Hi I am currently a high school junior beginning to extensively look into colleges. I am well aware of the differences between and have thoroughly researched the pros and cons of each. However, I am unsure to decide which one better suits me. I go to a very large competitive high school and perform averagely. I do not know whether or not I would succeed in a small environment, also are LACs less career oriented, some, even the elite ones (Carleton for example), seem to give off that vibe. If I make this decisions I can invest more time in visiting and preparing to apply to these schools. Essentially, how do I know which is a fit for me?
The top LACs have very good career outcomes.
I would tell you to visit both a few universities and a few LACs and see where you feel more comfortable as far as environment.
Visits help make it clear. You may like some of each, for reasons other than size. Size may not matter to you as much as these other factors. No harm in applying to some schools that are larger and some that are smaller! Or you may have a clear preference. I know someone who toured Cornell, found its large size overwhelming, and immediately said he would not apply. The next day, he visited Colgate and Hamilton and said, âI like these a lot better.â Another student I know visited Muhlenberg, Dickinson, U Scranton, American and Loyola Maryland on the same trip, and ruled out only the first two, because they felt too small to him.
Thanks guys. And @doschicos I understand that post grad and career opportunities for elite LACs is great. My question was about whether there was truth in the stereotype that LACs are more focused on education than career preparation. Obviously a strong foundational education is key to career success but it seems like larger universities have students and an environment that are more focused on shaping a strong career path (Northeastern U for example). Is it true that LACs are less careerist in this sense.
Also the LACs have the word LIBERAL in them. Is this by any means a reflection of the political culture on campus? I personally am pretty liberal but this is mainly due to the fact that i grew up in a very democratic Northeastern suburb. I have had very limited exposure to other viewpoints and was really hoping to attend a college wehre this diversity on the political spectrum. Will i still be able to find this diversity in a Liberal Arts school?
Well, Northeastern is fairly unique given its coop program. Iâd couch it more that LACs are focused on intellectual rigor and academic discovery, not less careerist. I donât think it has to be an either or thing. They do lack some of the more pre-professional undergraduate majors - business, nursing, engineering for the most part although a few have that as well. But, they do have alumni networks, career centers, companies that come to campus to recruit. Many help fund summer internships and research which are great resume builders. Perhaps it creates a different campus atmosphere but what I was trying to get across is it doesnât result in worse outcomes at all.
Liberal arts are studied at both national universities and small colleges. âLiberal artsâ refers to the study of a wide range of subjects ranging from physics and biology to anthropology and history to English and philosophy. Word Book, a dictionary, defines âliberal artsâ as âstudies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills).â
The term liberal arts has absolutely nothing to do with politics!
âLiberal arts collegesâ is a US News method of grouping schools to differentiate small colleges with the majority of their majors within the wide range of liberal arts majors, not only from larger schools, but also from small colleges with a majority of their majors in practical subjects such as (pre-teaching) education and occupational therapy.
So the name âliberal artsâ has nothing to do with politics, but nowadays both the best national universities and the best national liberal arts colleges lean liberal. You will need to do a little research into each school that interests you to see whether the range of student groups/clubs on campus and prevailing culture are comfortable for you.
In addition, some liberal arts colleges, like Connecticut College, provide as good or better school-to-career support than do some major universities. Again, you need to research this on a per-school basis.
Size of school (University vs. LAC) is not the differentiator for either political leanings or career services.
I would echo what @TheGreyKing says. I have one at a smaller sized research u (Princeton) and one at a medium sized liberal arts college (Vassar). Both kids are STEM-y. In addition I attended a kind of hybrid (Bucknell - what US News used to call a comprehensive university). I was not STEM-y. The biggest difference I have seen is scale - at a smaller school, by the time you leave it is likely you will know everyone on campus. Not by name, certainly, but by the time I was a senior I could generally recognize the ânewâ faces on campus. Some people find that comforting and âhomeyâ, others stultifying.
As far as the merits of the education at one type or another, I think it is six of one half a dozen at the other. The facilities and opportunities in research at the research U my son attends are greater than at the LAC my daughter attends. On the other hand, the class size at the LAC is much smaller than at the research U, and the LAC seems to have a more paternalistic view towards its relationship with students - there is more outreach within the academic department, easier connection with professors, etc. That may be partly do to the culture of each place though. All in all, I think the culture of each particular school will be far more determinitive of fit than how the school is categorized.
Some LACâs are very career oriented and some are not. Some large universities have a very vocational focus and others do not. And some are both- if you are in the school of education or majoring in accounting or petroleum engineering, your experience is going to feel different from someone at the exact same college majoring in classics or anthropology.
Because increasingly Liberal Arts colleges have some pre-professional majors like business in the case of Bucknell for example, it essentially means the student body is overwhelmingly or purely undergraduate. This is the working definition nowadays.
To generalize I would say more Eastern LACâs have students with a âcareerâ focus whether its going into financial services like investment banking or asset management. This probably because in the east it is such a dominant industry and their parents are involved.
Washington and Lee is an example of a classic LAC that is very conservative.
