<p>Hi guys! I need some help. Basically, I'm looking for a school that actually puts emphasis on undergraduate education, and I'm hoping that the professors teach more than their graduate TAs do. So, please help me compare the following schools:</p>
<p>-UCLA
-USC
-Northwestern U.
-U. Chicago</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Out of that group, UChicago is very strong.</p>
<p>It depends what you mean by "teaching". The structure of a lot of these classes at places like UCLA is larger-sized lectures, taught by professors of course, then sections taught by TAs. The more advanced you get the smaller the classes, but TAs may still lead sections and do the grading. There are good sides and bad sides to this system. Certainly UCLA has this system in place full force. I don't know in detail about the others.</p>
<p>Agree with previous post. I can only comment on UChicago, where S is completing his first year. Prior to his arrival on campus, he got the impression that he would have few --if any-- TAs leading classes, but would only see them in small tutorials/sections supporting the larger lectures. As he moves through a bunch of Core courses, he has had a mixed experience. Some TAs are superb and really complemented the faculty member's sessions. He commented this week that he has a postdoc teaching an intro course who has such a heavy accent that my S is likely to have trouble understand the content. This certainly can happen in any school, though. If you want to find a university that puts "an emphasis on undergraduate education" this is probably not the only metric to consider. I believe (at least have been told) that UChicago requires its faculty members to teach. This is not true at all Universities (including my own on the east coast).</p>