<p>I actually think that larger schools unfairly suffer from a bad rep among most applicants. Given a choice between small and large school, few will say, "Give me the biggest ones you can find!" At least until you tell them that those schools are Andover and Exeter. Then they'll be more flexible.</p>
<p>So I'd like to address the advantages to larger schools. I'm not convinced that applicants are influenced by the things you've cited (economies of scale, revenue, fancier facilities and more competitive sports teams). Well, I'll grant you the facilities part -- but that's not as closely tied to the size of the school. There are plenty of smaller schools with more modern facilities. (Ex.: Exeter has a great music building, but in terms of performance venues the facility options are lousy.) And sports teams are competitive within their leagues...so a small team can be competitive. But who cares about that outside of the people who are actually considering playing on the varsity team in a specific sport?</p>
<p>The more compelling reasons, I believe, to seriously consider larger schools boil down to BREADTH and DEPTH.</p>
<p>Larger schools deliver more opportunities. They are larger communities, but there are still going to be niches within them that are a manageable size for students to connect with. Andover boasts that it has some rather small, close-knit residential buildings, for example, so not everything you do at a large school is going to be daunting and super-sized. In fact, the school's size allows the school to create academic and extra-curricular experiences across a larger horizontal plane. Instead of one vertically enormous percussion group, you are more likely to find a horizontal depth of offerings, including an African drumming group, a jazz rhythm group, rock and roll bands, etc. It's not that there are "economies of scale" as much as there is a breadth of opportunities to connect to. Whether it's better odds of meeting up with that handful of people you become lifelong buddies with or a realistic chance of being able to take the Vergil class because there will be enough students also prepared and interested in it, larger schools deliver unparalleled breadth of opportunities.</p>
<p>And, for the mainstream activities they offer depth. This actually is a double-edged sword when it comes to competitive sports. Your chances of making that competitive varsity team get slimmer at a larger school. Especially if they accept PGs. But in other arenas, where space is not so scarce, the depth of the talent pool can be an amazing benefit. The fan (or school spirit) experience is very palpable at a larger school. For both my son and me, the single most incredible experience we had with visits was when my son sat in on a choir rehearsal at a large school. The size of the choir was mesmerizing. And then they stuck a student orchestra in front that really blew my mind away in terms of talent and size. And the uplifting music that they created together in that rehearsal room was a collaborative effort that a small school would be hard-pressed to replicate. When you consider the depth of the talent pool around you and the possibilities for collaboration, larger schools can become quite seductive.</p>
<p>That said, my S is at the smallest of all the schools he considered and I'm so glad that that was the direction he chose. For him. There's no universally correct answer to your question, because some students are social creatures that will love a large student body. Some students are wallflowers that they might need a large student body around them to bring them out of their shells. Then again, the social butterfly students might thrive in a smaller community that doesn't overwhelm them and dampen that natural spark that impels them to stand out. And those timid students might find it easier to connect with a community where everyone in the school -- not just in each grade -- gets to know everyone else by name and there's no chance of disappearing or getting lost or forgotten. I don't even think that there's a single right answer to this question for a specific student. In the end, it comes down to how all the various factors converge and dance together that will determine the best "fit" for a student.</p>
<p>Size does matter, but I don't think you can plot "student population" on the x-axis and "better fit" on the y-axis and plot out any sort of line or curve. It's but one factor that makes up a total package that an applicant needs to understand -- in terms of how those factors interact at a particular school and in terms of how that specific student will tend to engage that school (or disengage if it's not a good fit, taken as a whole).</p>