My kids went to a large high school (600-700 in each graduating classes). Some of the kids go on to attend small LACs and love them; some of the kids go on to attend large universities and love them. A good education that can prepare you for a future career isnât dependent on the size of the college. Visit a few and find your happy place.
My son went to a large high school (over 3000 kids) and his original rule was nothing smaller than my high school. I took him to a couple of LACs anyway, so that he could see that an LAC where everyone is one of the smart kids is very different and that his cohort would actually be much larger than his high school friendship group. He ended up keeping one largish LAC on the list in case he changed his mind, but the rest of the school he applied to were medium size research universities. He ended up at Tufts - most of his classes were under 30 people, despite being in a large and popular major. (IR) The large LAC on his list, seemed too empty to him when he visited again in April after being accepted there. I donât think Tufts prepared him more or less for a career than the LAC did. He had a couple of NGO internships, then a job with one of them, and then decided to become a Naval Officer.
I dont think it matters 1 bit for a driven student with normal career aspirations. Nurse, PA, engineer, teacher, CPA, or pre professional studies.
I know MDs who did UG at Univ of Houston, Comm college and LSU, Univ of Alabama still all MDs.
Nurse much the same.
Engineers all normal publics and 1 MIT grad all do about the same.
Go where you feel a connection, wont become a party student statistic, of course with your major.
Iâll reiterate that you ought to visit both and see what you prefer. My kids went to a large (600 plus students per class) HS, but one kid went LAC and the other went big U and they both made the right decision.
Think about what you want to study, what you want out of your college experience, in what kind of environment you learn best.
Post # 6 has the definition of liberal arts. Look the words up in a dictionary- liberal use of salt has nothing to do with politics either! Think of plenty of opportunities, not just job prep.
You state you are average (presumably for college bound kids). This means you need to look at schools, regardless of size, that reflect your performance. Many of the LACs and flagship Uâs could be reaches for you and liking them does not matter. You need to look at schools where you have a good chance of being accepted along with other factors. The schools you research have nothing to do with what any other student in your school is doing. You are looking at your future, which has nothing to do with theirs. Before long HS will be ancient history as will the people you are with. Your choices of schools that will admit you may not include the national Uâs or many LACs that are well known.
Junior year is the last one admissions people see. Make sure you study hard and do your best- show them the current version of who you are is the student you can be. Improving grades look good.
Most students do not go to the top colleges, regardless of where they went to HS. Having a good HS is good for being best prepared for college. Colleges will not favor you over someone else just because you are at HS X, you need to have done well. Take advantage of the learning available.
You need to consider the family budget. No school is worth taking on a ton of debt for anyone. Have the talk with your parents about a reasonable family contribution for college. This may involve having them go over materials regarding their finances- they could be clueless as many families are. Knowing how college is being financed will help you consider colleges. If you are in that vast middle average group you should not generally count on scholarships.
Looking at state public schools may be in your best interest. How things work depends on each state. Public Uâs come in many sizes and other factors, including HS class rankings of students. Your HS guidance office should have information on many public and private colleges/Uâs in your area. Do not get taken in by prestige factors. Look at what a school offers and the school environment (âfitâ factors).
Do not be swayed by how âliberalâ any college is. Part of a college education is being exposed to other ideas. There may be many on a campus who think like you do. The âYoung Republicansâ student organization may be a part of a seemingly left leaning school as well. Being exposed to other viewpoints will either solidify your own or moderate them.
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Hereâs my experience. 40+ years ago, my wife and I both opted for private research university over LAC, and our children did the same thing. But we, and they, have lots of friends who went to LACs, and so I have a pretty good idea of how careers play out, both in the first few years after college and over the course of a lifetime.
In my generation, the people who went to research universities and the ones who went to LACs had very similar careers. What I see today is often people at research universities following a crowded career path, and generally opting for the lowest-risk, highest-paying professional career they think they can tolerate. Some of the LAC kids are prone to do that, too. But lots of them take more risks. Sometimes those risks donât pan out, but sometimes they do. The kids I know today who are being most successful following some kind of impossible dream came out of LACs, not research universities.
Research universities and LACs have the same goals and very similar ideas for undergraduate education. They generally offer two different paths to the same destination. Either path can get you there, neither works better for every student, and I would go so far as to say that for most students either will work fine. But they feel very different.
My sister-in-law is the chair of a relatively small department at a large public research university with a good reputation in her field. The community in her department includes 29 full-time faculty, 14 additional faculty with cross-appointments in other departments, 7 visiting faculty (many probably replacing full-time faculty who are on leave teaching elsewhere), several post-docs, about 65 graduate students, and at any time maybe 70-80 undergraduates with a declared major.
From time to time she has visited and taught at a very high-quality LAC. The department there consists of four full-time faculty, a couple of cross-appointed people from other departments, an occasional visitor like her, two part-time adjuncts, and 15-20 declared undergraduate majors. In other words, the community is tiny compared to the university community, and/but it is very undergraduate-centric, because undergraduates make up the bulk of the community. At the university, the role of the undergraduates in the departmental community is to hang around if they want and try to pick up something by listening to people who know a lot more than they do.
