<p>ok, i've heard some general descriptions which differentiate between the two... but what really sets them apart? what types of people apply to each one? what are the advantages to one over the other? why would someone choose a LAC over a university?</p>
<p>also, i've read that LACs don't have as nice facilities as universities because of they receive less grants and therefore don't perform as many projects. is this true? and is this the reason why tuition for LACs is so high?</p>
<p>The main difference is that LACs typically are smaller and provide much more of a community type of feel. Facilities will depend on the particular university/LAC, but typically larger universities will perform more large-scale research.</p>
<p>What truly sets them apart is that they have different educational philosophies. Universities often have several schools, both undergrad and grad, tend to be larger, and the professors tend to do more research. LACs believe in educating undergrads first and foremost, so there are hardly ever any grad students and the professors, not their assistants, teach classes.</p>
<p>Also, you can search this topic. It’s been discussed many times before.</p>
<p>Universities offer a much broader and in most fields a deeper curriculum. Very few LACs offer engineering or undergrad business, for example. Even in the social sciences and humanities, the typical LAC may offer 3 or 4 foreign languages while a major university may offer dozens; the LAC might have 4 or 5 philosophy faculty while the research university might have 25 or 30; the LAC might offer a few international relations courses as part of a government or political science major while the university might have an entirely separate international relations department (or in a few cases, an entire international relations school) along with “area studies” programs in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. The top research universities also generate hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants annually and tend to have state-of-the-art research labs and facilities.</p>
<p>But those riches come at a cost. Big universities don’t have the kind of intimacy that most LACs enjoy. You’ll make friends at a big university, but you won’t recognize most of the people walking across campus, and you probably won’t have as close relationships with your professors. The professors spend more of their time on their own research and on graduate education, less on undergraduate education. And so on.</p>
<p>I believe you can get a great education in either setting. You’ll be spoon-fed a bit more at the LAC; at the research university you’re a little more on your own—though this of course varies with the school, as some LACs are not so great at serving their students, while some research universities, especially those with mega endowments and small undergraduate enrollments, manage to do both things well. Bottom line, I think it’s mostly a matter of personal preference. Visit a couple of each and decide for yourself.</p>
<p>The main diffence I felt at LAC and a regular university was that LAC feels closer to HS where you pretty much know most people, you don’t have huge stadiums for sports, and the profs are teachers. Regular schools are like cities (even in urban enivorments), with grad schools, the professors are researchers, big sports facilities, and if you’re in a large dept like business you may not have classes with the same people a lot. </p>
<p>When I went to ASU one people told me when I *****ed about the size, said they loved it b.c if they hooked up with someone there is a good chance they may never come across the same person and have to deal with the awkwardness.</p>
<p>Liberal Arts Colleges are for student who need to be coddled. JK</p>
<p>Liberal Arts Colleges are for students who need to be challenged.</p>
<p>In a LAC environment, you are less likely to be left alone to scribble notes (or sleep) in the back of a large lecture hall. You will attend more small, discussion-based classes. At the better, more selective LACs, you’ll be expected not only to read the course material, but to think about it and contribute to class discussions. At the best LACs, when you express an opinion in these discussions, you can expect to be challenged to back it up. If you really want to get a good education, visit some classes to verify that this process occurs at any school that interests you. </p>
<p>Selective universities offer a similar experience in many classes.
