<p>Thanks for your reply, Catherine. I asked because I am finding, through internet research, that the best departments in my daughter's area of interest and probable major are in state universities, at least in terms of course offerings and other opportunities. Ivy league colleges also have good departments, but they simply are dwarfed in comparison to the state schools. And I'm not just talking about prestige colleges--from the course catalog, Indiana U. looks more impressive than Berkeley, which in turn looks somewhat better than Columbia and a heck of a lot better than Brown. (Before any one flames me - I am just talking about the single department) Of course, this doesn't give me in-depth information, but when I tried to create my own "ranking" list (best colleges for major X) -- using the objective criteria I could discern - I was very suprised by the way things came out. The more I research the state u's, the more they edge out the prestigious privates when it comes to the question, "what does this U. offer my daughter in her area of interest?" </p>
<p>So now my rising senior daughter is trying to narrow down her list of 50-some-odd private colleges she has been thinking about, and I'm thinking of throwing in a lot more names of out-of-state publics. Actually, I'm just going to finish the list and give it to her and let her figure out what to do with it. But I do wonder whether this whole focus on "private" (even beyond "prestige") has been misguided. The top privates are all super-reaches in any case, the match/safety privates tend to be small LAC's with very limited course offerings.</p>
<p>This was quite a problem for us also as a large school was not a great choice for my S (he REALLY wanted a smaller school with an overall high level student body), but the better departments in his interest were in the large state schools. We ended up finding a few smaller schools with good departments (WASHU, UChicago, RICE, etc...) and looked for the best match when comparing size, dept, student body, impression on visit, potential merit money, etc.. It was not easy. </p>
<p>Actually I think size is a key reason that the state school is working out well for my younger child. We happen to live in a state with a decentralized, multiple-campus university system, and this particular campus is relatively small and quite selective. A very large school would have been problematic, I'm guessing.</p>
<p>One thing to remember about state schools or really any college, for that matter, is how often are the classes taught. The catalog may look very impressive, but if classes are never offered or only offered once in 4 years or even every other year, it may be challenging to take that class or pursue that major. The smaller or more specific the major, the greater this danger.
Many schools have ways to search the course schedules for the last 1-2 semesters/quarters, that can give you an idea of how often a course is offered.</p>