<p>bclintonk, I don’t doubt the survey results, but I do think LAC attendees are a more select bunch in the sense that few people just go to an LAC by default. Even the most famous and prestigious LACs are still under the radar for the vast majority of college-bound students. You have to deliberately seek them out. On the other hand, lots of universities, including private ones, are default options for local kids. (DePaul and Loyola are good examples here in Chicago.) So it is not surprising that in the aggregate, the LAC population is highly motivated to make the most of the experience.</p>
<p>So you’ve really met hordes and hordes of people who have gone to UPenn, and discussed their experiences there with all of them? And, while Poeme may be one person, don’t you think Poeme probably knows at least as many Penn students as you do?</p>
<p>Moving on, I can see the benefit of going to an LAC. However you slice it, LACs do tend to foster closer contact between undergrads and faculty members. Acknowledging that doesn’t require denigrating professors at research universities. I don’t doubt that there are some too-big for their britches profs who won’t give undergrads the time of day, but for the most part, professors are, at the very least, required to hold regular office hours accessible to both undergrads and grad students. At elite colleges, it is common for students to have a number of opportunities to take small seminars taught by professors - indeed, it is a requirement in many cases. Schools that have an option for senior independent work usually assign students working on theses a faculty adviser. And, even beyond these formal mechanisms for bringing undergrads and faculty together, more assertive students (which I, by the way, was not) usually find it pretty easy to seek out even senior faculty if they’re willing to shoot off a e-mail or approach them after class. No, it isn’t the same as going to a place where practically every class is a small, faculty led seminar, but it doesn’t amount to serious deprivation.</p>
<p>I think I probably would have loved going to an LAC. I wound up not applying to any because the small size made such schools less likely to feature a Jewish community large enough serve my religious needs. To me, the tradeoff was worth it, and I had a great undergrad experience at the school I wound up attending. Other people will have many other reasons for preferring a research university, some of them social, some of them academic. As always, it depends on the student, his or her personality, goals, and needs.</p>
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<p>It wasn’t snark, but an observation of your remarks taken from observing how private institutions and governments tended to use the very same labeling to dismiss critics and valid discussion of serious issues in history and in recent news. </p>
<p>For instance, I would not be surprised if critics decrying the coverup in the Penn State child sex abuse scandal were initially labeled “an unhappy bunch” by staunch self-proclaimed supporters of Penn State and its once vaunted football program before the allegations, evidence, and conviction of Jerry Sandusky became public. </p>
<p>Whether they are whistleblowers or critics decrying serious issues with various such institutions, the label of “unhappy bunch” or more often “malcontent” has often been used to dismiss them, however valid their criticisms or uncovering of serious issues. </p>
<p>Very interesting you’re viewing this as a snark when it wasn’t. Especially considering you’ve have had no problems being snarky to me or some other posters in this and other threads. </p>
<p>If you’re going to be taking issue with others’ arguments, as is your right, those with whom you are arguing with have the same right to respond in kind. </p>
<p>From your past posting patterns, you seem to be someone who loves dishing out criticisms and barbs to others and yet, can’t seem to take it when they end up responding similarly or in kind. Interesting.</p>
<p>I AM going to be dismissive of your points, cobrat, when no matter what the topic is – or how obscure it is – you constantly repeat this same old canard that you know “many people” for whom this issue applies, AND that these “many people” made it a deliberate point to discuss the issue with you. No one believes you any more. </p>
<p>I nearly went to Penn myself. It was one of my dream schools growing up. I’m reasonably familiar with the campus, spend time there several times a year when I’m in Philly. I know a decent number of people who went there, ranging from recent grads to people my age. But unlike you, I am not so arrogant as to believe that I know the innermost thoughts about Penn about all the people I know who went to Penn. I’m sure that just like any other place, some loved it and some hated it. There is no a priori reason to believe it’s any different from any other similar school in that regard. Why do you pretend that all of the Penn alums you know specifically made a point of discussing the finer points of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with you?</p>
<p>Let’s try to avoid sweeping personal attacks all around, or this thread is going to get shut down, as similar threads that began to take on this tone have been in the past. Maybe if we limit ourselves to responding to claims made in THIS thread and on this topic, we’ll avoid issues.</p>
