@wis75 , that’s ridiculous. Many LACs, esepcially the most well known ones, are extremely rigorous and demanding. My kid’s LAC requires a senior thesis to graduate. Do most public universities? Mine sure didn’t. Many LACs have extremely high numbers of Fulbright scholars, and do very well in grad and med school placement. Coddling doesn’t get those students there. Hard work does. That is possibly one of the most inaccurate statements I have seen on CC.
I was also required to do a senior thesis at my LAC and was definitely not coddled.
If ‘coddling’ means higher graduation rates, I’ll take that. If it means easier to sign up for and get the classes you want, and easier to get housing, I like that too. And if it means having to actually sit in a class and participate in a discussion, vs watching a lecture on your laptop from your dorm room, then I really, really like that!
I find that people like to over-generalize and paint with a broad brush. Most publics don’t require a thesis to graduate. Then again, neither do most LACs. NCF does require a thesis to graduate and it’s a public. Then again, it’s also a LAC. LACs and publics would have big variability in terms of getting the classes you want (at LACs, the difficulty is often that they simply aren’t offered or offered infrequently, rather than getting in) and class participation and pretty much any other variable you care to look at would differ across different areas. So at a LAC, you would get small classes nearly all the time and more faculty attention (definitely in intro classes), yet at a RU, a strong student can nearly always take grad-level seminar classes and go deeper in to a subject than at a LAC.
Basically, people have to evaluate schools individually on their own merits.
My niece went to Scripps and in her sophomore year started to question whether to switch to a large university. Her good friend, who was attending UCLA suggested, before she made that decision, spend a couple of days with her attending her classes so she could make a more informed decision. My niece decided to stay at Scripps, she preferred the small intimate classes and her relationship with the professors.
My daughter grew up wanting the large university experience until she went through the IB program at our large high school. It operated as a school within a school and her IB mentor opened her eyes to the experience of both college experiences. Her reach schools were then all LACs and her mentor was ecstatic when she was accepted into her top choice. It was the first time one of his students was admitted, he was over the moon.
I think it comes down to knowing the choices and what they each have to offer and what experience you want from college. Fit is most important.
Remember this thread originally wasn’t about which is better, LAC’s or RU’s, but about why LAC’s are missing from seniors’ lists. My interpretation of the original post was: why are LAC’s not on the radar for a lot of students? As someone whose kids are at a public high school in the southwest, my take is that most students here have never heard of LAC’s unless the GC tells them about them, or they happen to have a friend or family member who went to one, or they’re a recruited athlete. And I think our overworked GC’s tend to go with what they know.
Agree. If that’s only UW-Madison, so be it.
(threw that in for @wis75 
)
I find this remark by @wis75 amusing considering one key reason why I opted to attend my LAC was precisely because it had more/stronger offerings in my academic areas of interest than several universities including UWISC-Madison at the time I attended.
And that despite being “only” an LAC, I found the academic rigor/quantity of workload to be comparable/more than some of the graduate classes I took at an elite U later on. Not to mention what some universities…including research I universities consider graduate courses would have been comparable to intermediate/advanced undergrad courses at my and comparable LACs assuming they weren’t watered down as was the experience with some college classmates who attended MA/MS/PhD programs even in elite programs.
Not to mention despite my father’s great respect for UWISC-Madison, most of my HS classmates would be laughing at a UW-Madison undergrad alum putting down LACs considering UW-Madison was far easier* to gain admission to than most respectable/elite LACs**. And this in a STEM-centered public magnet whose students even back then were heavily bullish on research I universities over LACs.
- Most HS classmates accepted to/attended UW-Madison were C- to B- level students who had higher SATs than and didn't want to attend NYU-CAS due to financial/academic rep reasons when we were applying. And all were given generous FA/scholarship packages.
** Top 60 or higher LACs. And LACs like Swat, Reed, Harvey Mudd, Wellesley, etc are on an even more rigorous level than that.
I also remember one LAC classmate who was academically struggling to maintain a bare 3.0 GPA before transferring to UT-Austin and suddenly finding her average GPA there shooting up to 3.7+ and having much more free time for social activities/parties despite taking higher-level courses in her major and taking a higher credit load.
Also, forgot to mention one older relative who was so eager to apply/attend my LAC ended up getting rejected TWICE despite attending a respectable LA area private school and graduating within the top fifth of his graduating class. Ended up attending and graduating from UW-Madison.
Much as I was tempted to respond to @wis75’s post in a way similar to cobrat, please let’s not let this turn into a “My school is better than your school” thread.
cobrat, it might be that your classmate was so unhappy at your school that she wasn’t doing well and felt free and happy at the university to take courses she really enjoyed so got better grades.
I think there are LACs and big universities because people want a choice and luckily choices are out there. I would have been miserable at an LAC. I let my kids look at them because they might have liked them, but no, not right for them either.
The courses she took at UT were also available at my LAC, but had far lower average weekly assigned reading loads and essays weren’t graded as hard as was the case at our LAC by her own admission.
She was certainly happier there…but from her account it was largely because the workload/rigor was much lower leaving her with much more free time for parties and other social activities than she had at our LAC.
I think choosing a LACs has alot to due with what part of they country your in. I’m Texas and very few kids choose LAC’s. Most want to go to UT or A&M. The middle class kids who can’t get into these schools get recruited by OU, Arkansas and Ole Miss or they go to Tech, Baylor or TCU. Those kids from upper income households go out of state to the larger west or east coast schools.
@wis75, irrespective of what state you live in, you can be confident that there are better private universities and LAC’s than your state flagship, whether it’s Michigan, Berkeley or UVA. That said there isn’t a one size fits all school, whether it’s the quality of academic experience or cost as many privates universities and LAC’s provide full need based aid and others significant merit based aid so for many students both are viable options.
^ Better is subjective.
If someone requires going to a FBS school to thrive, for instance, pretty much no LAC would fit the bill.
@PurpleTitan, if FBS is necessary to thrive, I would recommend finding the cheapest option available. Agree that LAC’s aren’t likely a fit given that most have 20-40% student athletes and attendance at sporting events is usually based on your friend groups.
@Chembiodad: Perhaps. The point is that fit is important and without taking each individual in to consideration, it’s impossible to say that some option is always better than some other option for all.
@PurpleTitan, agree that better is in to eye of the beholder…
My D goes to a huge inner city school. She comments often about how lucky she is to have a parent who has time and energy to do the college cost research as most of her friends do not. It is nice to be appreciated I must say. I think many busy parents are turned off by the sticker price and don’t realize that in reality few pay that price. For us if the stars align a small well regarded LAC will be less expensive than our very highly regarded state flagship that likely will not be a good fit for our introverted kiddo. I think people just don’t know about the merit aid opportunities available at some great LACs. I certainly before this year did not. My eyes are wide open now.
You think 20-40% of students at big flagships are athletes?
Stanford has 700 athletes and about 7000 students. Colby has about 1900 students and 1/3 of them participate on one or more of the 32 varsity sports teams. U of Texas has 40,000 students, supports 18 varsity teams, and has 500 varsity athletes.
If you go by the raw numbers, sports at LACs are more a part of the school at Colby than at Texas.