For some exceptional students who are highly disciplined and self-motivated, a larger research university may be more desirable due to better lab facilities, larger libraries, or more specialized courses.</p>
<p>Tuition for LACs is equivalent to tuition at private universities, in general.</p>
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<p>Amen to that.</p>
<p>LACs are better since their profs tend care about their actual job.</p>
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<p>Wrong. Badly wrong. The difference is that the job of professors is defined more broadly at research universities, to include research and scholarly publication as well as graduate education, in addition to undergraduate education. At LACs the job is defined more narrowly to focus centrally on the teaching of undergraduates. Professors at both LACs and at research universities “care about their actual job,” but the job is substantially different in these very different settings. If you believe that it’s important to study with faculty whose primary job is to teach undergraduates, you’ll choose LACs. If you believe that there’s value added in studying with people whose job is not only to teach but to produce new knowledge at the frontiers of their field, you’ll choose research universities. It’s pretty much as simple as that. </p>
<p>I may be biased, but I’ve always thought that the opportunity to do cutting-edge research and production of new knowledge is a very powerful attractor of academic talent, and that therefore the very best academics are attracted to research universities, and not so much to LACs. That’s not to say the teachers at LACs are not very capable; but it does suggest they’ll tend to teach somewhat derivatively, mainly recounting other people’s work and not so much engaging students in their own work.</p>
<p>When one of my D’s and I first learned about “research” during a college tour, off the list it went. None of my children are allowed to look into research universities now. I refuse to let them choose an extra extracurricular over personal attention. Academics first.</p>
<p>People who never get past the “National Universities” section of the USNews college issue tend to apply to universities. People who read the whole magazine tend to apply to LACs.</p>
<p>Those that tend to apply to colleges based on what they read in a magazine might want to consider the logic of that premise.</p>
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I’m not sure I agree. Particularly in the humanities, the job market has had excellent academics scrambling for any available position, whether at a LAC or university. LACs also often specialize in areas larger universities don’t deign to cover. The field of Cypriot archaeology, for example, is wholly dominated by LACs (Davidson, Colgate, Lycoming, Trinity, etc.). On a broader scale, I can think of any number of LACs with impressive dig sites (e.g. Dickinson at Mycenae). It’s important to remember that most countries limit the number of American excavations, so these LACs are beating out research universities for coveted digs.</p>
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<p>I’m a strong LAC proponent, but I have to admit that the above is true for the sciences. For the humanities and social sciences, it is not as important, but top scientists want top graduate students and great facilities. A paper on postmodernism can be written anywhere. Research into the genetic markers of a certain disease cannot. The sciences tend to be more collaborative and therefore need more people to successfully explore research topics.</p>
<p>Still, I don’t think studying with a famous scientist as an undergraduate is that important. That’s what grad school is for.</p>
<p>ctyankee - as opposed to basing it on what they read in half a magazine?</p>
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<p>Parents often make the assumption that ECs are a zero-sum proposition - that any effort invested into them is effort that’s pulled away from academics. That’s not the case; academic motivation is its own phenomenon. Effort in schoolwork will be determined by that motivation and not by having extra unscripted hours in the day. On the other hand, having those extra hours scripted requires students to develop time management and planning skills that ultimately are great academic assets. Assuming that academics are “traded” for ECs is like keeping a budding musician from playing jazz under the premise that it’ll keep him or her from playing classical. Musicians, like scholars, will engage in what resonates with them. Branching out into new interests will only broaden the context for their main studies.</p>
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<p>I disagree. </p>
<p>First, for many future scientists the formative years between 18 and 21 are often the most critical in determining a future career path. Exposure to cutting edge research, teaching by famous faculty who can excite one’s intellectual curiosity, personal mentoring with leaders in the field, availability of role models may all be critical factors in the decision process. At places such as MIT or Caltech, undergrads routinely work alongside grad students and post-docs on advanced research, can take the same advanced classes, get their work published in scientific journals and interact directly with the scientists-faculty who often run their own labs. The relationship between scientists and undergrads is also generally unencumbered by other duties such as working on a thesis. Grad students typically don’t drop in for a chat with some random faculty member as undergrads often can. There is a level of freedom as an undergrad that simply doesn’t exist as a grad student. </p>
<p>Second, grad school is highly specialized and the course choices will be limited by design. It is only as an undergrad that a student has the option to sample a wide variety of subjects outside of one’s intended major. In an increasingly technologically complex society, broad scientific literacy is essential to future physicians, engineers, policy makers and many other professions. It is quite often the case that leaders in a field, themselves passionate about their work, can best extract the essence of the subject matter and translate it in relevant terms to non specialists. At MIT and Caltech, the faculty is generally required to teach undergrads and many of the most famous professors teach an introductory course, precisely to “wet the appetite” of the student body. Anybody who took intro physics with Feynman or Macroeconomics I with Krugman probably still remembers some of the classes twenty years later. A good teacher can explain the “what”, but only somebody who truly masters the subject matter can explain the “why”. </p>
<p>Undergrad is a time for discovery and it is hard to discover without exposure.</p>
<p>And yet, LACs almost always comprise half the top thirty or forty per capita producers of science Ph.Ds. This has been true for the past sixty years.</p>