<p>In that spirit, there seems to me no value in bringing the Penn State abuse scandal into the picture. Of course there are situations in which people are wrong to dismiss complaints. There are also situations in which the people complaining are whiny malcontents. Right or wrong, someone less than sympathetic to claims of insufficient faculty attention hardly deserves being lumped in with people who would turn a blind eye to child abuse.</p>
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Sorry Cobrat that is total baloney and you know it. Please stop with the name-calling and nasty innuendos. It is against the TOS. Your posts do seem to, for the mostpart, be about people who are unhappy with something or other. Perhaps you should take a look at them. </p>
<p>And this thread has NOTHING to do with the events at Penn State. Please stay on topic.</p>
<p><strong>crossposted with apprenticeprof</strong></p>
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<p>Cuts both ways. Do Poeme and JHS know more than diddly squat about LACs? Have they attended both types of schools and gained personal experience iat BOTH RUs and LACs. That does not stop from speaking out and pretend to be able to make valid comparisons. </p>
<p>A LOT of what was written in this thread is pure BS, and especially from the people who discuss LACs from a pure hearsay base. Not all research universities are cut from the same cloth. And neither are LACs.</p>
<p>Fwiw, Penn used to market itself for its excellence in the … Liberal Arts.</p>
<p>For doG’s sake, people, DO NOT FEED THE ■■■■■!!! Just ignore it. Any kind of attention is better than no attention, right?</p>
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<p>I like the deliberate dyslexia. :)</p>
<p>Xiggi, can you cite a few examples of the BS in the thread? I fall into the category of having been a student at both a LAC (albeit a two year one affiliated with a medium sized university) and a medium ranking state flagship. Most of the claims on this thread, other than the ones which try to conflate schools like the University of Rochester with UT Austin, match up to my experiences.</p>
<p>xiggi, most of what I know about LACs comes from spending my entire life in communities in which going to LACs was more or less the norm, or at least an equal choice with research universities. Both my parents went to LACs, as did a sibling of each. Two of my sisters-in-law. Three of my first cousins. Both of the second cousins who were exactly my age and lived on the same block with me growing up. About half of my high school class. Five girlfriends. My best friend in law school. Half of my current closest friends. The young associate one office down from mine. In the past 5 years, eight kids who live on my block. Three kids of our closest friends, who are basically my nieces. Three of my actual nieces/nephews. Three of one child’s five closest high school friends, and two of the other’s. One kid’s current apartment-mate, and that kid’s boss, too.</p>
<p>My sister is on the board of trustees of a LAC, and one very close friend is a former trustee of his LAC alma mater. So is one client. My sister-in-law, while very much a research university professor, has taught as a visitor at a LAC. Three cousins are or were (one died) department chairs at LACs. I am dog-walking friends with a couple of LAC faculty, and more distant social friends with a few more. My father’s best friend was president of a LAC for a decade. A childhood friend of my sister’s, who lived a couple of houses away from us, is admissions director at a LAC.</p>
<p>I have taken an adult ed class at a local LAC, taught by the chair of its English department. So, in fact, I HAVE attended both types of school.</p>
<p>That’s just the core. I have lots of cousins, just like cobrat, and I haven’t included anything like all of them here. I have had substantive discussions with every one of the people mentioned above about their LAC experience (except the admissions director, with whom my sister has talked, but not I), and with many of the farther-afield types as well. If I treated Dartmouth, Brandeis, and Pepperdine as LACs, which they basically are, there would be a meaningful bump in the numbers.</p>
<p>I don’t feel at all like I lack a base of knowledge about LACs.</p>
<p>I thought I was pretty clear about the BS since I named the posters. I know little about Oxford and your experience might have been different. My beef is with the idle speculation about the differences between LACs and RUs. My own experience at West Coast selective schools easily debunk some of the issues raised in this thread. For instance, not all LACs are in remote location are are much smaller than comparative RUs. How does the Claremont Consortium compares to Caltech or Stanford in terms of student body and UG size. OF course, the size issue comes into play at the academic factories that embrace the model of teaching hordes of students through the darling teachers aka TAs and GSIs.</p>
<p>An individual’s personality and gregariousness trumps many of these differences, IMO. The shy, retiring person who doesn’t form relationships easily isn’t going to do so at either an LAC or a RU. The outgoing person who easily forms relationships is going to do so at either an LAC or a RU. It’s silly to pretend that there are major differences when it’s about people themselves forming relationships.</p>
