<p>I know Swarthmore does, and I am assuming there must be others . . . My high-school-junior nephew is starting to put together a list of colleges and he is possibly interested in engineering. (He is big into robotics at his high school but is also thinking about biology as a major.) </p>
<p>Looking for the advantages of a LAC--small classes, a school that focuses on undergrads rather than graduate students, undergrad classes taught by professors rather than TAs--with an engineering program as well.</p>
<p>Bucknell, Lafayette, Union, Hope and then there are the more techie focused schools like Lehigh, Clarkson, and there’s smaller unis like Villanova and lots more. I did this research last year so I’ll look back and add the rest I researched. My son preferred Bucknell, Hope and Lafayette to the more techie Lehigh.</p>
<p>Oh if you go to college board “Big future college search” and put midsize, engineering, 4 year, co-ed you’ll get all of the colleges that have engineering across the country that “fit” that "smaller college/uni environment. If your nephew wants 2,000 - 5,000 students you can go through pretty quickly and eliminate the larger ones or eliminate regions, etc.</p>
<p>If your main criterion is small, you can look into the smaller [Association</a> of Independent Technological Universities: AITU](<a href=“http://theaitu.org%5DAssociation”>http://theaitu.org) universities. In addition, there are many liberal arts colleges which offer engineering degrees through partnerships with local engineering schools (usually a 2+3 program). For example, my university, Illinois Tech has about 2,400 undergraduates and agreements local universities such as Dominican University, Benedictine University, and Elmhurst College. The disadvantage of the joint programs is that they often take an extra year to get two degrees.</p>
<p>Cobrat I agree, but OP it depends on just how LAC the nephew wants. Harvey Mudd, Olin, Rose-Hulman, Caltech and IMO RPI are full of pretty techie kids. Mine wanted the diversity of being able to take economics and other liberal arts classes in addition to engineering and didn’t want the campus comprised with a majority of stem kids. he didn’t want engineering to be the predominant major. That was always his first question on a tour - what percentage of kids are in engineering. Mine didn’t want every other kid on his floor to be interested in Robotics. His high school classes were full of those kids and he wanted a more diverse college experience.</p>
<p>Engineering degree programs are typically about 45-50% liberal arts courses (about 25% math and science, and about 20-25% humanities and social studies), so engineering students will take plenty of liberal arts. Even very STEM-focused schools will have significant offerings of humanities and social studies for students to take breadth courses in, or major in (e.g. MIT and Caltech).</p>
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<p>That is a more valid concern about at STEM-focused school if one does not want everyone else to be STEM majors. The common data set section about percentage of degrees conferred in each major will be useful here.</p>
<p>MIT’s Humanities/Social Science departments have a few departments one could not only major in, but can hold their heads with topflight graduate/research departments of other elite peers (i.e. Economics, Political Science, Philosophy, Linguistics). </p>
<p>On the other hand, Caltech seemed much more of a STEM-focused school with little/no humanities/social science offerings compared with MIT or other more comprehensive universities like Berkeley, UCLA, or Stanford. Something which my Caltech alum cousin and HS classmates confirmed during their time there from the '80s till the late '90s. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Caltech was much more LAC like according to those same alums. From my own observation of MIT’s campus…it does have a feel much closer to a medium-large university than a LAC/small university.</p>
<p>Caltech’s H/SS offerings are limited compared to those at MIT, but students there can major in English, history, or history and philosophy of science. Very few do, however.</p>
<p>MIT and Caltech students majoring in H/SS subjects have to take much more math and science for breadth than H/SS majors at most other schools.</p>
<p>Olin’s a great school, but is only for students who are sure that they want to major in engineering. There are only 3 majors: Mechanical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Engineering (with potential concentrations in BioEngineering, Computing, Materials Science, or Systems).</p>
<p>Olin is pretty serious about arts and humanities, even though you can’t major in them. Students can (and do) cross-enroll at Babson, Wellesley, and Brandeis. </p>
<p>Also, not every student at Olin is into robotics, even though they’re all engineering majors.</p>
<p>“Looking for the advantages of a LAC–small classes, a school that focuses on undergrads rather than graduate students, undergrad classes taught by professors rather than TAs–with an engineering program as well.”</p>
<p>It looks like you’re talking about Northwestern Engineering. And NU is obviously not just Engineering, so your nephew might like that. Take a look, and see if it’s a fit for him.</p>
<p>If you’re looking west coast, Santa Clara and University of Portland both have good engineering and bio programs. They’re not technically LACs, but have the benefits you’ve listed.</p>
<p>Oh yes I forgot Trinity and that was one my son visited. I think if you have a kid who “wants” engineering and “wants” LAC it is difficult to parse what it is they want if they are unable to express. For my son, his college app list contains some of the colleges mentioned here (like Bucknell, lafayette) but also contains large universities where of course engineering students do not comprise the majority of the campus students. I think if the OP has some conversations with the nephew it will become transparent if it’s size or if it’s curriculum. If it’s simply size then the list expands to include all those wonderful small engineering schools. I forgot Alfred, visited that with my second son and yes, I would include that one on my list. A very interesting place.</p>
<p>If this is a kid with very high stats and Harvey Mudd is an option as I recall it has the typical well rounded LAC requirements. Aside from this it is part of Claremont Consortium, thus while HMC is a very techy environment the other 4 colleges on campus are not. Students can take classes at the other 4 colleges, EC’s are generally open to students of all of the colleges and movement between the campuses is very fluid.</p>