My son has been accepted into 7 colleges, with an 8th still pending. UD is his second largest school to which he has been accepted and he has visited for an info session and tour. He has also been accepted into the Honors Program.
He is definitely expressing a preference for smaller colleges (1,600 to 8,000 UG range) due to the higher expected personalized attention.
Last night when we were discussing, he said that he’s heard that “you can always make a large college feel small.” Do you find that to be true? What has made UD feel small and personalized for you? How does the Honors program help?
In the case of UD (especially with the Honors college), the concept of making a large college “feel” small definitely applies. The campus itself is honestly not that big (in my opinion at least, because most of the buildings are around or near the Green, and you can walk everywhere), and with the Honors program, the college becomes a lot tinier.
With Honors, you’re required to live in the same dorm as all the other Honors freshman during your first year, so you’re in one building with all the people you’re likely taking classes / studying / building relationships with. So, that in of itself brings four thousand freshman down to a couple hundred, maybe a thousand students. These are the people your S will find himself spending most of his time with, but there’s always clubs and RSOs and other campus activities that will allow your S to branch out from Honors into the rest of the campus population.
In my opinion, UD’s Honors program does create that “smaller college in a bigger college” feel, and the Honors program staff have emphasized this multiple times in the visit’s I’ve had to UD.
My daughter wanted a small school and went to Arcadia (about 2,500) students. While she liked the campus and her friends. She transferred to UD after her first year. She said it was too small…no greek life, limited dining, etc. It felt like HS to her. She loves UD it’s just the right size. Now, my younger D just got into Penn State with 44k students. My older D said that would have been too much for her.
My S very first college tour was a UConn. He wound up not applying, but something the tour guide said has stuck with him throughout his college search process. It’s very similar to what your son, @mtown27 said. And that was “you can make a big school feel smaller, but you can’t make a small school and bigger”.
I think the key is to find your group - whether it’s through the honors program, athletics, music, or whatever. That get’s you your small, while the size of the place gets you all the advantages a smaller school can’t offer.