<p>I'm faced with a choice of either going to a good LAC or a good, huge university for science and music. Pomona or McGill?? Which is better for education, considering the sizes of classes, professor availability, academic rigor/quality, etc?</p>
<p>Pomona is better than "good". It is one of the top 5 LACs in the US. Of course, McGill is an excellent university, but I give Pomona the slight edge. </p>
<p>However, you really should visit the two schools and decide because they are totally different. </p>
<p>1) Obviously, McGill is roughly 20 times larger than Pomona
2) LA has pleasant year-round weather whereas Montreal has very cold winters. Some people prefer having seasons other people like predictible weather.
3) Pomona is in a nice suburb of LA, McGill is in the heart of Montreal. I personally prefer Montreal to LA but others prefer LA to Montreal. Again, they are vastly different cities.
4) Pomona is as Californian as it gets, McGill is practically European.
5) McGill is so huge, it will offer certain resources that Pomona will be incapable of offering, but Pomona is relatively much wealthier and will have more resources availlable per student. </p>
<p>That's definitely not an easy decision. You have to go with your gut, but my instincts say Pomona.</p>
<p>Also, consider your learning style. I know kids who never want to speak in class. They learn best by taking notes and working in student-runs study groups. They'd hate for a professor to talk to them in the dining hall. Others feel like they're wasting their time in lectures, because they only learn well while actively engaged with the professor, and look forward to being invited to the professor's house for dinner. Which student are you?</p>
<p>I used to argue for big-name universities over LAC, and then, a famous Japanese poster named sakky came along to argue for LAC... then I got all mad and all.. LOL.</p>
<p>I always argue that if your intended major is in cutting edge technology like engineering/science, you are much better off @ big research univ. because of faculty strength, state of the art research facilities/opportunities and the sheer mass advantages. </p>
<p>LAC professors tend to get stagnant- to put it differently, researching/publishing is simply not their cup of tea. Heck, there are no graduate students to do work for them. That's fine for humanities majors, and maybe okay for social science majors, to a certain extent. But, never so for science/eng major. In fact, newly fresh-minted science/eng PhD's would always (like 99 % of time) prefer a big research professorship over LAC. This can have a negative trickle down effect on students @LAC - They learn from professors who have been teaching the same subject studies based on more than 20+ year old note book.</p>
<p>On the other hand, research professors don't give a fig for teaching undergraduates. They want to do their research and train their graduate students. Undergraduates are a nuisance and a necessary evil. </p>
<p>LAC professors consider teaching their primary focus, and are vested in their undergraduates' success. Because they care about teaching, they keep up with the latest in published research in their fields so they can help their students. Additionally, having no graduate students in their labs, undergraduates have a greater opportunity to do research. They may even have a better chance at getting a coveted research spot than they would at a research university, where the absolute number of research spots are greater but there are also graduate students competing for them. And even if they do get a spot, undergraduates may be more likely to be doing scutwork (washing beakers, etc.) that real research at research universities, and real research at LACs.</p>
<p>(Of course these are overgeneralizations, but simply responding to the overgeneralizations Rabban posted.)</p>
<p>Personally, I hate learning in a huge hall with 100 other students watching a monotone professor showing powerpoints. My impression of McGill when I visited was that its professors are not available most of the time to undergraduate students. McGill's professor office hours schedule is around 4 hours per week...that's pretty sad if you ask me. I loved the Pomona campus but its neuroscience curriculum is not as impressive as I hoped it would be. Few courses have practical use for me since I'm going into med later on.</p>
<p>My guess is that Pomona/Claremont would have a stronger academic rigor than McGill; students get more respect and attantion at Pomona. I'm not sure about research, so that's why I asked. I'm sure there are plenty of summer opportunities anyway.</p>
<p>help??</p>
<p>
[quote]
LAC professors tend to get stagnant- to put it differently, researching/publishing is simply not their cup of tea. Heck, there are no graduate students to do work for them. That's fine for humanities majors, and maybe okay for social science majors, to a certain extent. But, never so for science/eng major. In fact, newly fresh-minted science/eng PhD's would always (like 99 % of time) prefer a big research professorship over LAC. This can have a negative trickle down effect on students @LAC - They learn from professors who have been teaching the same subject studies based on more than 20+ year old note book.