At the university, except for a few introductory lecture courses that are shared around among department members, people generally teach courses that are focused on their own specialties, in which they do cutting-edge work. Students â with the help of advisors â are responsible for figuring out how to get a good background in all the different areas within the department. Generally, they wind up forming critical relationships with 2 or 3 faculty members, and they take all those peopleâs courses, and if they want to go to graduate school those people will help them. The facultyâs main jobs are to produce scholarship and to mentor graduate students. Many of them enjoy teaching undergraduates, but itâs not their main responsibility.
At the LAC, the four regular faculty are responsible for covering the whole field. So they do very little teaching focused on their own narrow specialties. They do a lot of thinking about what makes up a rounded education in that field, and they try to make certain that all of their majors get that. Because the department is so small, the majors basically have to take almost all the courses it actually offers, but they get a thoughtful, well-rounded education. They are pretty close with all the faculty, and if they want it get a lot of guidance and coaching about graduate school and other ways to get to the next level. The faculty are supposed to do research and to produce scholarship â and they do â but their primary job is teaching. Thereâs no room for them if they arenât good teachers.
@wis75 Thank you for your advice. Correct me if I am wrong but arenât there public and private universities as well as LACs for students of all types of stats? Your post seems to imply that I will not be able to pick size because I might not get accepted into any LACs, however from what Iâve found there seems to be plenty of lower teir LACs, some of which are a matches and some of which are safeties for me. Am I missing something? Are LACs inherently more selective?
Also thank you so much for the help guys. This has been really informative!
No one has talked about the lifestyle differences between large universities and small LACs, so Iâll do that. My daughter attends University of Minnesota- Twin Cities, one of the largest research universities in the country with about 34,000 undergraduates and about 15,000 graduate students. There are hundreds of student clubs, a huge student recreation center, large student center with movie theater and bowling alley and food, multiple cafeterias, several competitive sports teams including football and ice hockey, a marching band and various musical groups, multiple theaters for student performances and visiting performers and speakers, regular sessions where CEOs and thought leaders speak on campus, a full-fledged art gallery in its own building on campus plus other galleries, a natural history museum that is part of the university, countless research centers where faculty and students of all levels (including freshmen) are conducting scientific research, supercomputing resources, multiple libraries, two vibrant âcollege townâ areas adjacent to campus with restaurants, multiple options for student housing, Greek life, religious groups of all kinds, and I could go on and on. It is like a small city unto itself, and yet it is also vastly connected to the Twin Cities as well, with light rail stops on campus where students can hop on and ride to downtown Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The students have endless choices of majors and minors. The students come there from every state in the country and from around the world. Many students wear spirit-wear like t-shirts or hats with the university name, logo and colors.
A friend of mine went to a small liberal arts college (not top tier). There were about 1,000 students who went there. There were a couple of fraternities, and Iâm not sure about sororities. There was one small building that had a modest cafeteria and small gathering area for students to hang out. There was one library, and one tiny art gallery. There was no real theater at the time he attended, but now there is a small theater on the campus. There was only one type of housing on campus. There were a couple of low-key sports teams like tennis. Everyone knew everyone on campus, but that doesnât mean they were all one happy family. Just like a small high school, there were clicks, and people with different personalities and interests, so people hung out in their groups. There wasnât much going on most of the time. The number of majors to choose from were very limited, as were the clubs, activities and resources. That doesnât mean the students didnât have fun or like their experience. I believe many of them loved it. But itâs an entirely different lifestyle â very low-key and routine and familiar.
Which one of the above scenarios makes you feel great, like you want to be in that picture? If neither, then perhaps a mid-sized university of 5,000-15,000 would suit you best.
Along these lines, I think you should consider the location of your college/university. A small LAC in the metro area of a large city may offer more lifestyle options and internship options than a large university in a small college town in the middle of nowhere. There are also large research universities in the middle of big cities, and LACs by corn fields in the countryside. Ask yourself how you want to live for four years, and what opportunities and resources you want available both on campus and off campus. There is more to college/university than your major â it will be your life going by, so consider how you want to live it when you decide where to apply and attend. Do you want four seasons, or year-round summer weather? Do you want big city amenities, or a small town where you go to the same places over and over? Do you want to know everyone on your campus, and everyone knowing your business, or do you want more anonymity where you encounter your friends among the crowds as you walk across a large campus? Think about everything and write down your preferences to figure out what is the best option for you.
OP- your first step in the college admission process should be that finances talk with your parents. They may be clueless about current costs and the funding they can provide. Get this information figured out soon. Then you can figure out if you can afford any private schools.
LACâs run the gamut from top to bottom tier, just as public schools do. However, the costs can be very different for the same tier school if it is private or an instate public. With your stated âaveragenessâ you are likely to be full pay or financial aid that could include loans for schools you would want and no merit money. The thread title with âNational Uâsâ implies looking for top tier schools.
Your second step in the process is time spent in the college/career part of your HS guidance department. Learn your cost effective options. You are (like most college students) likely to end up in your own region. Your HS will have info on those schools. Plus info on which students get into which schools.