LAC's Over Other Good Schools

Has anyone chosen LAC’s over other good school, and why (other than small undergrad population)?

These are some features of top small liberal arts colleges. Many of these features may also apply to top universities or honors programs at public universities. They are the raison d’etre of LAC’s.

Small classes, starting right from freshman year
Wonderful discussions in class
Great relationships with professors who really love teaching, not just research
Research opportunities go to undergrads because there is no competition from grad students
Seamless connection of learning in class to out of class; class conversations spill over into dorms, dining halls, professors’ homes to which they invite students, etc.
Tight community, warm and welcoming to all
You can’t get “lost” in the crowd there- people are aware of and look out for one another
Friendships for life
Really loyal alumni
Easy to get involved in clubs, etc. and take on leadership roles in them

Our family all vastly preferred small colleges for undergraduate work, but I see a few reasons some might prefer larger universities:
-more choices of courses, and more likely to find classes and a professor specializing in a less common topic interest you may have
-may have the most advanced equipment/ cutting-edge research
-better known names with the general public, esp. if they have well-known sports teams
-some people like anonymity, and the opportunity to reinvent themselves periodically without everyone knowing their business

Large vs. small is a matter of personal preference.

Both my kids picked LACs over very good universities they were accepted to as well, Neither regretted it for a moment.

My D also selected LAC over top universities. She didn’t know her Senior year in HS what she wanted and applied to colleges of different sizes. Her ‘mental’ first choice during Fall of application season as a 16k undergrad, then by winter it was a a tightly linked cluster of LACs that formed a mid-size consortium, and then after attending accepted students days she chose a 2k stand alone LAC. All great options – but it was the accepted students overnight that made her realize she wanted smaller environment. She’s very happy first year now.

Her reasons:
– classes taught only by full professors and very high caliber education
– no competition with grad students for research
– smaller classes at intro levels, esp. a factor with science where big universities tend to have very large intro classes. And, less grade competition b/c there’s not a weed out mentality for pre-med (she’s not pre-med but is in classes with those who are)
– general sense that opportunities are avail for everyone, not just the few who rise to the top
– close knit community

S19 is only applying to LAC’s for the reasons listed above, and we are fully behind that decision. However, if he were LGBTQIA+, it would be a tougher call. The relevant dating pool at a 2000 student college is pretty darn small vs. a larger university. An LAC with a consortium nearby would be a good compromise.

I have told my two children that I will disown them if they choose a large university.

Joking aside (note: I am not joking), yes, OP, there are plenty of people who choose LACs. It’s a small percentage, as only 2-3% of college students graduate from LACs, so this means that LACs tend to attract a certain type. I am not at all saying a better type, just a type of student who sort of knows that the LAC environment is right for her/him. In my case, I had no idea that LACs even existed, but once I discovered them, I knew immediately that this was the type of setting where I would thrive. I wanted a sort of classic, old school experience (but very much current, if that makes sense): everyone living on campus, everyone eating in the caf, everyone living/breathing/eating/sleeping/studying/dreaming the college 24/7. I thought I was headed to the state flagship (absolutely positive of it), but chose one of the CTCL schools instead.

Small correction here - I assume this means “real” professors, which includes assistant and associate profs.

@CheddarcheeseMN – yes, that’s what I meant. Professors and not grad students/teaching assistants.

I wanted exactly the opposite. I wanted fellow students of all ages, from all over the world, different religions and races and views on world events.

I wanted the chance to live in a dorm or apartment or sorority house, or co-op. I wanted to go to dinners hosted by my Jewish friends at their homes, to try cooking different dishes in my apartment or eat at ethnic restaurants. I did not want to eat in a cafeteria for 4 years.

I was a liberal arts major, but had friends who were engineers (and these women became leaders in their fields), in the ROTC, who were on D1 sports teams.I loved getting the course catalog with hundreds of courses offered; even if I couldn’t take differential equations or triple advanced physics, I could actually go and listen to the lecture if I wanted to (I didn’t). I really loved the diversity of career goals, majors, backgrounds and that everyone wasn’t living/breathing/eating together for 4 years.

@twoinanddone - while my D chose a LAC, I was like you in wanting a larger school, and I attended our state flagship. Mostly, I wanted to reinvent myself – and did it a couple of times – and liked the anonymity of a big college where I could do that. (Also, tbh, it was all my family could afford.) My husband also attended a large public but, interestingly, through my D’s college search process he realizes now that he may have preferred and thrived more in a small LAC.

