<p>I hope some current students or parents can answer this.</p>
<p>My DD is accepted to RU. She very much liked Douglass Day but of course Douglass no longer exists as a college.</p>
<p>RU has more of her area of interest - anthropology-than almost any other school she applied to, but the reputation is that the intro classes for the first two full years will have 100-400 kids in a lecture hall.</p>
<p>This is my biggest worry for her - she does WAY better in smaller classes. She missed the honors program and after reading up on it did not want to apply. </p>
<p>I get the feeling from my son, who attended junior/senior year so no freshman experience, that even the small classes have more students than big classes at a little LAC. On the other hand he thinks he got a great education there.</p>
<p>oldinjersey, Your reason for concern was one of the reasons that my son did not even apply, and we never even looked at RU. 2 good friends of mine have sophomores there now. Both are very happy. One comes from a large hs in a foreign country so this was an easy transition (he has been in large classes), and the other comes from a very, very small private hs. Both students are doing well. My S opted for an OOS public that is half the size of Rutgers. We know a recent graduate who told us about a few classes with over 300 students.</p>
<p>I share your concern for my younger son as well, and I will probably check out our smaller state schools over nationally recognized RU for this reason. I prefer a student focused institution to a research based institutution for an undergraduate anyway.</p>
<p>OldinJersey--</p>
<p>I'm a sophomore at Rutgers. What does your daughter want to study? It completely depends. Will she come in with AP credit and be able to move on to upper level, smaller classes? Will she be eligible to take honors classes?</p>
<p>Certain intro classes are small-- i.e. Expository Writing, Language classes, etc. However, you can't expect Intro to Psych, Bio, or PoliSci to be small classes at any college, to my knowledge.</p>
<p>What might your daughter study? I might be able to give you some more info from there. Also, the newly created freshmen seminars might assuage some of your fears. I've never taken one since they're starting next year, but supposedly they should be cool-- a professor is supposed to lead a small class of freshmen in some sort of culturally enriching way?? I'm not really sure about how it's going to work or if they're going to follow through .</p>
<p><a href="http://urwebsrv.rutgers.edu/transfor...csummary.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://urwebsrv.rutgers.edu/transfor...csummary.shtml</a>
"Rutgers will create first-year seminars available to all New Brunswick/Piscataway first-year students. These will be academically exciting, one-credit courses taught by regular faculty members in small, interactive settings."</p>
<p>By the way, northeastmom--- what's really the difference between a class of 100 and 500? I could never figure that out...</p>
<p>supermtt37 - answering also on the Parents area thread. </p>
<p>She has completed AP bio, scored a 4. Now taking AP Calc, AP Physics. with luck and math tutor she should get a 4 in those as well.</p>
<p>she would like to major in anthropology, perhaps the BS track in evolutionary anthro.
If she takes the BA track she'd like to minor in bio but if the BS track she might look at the medieval studies minor, or still the bio minor.
Unless something changes her mind I think she'd live at Douglass</p>
<p>the link above doesn't work through here.</p>
<p>I'll copy it from the parents thread too:</p>
<p>You have to click the link... CC puts an ellipsis in between links to make them shorter but you can't copy and paste the link into a browser.</p>
<p>Sorry... I don't know too much about anthropology. It's not an incredibly popular major like psych or communications though, so after the intro class your daughter should find that the class size will be relatively small. (and for medieval studies, I doubt you'd get any large classes). However, a bunch of bio classes are large lectures: chem, organic chem, genetics, biochemistry, etc. are large lectures because everyone and their mom at Rutgers is pre-med.</p>
<p>Was your daughter invited to the honors program? If so, I'd suggest going to a scholar's day to meet the deans and talk to students in areas of study that your daughter is interested in.</p>
<p>By the way, I'm a biochemistry and philosophy double major. I was able to take a small organic class because it was an honors version. My biochem lecture was big though, but I still really enjoyed it because I really liked the professor and went to his office hours to talk about other topics. So, again, you're going to get a mix of classes at Rutgers. If your daughter chooses her classes wisely and tries to pick good professors, even the large lecture classes will be great. (i.e. my intro to philosophy lecture was amazing.)</p>
<p>try looking at one of the other campus's my kiddo is at newark campus and loves it. it is like a small private college and most of the classes are medium to small size. good luck</p>
<p>flounderingfree, It is a very good school. One big downside for instaters is the lack of housing. Your D may not have that problem. When I called 3 years ago, they told me that OOS kids have to have housing priority. I would not want my kid to live off campus in that area, or to commute (about 45 minutes each way and maybe longer in rush hour).</p>
<p>I am a cell bio major and have taken a bunch of medieval civ and lit classes, and it is true that there are a lot of large lectures. However, most will have smaller recitations. However, most professors are very willing to meet with students and will always answer questions. What I like most is the quality of the professors. In one class, we had 10 different lecturers come in and talk about different aspects of developmental biology in the context of the research they are doing now. I now work in the lab of one of those lecturers.
Also, there will be a group of students that are in every one of your D major classes, so it is very easy to form bonds.</p>
<p>Of the intro classes, Bio (from what I hear, I got a 5 on the AP) is the only really bad intro class, which you won't have to worry about.</p>
<p>More bio questions! Bio was her original interest, and I think if she does not end up loving anthropology would like to switch to it if possible.
The downside - a friend who is a bio major at another big research U. came home to visit and told her about her great lab job, involving injecting rodents with something being tested. How much of bio at RU would involve live animal testing?</p>
<p>Obviously, a majority of bio research does involve animal research in some way or another. Personally, I work with frog embryos. Consequently, it will necessarily come up in classes, no matter where she goes.</p>
<p>However, whether or not she personally comes in contact with it is completely up to her. The only place I have encountered live animals in college is in my lab, which I knew used them before hand. Although I personally recommend getting in some lab time just to see what it is about (I did not expect to do any, but was ahead of schedule and it has completely changed my perspective), many decide not to do any outside labwork at all.</p>
<p>If your D does decide to try out a lab, there are many which do not use live animals. Many use what are called cell lines, which involve a specific cell type which is placed under controlled growth. These may include bone cell lines, skin cell lines, lung cell lines, etc. Other labs may work completely in vitro (test tube), though to find one which does this exclusively may be difficult. Also, in science, there is a lot of interdepartmental work. I know some biology majors who want to write a senior thesis who choose to work with a researcher in the psychology department who just work with surveys or the anthropology department looking at environmental factors and behavior. At a research U, just about every professor will be doing research of some kind or another, and often it can fit in many departments.</p>