<p>JHS, it does not matter a bit in terms of personal experiences, and especially a recent one. While I cannot dismiss - and I do NOT- your understanding of the LAC curriculum and operations, I doubt that the Penn student can discuss LACs with any kind of authority. </p>
<p>You know the schools I attended, and you know my sister went the other route as she picked the RU for her UG. Our experience overlapped, and this why I can talk about the differences in education, possibilities, and overall experience at both type of schools. The choices worked well for both of us, but I do no doubt for a second that my sister would have received a SUPERIOR EDUCATION at the LAC than at her uber-selective RU. I also had MUCH better internship opportunities at my small LAC than at the mighty RU. </p>
<p>But she would have missed the games played by the very best football program in the nation. And I am thrilled that I was part of it for graduate school.</p>
<p>On a last note, I will concede that my LAC hardly fits the mold of the rural and older NE LACs, and that the presence of the consortium changes many elements of an experience. Things have changed from the days of the finishing schools.</p>
<p>I think that is true up to a point, Pizzagirl, but it may be easier for someone whose personality is a little more retiring to make connections at a smaller school that practically forces you into close encounters with senior faculty on a routine basis. Sure, if you’re so quiet that you won’t participate in class discussion or ask a teacher a question you’re going to be in trouble in any case, but there’s a lot of room between super gregarious and practically silent. </p>
<p>Xiggi, of course we’re generalizing. To the extent that the designations LAC and University have any value beyond their technical definition, it is because there are certain qualities that we, with some reason, associate with one or the other, even if it isn’t true in every individual case. I don’t think the claim that LACs are, in general, smaller than RUs, but that RUs have wider course offerings, is a terribly extravagant one.</p>
<p>And the VAST majority of undergraduates in this country do NOT do research (in any meaningful sense) once they get to college, whether at an LAC, an RU, or one of the LAC-like RU’s. Despite what you may believe reading CC for a while where every kid is either pre-med or wants a PhD in Neuroscience (the more interdisciplinary, the better) the rate of PhD production, the number of kids doing cutting edge research, etc. is a very trivial element in the grand scheme of college selection.</p>
<p>I love the posters who claim that it’s too competitive to “do research” at a place like MIT vs. an LAC (patently ridiculous- MIT maintains a website which lists undergraduate research opportunities, many of which go begging since the professors have more opportunities than there are undergrads.) I love the posters who claim that a kid interested in bio can’t go to Smith or Reed since the cutting edge stuff is being done at JHU and Michigan (true that Michigan and Hopkins are voracious when it comes to getting life science grants… but how many college kids “need” cutting edge if their only interest is in buffing their med school application (where cutting edge is absolutely not required.)</p>
<p>We are all angels dancing on the head of a pin right now!</p>
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<p>The vast majority of undergraduates in the US attend neither LACs nor RUs (nor LAC-like RUs).</p>
<p>A more typical undergraduate experience is to commute to the local community college, then (if continuing on to complete a bachelor’s degree is desired) perhaps transfer to a local four year university (usually not a high-research one). Also, most undergraduates major in pre-professional majors rather than liberal arts majors.</p>
<p>I think the most obvious comparison we can make between research and LACs is by size. It depends largely on the individual school, but some of the LACs are absolutely tiny. Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Harvey Mudd, Grinell, Scripps, Pitzer, and Claremont McKenna come to mind which all have less than 1700 students. There are larger ones like Middlebury, Smith, Colgate, and Wesleyan. But that’s a huge difference from even the smallest research universities (except for Caltech that I know of). I don’t think I would like to spend four years like that, but I imagine it could be nice for a bit. Some people might actually really like that experience.</p>
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<p>No, but the differences are massively overstated, especially if you apply a simple controlling element of courses per capita. Not all courses are available every year and the academic divas tend to shine by their absence and lack of dedication to teaching. A fat catalog does not ensure that famous XYZ will let a student in his class through the luck of the draw. Read Douthat’s book about his Harvard experience. </p>
<p>On the other hand, residential LACs are aiming to graduate everyone in four years with the needed and sought-after higher classes. </p>
<p>The key is the ability to get into the best classes, and the differences are more subtle than the eye meets.</p>
<p>“Some people might actually really like that experience.”</p>
<p>The LAC students! :)</p>