Meanwhile, I am still confident that bigger was better fit for me – I really had no idea who I was when I graduated HS and needed the four years of a big wide college to develop. My D, on the other hand, has been comfortable in her own skin from a very young age and arrived at college with an already developed strong sense of self and purpose.

As has been hashed out many times over on CC, different strokes. . .

I find it interesting that the grad student vs. professor thing is mentioned so frequently on CC when I see the absolute blinding difference between large schools and LACs to be the percentage of full-time professors vs. adjuncts. Small LACs often have very few adjuncts in addition to having no graduate assistants With the national average of teaching faculty being adjuncts so high, this is the biggest “pro” of an LAC, maybe more of a fair employment consideration than anything else, though. Adjuncts can often be better instructors than tenured faculty. But full-time faculty offer opportunities for collaboration and networking that adjuncts don’t.

Lots of people do this (including me), and it’s not at all unusual.

You can go to a college in a consortium (like the Claremont colleges) and get the best of both worlds.

People always forget about adjunct professors…these are professors paid by the class and are not full time employees. Check on the percentage of those as well. They are not full time so will not be having you over to their house or living in your dorm. They are paid to teach the class and that is it. Office hours may or may not be included.

@bopper. Yes, but context for adjuncts matters too. I agree adjuncts teaching things like English Comp or history to undergrads is certainly less than desirable. However, I got a master’s in public policy and having adjuncts chosen b/c of their real world experience was great. I took a policy making course taught by a former US senator and we had the former head of the CBO teach a public finance class. Not too shabby. Less lofty but I think this holds true for adjunct faculty in many fields like nursing, manufacturing & operations, and some aspects of fields like journalism and business. Drawing from the professional ranks can make learning more relevant and up to date.

My husband has been adjunct law professor on occasion, teaching legal writing & research and a specialty legal elective. In both areas he brings 20+ years of professional legal experience to the classroom. He’s hired his students for internships and helped them network with others.

Again, I don’t think it’s great to have adjuncts teaching humanities, sciences, or even social science fields for the reasons you provide. But for quite a few fields they can be value add to the student and the college.

I wonder if universities publish their adjunct numbers by subject and/or undergrad vs. grad?

D’s at a LAC. Her professors are mostly tenure track or tenured (but there are visiting profs there for a year or two also). Only 3% are part time (aka adjunct), but she had one of them who was recruited specifically to teach a course in his professional field. That was really fun for her and she learned a lot.

The only dud prof she’s had in the 4 years was a “first year after PhD” one who only taught there for one year (pretty sure this prof got terrible student reviews/feedback and wasn’t asked back) and is now teaching elsewhere.

Interesting article on adjuncts at LACs that points out what has been mentioned here - usually thought of as money-savers, sometimes they are recruited for their specific expertise in something. I mean, if Barack Obama or Anthony Kennedy taught one law class somewhere next semester they’d technically be adjuncts, right? In that they’d be non-tenure part timers.

Anyway to OP’s question:

I did. Honestly it was the best fit school I got into. I’d also applied to universities and when my acceptances came in I had 5-6 of those, both public and private (but not my top choice at the time which was Brown) plus 3 LACs.

The LAC I attended was similar in vibe to Brown and also gave the best financial aid. It was geographically where i wanted to be and I knew people there.

Probably similar reasons to how someone would choose a particular university.

My kids and I did not choose LACs or Us as categories and only apply to one or the other, we all applied to both types and 2 of us chose LACs, one chose a small U. Just the overall fit among the acceptances and financially affordable options - could have easily gone another way.

As it happened I left mine and later attended a large public U, but not because that was better than a LAC for me, but because things in my life changed in various ways.

^Yes! I had an architecture professor who was “just” an adjunct. https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utaaa/00009/aaa-00009.html He was in charge of a lot of renovations at Colonial Williamsburg, along with work in historical Galveston. He also happened to be a WWII pilot who was shot down and held in a German POW camp. One of the most amazing teachers I had at UT-Austin. Another one of my “just an adjunct” professors was a leading expert in masonry design. https://masonrysociety.org/clayford-t-grimm-recognized-honorary-member/ He was also in the infantry in WWII and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Both men shared lots of stories from their time in the service.

I’m sure glad I didn’t reject UT because of their adjuncts.

In terms of adjuncts, it does look like there is consensus that those in or retired from non-academic careers teaching specialty electives in their areas can be desirable for a non-academic perspective on the subject, but adjuncts doing nothing else but trying to earn a living teaching common ordinary courses are less desirable from a student academic experience point of view.

For me, the problem with adjuncts isn’t some intuition that they’re not as good as full professors but a compunction about how badly they’re exploited. I feel similarly about grad student TAs (although some are now unionizing!).