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<p>I’ll defer to bc’s analysis, but add one other factor: major. If a science major, the average spent in large classes will tend to a LOT higher than the average in say, a Russian Lit major’s courses. Ditto some popular social sciences, such as econ and psych. (The largest class I ever heard of is a Psych class at Cornell, with 1,000+ students. But that is by choice – the professor is awesome, so students don’t mind sitting in the aisles.)</p>
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<p>There may be something to that. Looks like Princeton is about 36% STEM majors, and other STEM-heavy universities like Stanford, Caltech, and MIT also have lots of large classes. </p>
<p>But Swarthmore and Haverford are both about 25% STEM majors, and they have virtually no big classes–so we can fairly conclude that the percentage of STEM majors is at best a partial explanation for Princeton’s large-class-heavy profile. At the end of the day, though, that may be the biggest difference: if you’re in a STEM major at a major research university, you’ll end up in a lot of large classes. Not so for STEM majors at the top LACs.</p>
<p>Remember that a large percentage of STEM majors take freshman general chemistry, which is likely one of the largest classes at any school with a significant STEM (or even just biology, the most popular STEM major) presence.</p>
<p>Some non-STEM courses, like introductory economics and introductory psychology, are popular for both majors and non-majors alike, so they may be among the larger classes at any school.</p>
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<p>Sure. But freshman chem is going to be 1 class at many schools, or maybe a handful of separate sections at the biggest schools. In terms of the percentage of classes, it’s trivial. In terms of the fraction of students enrolled in large classes, however, it could be pretty large. Especially at major research universities where a single course like that could easily enroll hundreds of students–mopping up as many student enrollments as 10 or 15 “small” (<20) classes. Again, it’s not the percentage of small classes that matters. It’s the percentage of large classes, and just how large those large classes get.</p>
<p>Not only Gen Chem, but Gen Calc, Gen Bio, & Gen Physics are all gonna be large classes. Heck, a Stem major a a large U almost has to take a lit/hume course to find a small class in his/her first two years.</p>
<p>Or choose honors versions of the courses if available, since these are often much smaller than the non-honors versions. E.g. Berkeley spring 2012 multivariable calculus has two large classes of 284 and 374 students, but the honors version of the course has 24 students.</p>
<p>Some popular humanities courses like history courses can also be quite large.</p>
<p>It’s a choice of the college to have one large class for those subject vs. a greater number with fewer students. The fact it occurs more in STEM fields is irrelevant IMO.</p>
<p>Being in a big lecture class doesn’t rule out one-on-one chats with your professor. D1, a freshman, had three big lecture classes last semester, all in the 100-150 range (possibly one closer to 200). She made a point of going to office hours. By the end of the semester, all three of those professors certainly knew her by name. Only one of the classes was a STEM course.</p>
<p>I don’t like the negative attitude toward large classes. A really good lecturer makes a lecture course awesome, and a large class allows more students to benefit.</p>
<p>It’s another matter if you are talking about seminar-oriented classes vs. lectures. But a larger number of smaller lectures will just make it harder for everyone to get a good lecture.</p>
<p>^I agree. And small classes don’t always mean more discussion time in class. The prof can still spend the whole time lecturing.</p>
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<p>I disagree, if small class size is important to an applicant. Take Emory, for example. Emory breaks up Calc 1 into a bunch of classes <30, all taught by a Prof. (They start Calc 1 early in the morning and offer it all day.) In contrast, a UC will hold Calc 1 in a lecture hall with hundreds of students. For some/many students, that is great or they don’t care. Others, might prefer, and do better in, a class of 30.</p>
<p>I had a TA-taught freshman seminar at Cornell back in the seventies. It was one of the best classes I’ve ever taken. A year later, the TA was a professor at Oberlin.</p>
<p>I can do you one better, greybeard. My spring TA for a Frosh Chem class, became a tenure-track faculty member at Princeton 2 months later. He was awesome.</p>
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<p>Of course, a math major may see it differently:</p>
<ul>
<li>Probably skips freshman calculus anyway due to AP credit.</li>
<li>If not already taken, probably takes the honors version of multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations with small classes.</li>
<li>Then goes directly to junior and senior (and perhaps graduate) level math courses with small classes, and more choices of them because the faculty members’ time is not spent teaching many small classes of freshman calculus.</li>
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<p>yeah, and a Lit major would see it differently too! </p>
<p>The point was about STEM majors, and Calc is just one of the required courses, all of which are large classes at large colleges. (Almost by definition. I only mentioned Emory bcos it was as exception at least in Calc 1.) Of course, some STEM majors can AP out of Calc.</p>
<p>Bluebayou, I agree with you. My point about the school’s choice was in response to all the comments regarding large classes in beginning math, etc. It’s the school’s choice. To some students it could be bad or good. Both DDs wanted the more intimate classes so they attend/ed LACs.</p>
<p>“Wash U., Emory, Tufts, Williams, etc.”</p>
<p>This is a strange list of comparators. Wash U, Emory, and Tufts are major research universities just like Ivies. Their undergrad student bodies are larger than those of some Ivies. Small, undergrad-only LACs like Williams are genuinely different from research universities, and it makes sense to explore them if class size is important to you. But I think you are mistaken if you believe W, E, and T are better than H & Y when it comes to class size, professor interaction, etc. They’re all part of the same category.</p>
<p>If you care so much about both the Ivy League brand and “the intimate experience,” then:</p>
<p>P > HY
D > CBPC</p>
<p>Problem solved.</p>
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<p>Well, that’s the conventional wisdom, but the hard data suggest otherwise. Among Ivy League schools, Princeton has the second-highest percentage of large classes. Harvard, Yale, and Columbia are well below the Ivy median in percentage of large classes. And as I’ve explained upthread, it’s the number and size of the large classes that determines how much time students spend, in the aggregate and on average, in large classes as opposed to small ones. </p>
<p>Percent of classes with 50+ students:
Cornell 18.6%
Princeton 11.2%
Brown 10.1%
Penn 8.6%
Dartmouth 8.4%
Harvard 7.8%
Columbia 7.1%
Yale 7.0%</p>
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This. For example, I once compared the [political</a> science](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13322842-post22.html]political”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13322842-post22.html) enrollments at Brown and Berkeley and found that those at the latter were significantly higher. At my alma mater, the largest classes in my home departments had 30 students. At my graduate university, the smallest class in one of those departments has 40 students, with most having 60+. The other such department here is noticeably better – while it still has several 100+ classes, it has many classes with fewer than 30 or even 20 students and is thus much more comparable. </p>
<p>All three of the classes I took as undergrad that had over 30 students were biology and chemistry classes, where enrollment is noticeably higher. My econ and public policy major friends complained about 300 (!) person intro courses and 50+ person upper level courses. In short, such things are highly variable depending on your interests and preparation, so it pays to examine things in your context and in your areas of interest. (Put another way, it doesn’t matter how many people are in intro biology if you have AP credit or want to study English.)</p>
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Not so strange, actually. Many students think that the stronger the university, the less focus it has on undergrads. It admittedly doesn’t make much sense, but it’s a common thought pattern anyway. </p>
<p>I am surprised this thread has gone on for so long. One or two posts is more than sufficient to say that most private research universities with 4000-8000ish undergrads and at least as many graduate students are going to be pretty similar to one another.</p>
<p>It’s worth looking for perks or special programs, though. For example, Princeton requires a senior thesis, which necessitates working closely with professors on an independent project. My alma mater required several seminars and a writing class (>15 students). Others offer smaller honors classes in certain subjects, require honors seminars or research work, etc.</p>