<p>What are some top universities that place a focus on teaching the liberal arts, but still offer a wide selection of courses in a variety of areas? I'm already familiar with the top liberal arts colleges but what about national universities? I understand Yale places a pretty strong emphasis on teaching, but from I've heard the quality of the teaching as a whole is debateable. Does Stanford place any focus on undergraduate teach? What about Columbia? Any others?</p>
<p>Lots of schools meet that criteria. Be more specific in terms of what you are looking for so we can narrow it down a bit.</p>
<p>USNWR did a survey in 1995 about the quality of teaching. Using the same methodology as the current Peer Assessment scoring, ie it's completely subjective and thus should be heavily discounted, the Classroom Teaching Excellence listed the following colleges in each of the National University and LAC categories:</p>
<pre><code>NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES
</code></pre>
<p>1 Dartmouth
2 Brown
3 W&M
4 Rice
5 Princeton
6 Stanford
7 Duke
8 Miami U (OH)
9 Notre Dame
10 Yale
11 U Virginia
12 U Chicago
13 Emory
13 UC Santa Cruz
15 Vanderbilt
16 Boston College
17 Harvard
18 Northwestern
19 Caltech
20 Wake Forest
20 U North Carolina
22 BYU
22 Wash U
24 Georgetown
24 Tufts</p>
<pre><code>LACs
</code></pre>
<p>1 Carleton
2 Swarthmore
3 Williams
4 Grinnell
5 Amherst
6 Earlham
7 Haverford
8 St. John's
9 Colorado College
10 Davidson
11 Oberlin
12 Pomona
12 Wellesley
14 Bowdoin
15 St. Olaf
16 Bryn Mawr
16 Macalester
18 Bates
18 Middlebury
18 Reed
21 Kenyon
21 Spelman
23 Smith
24 Sewanee
25 Centre</p>