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Ditto.
And ditto. I would add “and that they think will get them where they want to go.”</p>
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One of the more frustrating things about CC. We do tend to be invested (sometimes overly invested) in the choices made by our kids.</p>
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<p>I like the analogy, but would like to add a few twists. From the thousands of choices listed, a great number are actually only offered when the season is right. The sushi menu has LOTS of choices but most of the fish is not served that night! In addition, while there are waiters and chefs to help you, most of the servers/cooks are in fact trainees who are learning on the job. To make things worse, the trainees are really management trainees who see the job of being a server a necessary evil, and a job for which they have neither the desire nor the experience. </p>
<p>And for what is worth, the quality of the food is exactly what to expect from a midnight buffet at one of the all-inclusive cruises. I do not think that anyone would expect any of the fun ships to earn a Michelin star anytime soon. Those stars go to smaller restaurants where there is actually a chef in the kitchen and a knowledgeable staff in the front. </p>
<p>However, in the end, nothing precludes the Love Boats to bring hordes of very satisfied customers back to shore, and Michelin-starred restaurants to leave a customer underwhelmed. It’s a matter of expectations.</p>
<p>Bless you, Entomom! I’d recalled seeing the cruise buffet analogy some time back and from time to time I’d wondered whose it was and where to find it!</p>
<p>Good points as usual Xiggi, but generalizations and partial truths are valuable onventions that we all use to make sense of our world. All Democrats are not classic liberals nor Republicans total conservatives, but reducing the concept of political parties to a dichotomy creates a workable platform from which to understand nuances. So I think the dining analogy fits, as long as you understand from the get-go that no stereotype is accurate all the time. Hey, U.S. News has sold millions of magazines by reducing complicated institutions to workable generalities!</p>
<p>To elaborate on a few of the points already mentioned:</p>
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<li><p>Name names
Not all colleges and universities are created equal. Some small LACs offer phenomenal opportunities. Some are just small. Some big universities provide support and nurturing. Some are just big. Since your daughter has actual admittances, we can move from the general to the specific.</p></li>
<li><p>The squeaky wheel
Plenty of kids get what they need from a big U, but they have to go after it, assertively. I went to a mega-U. For the person I was at 17 it was all wrong. I was simply too introverted to stand up and ask for it, demand it if necessary – classes, housing, recommendations, whatever was needed. This was not true of many of my friends who navigated through the bureaucracy brilliantly.</p></li>
<li><p>The gift that keeps on giving
In internships, summer jobs, first careers, graduate school recommendations, alumni/ae networks – some colleges are better than others. I don’t think this is necessarily a function of size, but it relates to #2. At an LAC the professors know the kids, all of them. At a big U they know the ones that stand out or seek acknowledgement.</p></li>
<li><p>Blink and it’s over
My son went to a small LAC. He had a double major and was also interested in just about everything under the sun. He could have filled up his course card about 10 times and still not run out of appealing classes. In four years a student takes 32-35 classes, less if s/he studies abroad. For a true liberal arts education there are infinite choices.</p></li>
<li><p>Know yourself
I’m one who votes with the “fit first” crowd. Just to use my personal experience: For me, bad fit; so-so experience. For my husband, good fit; very good experience. For my son, excellent, perfect fit; excellent, perfect experience. Size is not the only factor, but it’s a factor that impacts everything else.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Glad to help gadad, might even make it worth the drubbing from some others :(. </p>
<p>Needless to say, what I posted was not intended to be the end all analysis for choosing a school, but merely:</p>
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<p>Geez, tough crowd tonight ;).</p>
<p>Very nice, Momrath. Now, put a 0-10 scoring scale on each of your five factors so that the higher score reflects universities’ strengths and the lower score LACs’. Then invite the user to weight each of their scores by dividing up 10 points among them; multiplying their scores times their weighting points gives the user a total score between 0-100. Indicate that if your total is 0-30 you’re an LAC person, 70-100 a university type, and if you’re in the middle you could could swing either way. Sell the article to U.S. News for their 2010 rankings edition, then expand it into a guide book and hit the lecture circuit!</p>
<p>Holy cow, people. Of course I am not thinking that D is going to make any decision based on general lists. But I do think there is a value in discussing LACs compared to universities at a general level. For example, the library issue is one I had not thought about before, and I am not sure this issue would have come up in a discussion comparing LAC X to university Y. D is still waiting on several decisions, so this is not a “help me decide” thread–just a “food for thought” thread.</p>
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<p>Of course, there is value to discuss schools in general terms. The problems start when people take very basic knowledge about a few schools and attempt to generalize such limited knowledge to the entire body of schools. This is no different than taking one’s opinion of a local high school and pretend the opinion could cover the dozens of thousands of HS in the country. </p>
<p>This was not about being a tough crowd as much as offering a divergent viewpoint by suggesting that schools should be compared individually as opposed to be grouped whimsically.</p>
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<p>One way to get small classes and close professor connections right from the get-go at a HUGE research university is to take an obscure major. As a Chinese major at a state university that is often in the top five in student enrollment in the entire country, I usually had classes with just two to nine classmates (usually at the lower end of that range) and I had LOTS of personal contact with my professors. Besides, in those days one couldn’t major in Chinese at any LAC within a 1,000 miles of my home. Searching for a college that taught my intended major subject is why I, the son of a second-generation LAC graduate, went to a research university. I liked the experience.</p>
