will offer this.
Thanks. I had no idea what it was called. That is exactly what I would want. 
I went to a very large state school and then a smaller state school for grad school, so this is very different than what I have encountered. My smallest class for undergrad was over 30 students and for grad school my smallest class was 6 students.
So far, if I had to pick a place for my son, it would be Reed. My son talked to one of the admissions people from Reed for an hour… he also seemed to like it. I love the class format and the narrative feedback, rather than grades.
Some Honors programs increase the likelihood of small seminar style classes. D is at a school with small sizes to begin with - her Spanish class at 24 kids has been the largest she’s had - but her honors classes are all taught seminar style and capped at 15. She had one honors seminar with only 9 students.
Quaker and Jesuit schools often emphasize this style of teaching.
Sarah Lawrence
I’d say most LACs would fit the bill. My D is at Lafayette. I think she has only had 2 larger (50-60) person lecture classes and she has had classes as small as 6 students (taught by full professors).
Haverford
Bard and Sarah Lawrence for sure. SL is pretty weak in science though.
Class sizes can often be found in colleges’ on-line class schedules.
However, it is not necessarily obvious whether a small-enough class is taught seminar-style.
Largest class I’ve had at my LAC was an intro CS course for majors at around ~30-40 which was lecture style.
Smallest actual class was an advanced seminar of 2…myself and another classmate. Also did a few private readings where it was effectively a seminar class for 1.
If one really is academically engaged and passionate about the topic, it’s great.
However, one possible downside for some is one must come well-prepared to every class having completed all readings…even if it rises to several hundred pages/week for each colloquium/seminar class on a regular basis as one can’t hide one’s lack of preparation in classes with few or no other students other than oneself.
True. However, whether big is optimal or even tolerable really depends on the individual student.
While I personally had no problem coping with large lecture classes like that elite U summer stats course for Econ majors which had ~300 students, other students may find it too impersonal and/or not optimally conducive for their learning process.
Had a relative who took the extremely popular course at Cornell which is famous/infamous for having ~1500 enrolled students at a time. She enjoyed it, but saw how it may not be the best learning environment for many students.
This particular child would do much better in a smaller class with lots of participation.
@cobrat I PMed you.