[/quote]
Once again I find myself in disagreement with Rabban and his WCUs. :rolleyes: A lot of research is done at LACs. In the 2006 Goldwater Scholarship competition, LACs represented included </p>
<p>Amherst (2)
Colgate
Cornell College
Davidson
Dickinson (2)
Furman (2)
Grinnell (2)
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Holy Cross
Juniata
Kenyon
Lafayette (4)
Lewis & Clark (2)
Macalester
Mount Holyoke (2)
Muhlenberg
Oberlin (3)
Occidental (2)
Pomona (3)
Reed (2)
Rhodes (2)
Scripps (2)
Skidmore
St. Olaf (2)
Swarthmore
Ursinus (4)
Wellesley (2)
Wesleyan (2)
Williams (3)
Wooster (2) </p>
<p>Just because a professor is at a LAC doesn't mean (s)he is stagnant. To name a couple, one of the nation's most renowned herpetologists is at Davidson, and Swat has a well-known marine biologist.</p>
<p>rabban, since the professors don't have grad students to do their research, guess who gets to do it? Undergraduates! The research opportunities are often best at an LAC because you aren't competing over them with grad students.</p>
<p>l3tranger, your best bet to find out about research opportunities for undergraduates is to call the department you're interested in and ask. Also, remember that if you're from the US, you will be an international student at McGill, which may affect your eligibility to get those research opportunities.</p>
<p>Your intended major, neuroscience, is indeed a cutting edge, ever-evolving field. Being a big research univ. with excellent medical centers nearby, McGill will provide you with ample research opportunities, especially for neurology-related, multi-displinary medical research (biology, psychology, BME including image processing)- This can potentially be a make or break point for your MED-School related EC!!!</p>
<p>Another good example for benefit of attending Big Res Univ over small LAC!!!</p>
<p>Pomona!!!!</p>
<p>Rabban, you know that Canadian research opportunities are available to US citizens . . how? And you know that undergraduates rather than medical students and grad students are considered for serious research positions exactly . . . how? Or are you merely assuming that this is the case?</p>
<p>Easy there bud. Calm down. No need to get edgy...</p>
<p>Well, my post was illustration purpose only. You can actually swap "McGil"? with any other Big Research Univ. like Harvard, Yale, Michigan, UCLA, just to name a few.</p>
<p>However you spin it or tap dance around it, one thing is certain: For cutting-edge technology major, BRU > LAC</p>
<p>
[quote]
However you spin it or tap dance around it, one thing is certain: For cutting-edge technology major, BRU > LAC
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Unless things have changed drastically since I was in school, I can tell you from experience that this is simply not true for undergraduates. I went to a cutting-edge research institution where undergraduates were limited to washing beakers, test tubes or otherwise keeping the labs clean, copying research notes, etc. Only the absolutely brilliant undergrads got any real research experience. </p>
<p>Friends, on the other hand, went to LACs and got to do real research.</p>
<p>Your overgeneralizations are just that.</p>
<p>You formed your opinion based on your own experience & some of your few friends. Grrreat - That's nice to know! However, based on * my experience * & * my friends? *, BRU simply kicks ass when it comes to undergraduates intended for cutting edge science/eng major. </p>
<p>Further, according to *my other acquaintance *, LAC is just an extension of a boarding school. He screamed and yelled "get me outta here, I don't learn any thing. I am wasting my freaking time & money!!! He took heavy dozes of prozac on multiple occasions. His family finally caved in and transferred him to other BRU.</p>
<p>OK, your assumptions are better than my anecdotes. All that both your and my experiences prove is what I've been saying all along - it depends on the school and it depends on the kid. Generalizations are worthless (as any scientist will tell you).</p>
<p>And with that, I'm done.</p>
<p>Professor Availability:
Pomona Student to Faculty Ratio: 8:1
Mcgill Student to Faculty Ratio: 16:1
Pomona is a LAC and Mcgill is a university => Pomona's professors are more available</p>
<p>Size of Classes:
Pomona's Most Frequent Class size: 10-19
Mcgill's Most Frequent Class size: 20-29
Pomona's Most Frequent Lab size: 10-19
Mcgill's Most Frequent Lab size: 30-39
Mcgill is ranked 3rd on Princeton Review's "Class Discussions Rare" ranking</p>
<p>Academic Rigor/quality:
Pomona's Academic Rating: 98
Mcgill's Academic Rating: 61
Pomona's Average SAT score: 1460
Mcgill's Average SAT score: Not Reported (most likely around 1300)
Pomona's Admissions Selectivity: 99
Mcgill's Admissions Selectivity: 60</p>
<p>
[quote]
Generalizations are worthless (as any scientist will tell you).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know about that. Do you know a scientist who said that..... who? I don't want to get into the specific, but in some scientific field, generalization is worthwhile. Case in point: When analyzing a dynamic system involving highly-coupled, multiple dofs, you must use generalized coordinates to recast the equations just to identify the eigen values & eigen modes. Further, without the use of generalized sos concept, the frame dynamic analysis is worthless because it will be system-specific. Hence, in some cases, generalization is not only worthwhile but also absolutely *necessary *.</p>
<p>^just so you're aware, the selectivity rating in princeton review has an asterix next to it for McGill, and then says "admission data not available", and this affects the academic rating.</p>
<p>The average SAT for faculty of science is around a 1400. The published average for all faculties is 1360 on mcgill.ca. Also, 90% of McGill students were in the top 10% of there grad. class. I still think Pomona is better for general liberal arts by a decent margin. If interested in neuroscience, then you have a rare exception where McGill has the edge. McGill publishes "Headway," one of the most respected neuroscience journals of any college.</p>
<p>For those most academically inclined, preparation for graduate school can be considered. For the years 1992-2001, Pomona was in the top ten of all schools in percentage of graduates who later earned PhDs in the following fields: Humanities, history, math & computer sciences, social sciences and anthropology. For the years 1975-2004, Pomona was in the top ten for all fields combined. The cited LAC advantages pay off in this regard.</p>