<p>There’s a reason - I qualified my list with “possible”, I know very well that for every example of a bad thing in either list you can find at least one counter example. The library thing only came up because both Vassar and Bard boasted about having access to an interlibrary loan system, and I contrasted that with my experience of having every book you could possibly want right on campus. One reason I encourage visiting campuses and reading the boards is to learn what questions to ask. I agree completely that for some LACs will be better and for others Universities. The real problem is figuring out at 17 which will be better for you.</p>
<p>xiggi (and other similar-minded posters): Of course there is variation within the categories of LACs and universities. But that does not mean that there are not some general similarities (that again of course might not be true of every single LAC or university—but just because there are individual differences does not mean that there are not any family resemblances). Grouping LACs and universities is not “whimsical.” Generally LACs do not have graduate programs. Professors at LACs tend to be more teaching-focused than research-focused. LACs tend to be smaller. These are the well-known general differences. I started this thread to ask about others. Do I think that this discussion will lead directly to a decision for my D? Of course not. I do think it could provide food for thought, causing us to ask some questions that we might not otherwise have thought to ask.</p>
<p>(Not a parent)</p>
<p>I transferred out of a 6-12 art school with about 500 students to my local high school in 9th grade because the art school didn’t have the math and science strength I needed, but I honestly felt lost in the big school (2000+ students) until I got into a small program and started seeing the same people over and over again, so I decided to look mainly at LACs because I thought I’d get a better social environment–for me–at a smaller school. That, and I chose LACs that are strong in science to apply to so I don’t worry about that, and I’m interested in more than just biology, so I don’t see myself running out of interesting classes. But all of these are personal decisions, and I can see other people having the opposite reactions.</p>
<p>However, if you’re worried about attending a LAC because of the library/lack of classes/lack of resources, I’d look at the Claremont Consortium (Pomona, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna, and Pitzer) because students can cross-register for classes at other schools or even majors at other schools, in case their own school doesn’t have it, and the five schools shared resources to make one big library as well as smaller one-school libraries which are open to the other students, so its like having the atmosphere of a LAC and some of the resources of a larger university. </p>
<p>I’ll probably end up at Pomona.</p>
<p>Running out of classes- a small LAC will not have as many high level math courses for example- even large U’s may have only one section of some courses. I found that Linguistics is considered unusual, a strange concept for me, and son took a course as an elective his freshman year at a large U. There may be enough courses to fill a schedule, but so many will be the usual ones- the same languages offered in HS’s for example. College is a great time to be exposed to all sorts of things you wouldn’t otherwise learn of. A student can only take the same number of credits regardless of where they attend college- but the variety will differ. Somehow I don’t think the LAC science exposure can compare with working in various grad labs for parts of chemistry labs (I still remember having to make an organometallic out of my compound in a grad lab/research setting for a 2 credit course while friends were in other research labs doing different things to their synthesis).</p>
<p>A consortium is not the same thing as having everything available on the same campus. The one where that type of flexibility works may be MIT/Harvard since the two schools are walking distance/easy train stops from each other. Transportation time needs to be considered- online courses are not the same.</p>
<p>In Engineering, the LAC will typically offer significantly fewer majors. They tend to be Civil, Mechanical, Chemical and sometimes Electrical. (not always of course) At a large school you might have 15 or more different engineering majors to select from. LACs also can offer a 3/2 engineering program that has advantages and a lot of disadvantages so that is something to look into.</p>
<p>I just assumed that kids had their preferences and felt they fit better at one type of school over another. My son did not want to apply to any large universities. He preferred the LAC atmosphere and the type and size of classes he envisions there. </p>
<p>He’s my oldest. I figured the next ones down the line would have their own preferences for a big U versus a smaller LAC.</p>
<p>Actually, the Claremont Consortium is within walking distance–all the schools are literally right next to each other (Harvey Mudd even sold Scripps a building once, b/c they literally run right into each other). So it is very, very easy to take classes at other colleges, b/c they honestly aren’t any farther away than the farther buildings at a larger campus. A lot of the clubs and parties are for all five colleges, so there really is no problem w/transportation time. It might be a few minutes more–walking all the way–depending on where on the campus you are.</p>
<p>In fact, three of the colleges share a science department.</p>
<p>Part of the reason there’s so much hype about LACs is that if you or your parents are foreign born, you/they probably haven’t heard of the LACs and have no idea how they differ from the universities-or if they are any good. In many foreign countries, name recognition=quality of educational experience because there are so few top schools to apply to. And not going to a well regarded school may mean that you don’t get a decent job when you graduate.</p>
<p>Foreign born parents transfer that perspective to the US educational system-wrongly because there are literally dozens of top schools to choose from (LAC and non-LAC) and most people will find a decent job no matter where they go to school if they take their academics seriously. So picking purely on the basis of name recognition results in a bias towards universities and doesn’t necessarily produce the best outcome for the student.</p>