LACs vs. Universities

College Search & Selection
21

<p>No question that UChicago is an atypical example of the university experience. My wife recently had conversation with a professor who had taught at UChicago before moving to Harvard. </p>

<p>He noted some signficant differences in the teaching experience at the two schools with Chicago's students being more oriented towards academics and Harvard's prioritizing their time and efforts more towards the stunning array of extracurriculars and less towards classroom prep. One is not "better" than the other; simply "different" in emphasis.</p>

22

<p>Interestedad, those are amazing class numbers. Let me start off by saying, I think Swarthmore is as good as it gets. </p>

<p>I do have to wonder though. There are some classes where bigger can be better like sociology classes, cultural classes, and philosophy classes. Classes where you want to be able to express yourself, but you also want to hear multiple viewpoints. I don't know. Maybe those are the larger classes at Swarthmore. How's your d like Swarthmore so far? Pros and cons.</p>

23

<p>I have a friend that knows Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, and Penn very well and thinks Chicago is the best academically. She does think all these schools are fantastic.</p>

24

<p>Well, what I know about UChicago is that the average class size is under 20. Many intro classes have 50-100 students (although social studies and english intro are capped at 15 and 20, respectively). After intro most classes are under 20, and many are under 10. Also, undergrads can take grad classes which are usually smaller. I'm also having some difficulty comparing resources. Both UChicago and Swarthmore offer funding for summer internships in various fields. Both processes are competitive. UChicago funds 20 students to do summer research with Human Rights Organizations all over the world. Does Swat have something comparable?</p>

25

<p>*These are in classes taught by profs, not TAs. TAs just lead discussion sessions in the large lectures, I believe.</p>

26

<p>
[quote]
Does Swat have something comparable?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yes, of course. </p>

<p>Swarthmore is one of the ten wealthiest colleges and universities (in terms of per student endowment) and has a mission statement that reads:</p>

<p>*The purpose of Swarthmore College is to make its students more valuable human beings and more useful members of society. Although it shares this purpose with other educational institutions, each school, college, and university seeks to realize that purpose in its own way. Swarthmore seeks to help its students realize their fullest intellectual and personal potential combined with a deep sense of ethical and social concern. *</p>

<p>Swarthmore students get funding for just about everything under the sun including many service and research projects, both in the US and overseas.</p>

<p>One of my D's friends (a rising sophmore) has full funding for work at a refugee camp in Ghana this summer. </p>

<p>My D received some funding for inner-city youth service work in the US this summer as well, although as a rising sophmore, she's not eligible yet for the larger community service grants -- the Lang Scholar grants.</p>

<p>Swarthmore's biggest benefactor, Eugene Lang, is a noted philanthropist (see <a href="http://www.ihad.org/history.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ihad.org/history.php&lt;/a&gt;) who has also started a foundation (Project Pericles) to provide seed money for LACs to integrate social service into the curriculum.</p>

27

<p>I know Swat has a lot of money, I've just had trouble finding specific info on the net regarding applying for funding. I'm curious as to how competitive it is, and how much money is available, so that I can compare specs to other schools...</p>

28

<p>The program sounds great but 2 scholarships isn't a lot -I wonder how many they'll offer after the program review? (<a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/admin/langgrants/how_to_apply.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/admin/langgrants/how_to_apply.php&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

29

<p>I guess what I'm wondering, is do you have any idea what % of students receive grants directly from the school of say, $3000 or more for summer projects?</p>

30

<p>Nina:</p>

<p>There are many "official" programs that include summer stipends.</p>

<p>For example, there are currently 31 Evans scholars at Swarthmore. This program includes full funding for summer internships, service, and/or research, both domestically and internationally.</p>

<p>The $10,000 Lang Grants are for students wishing to start new community service programs. As I understand it, they have decided not to award these to incoming freshmen, but instead to offer up to five of these, open to rising juniors. </p>

<p>There are also smaller Swarthmore Foundation grants that cover other community service summer activities. These can range as high as $3000+ depending on the project. My D received one of these as a rising sophmore. Her Swarthmore grant was smaller, not because the money wasn't there, but due to specific guidelines that I don't want to go into. The Lang Center did work with her in structuring her grant proposal to maximize the grant under the guidelines of what the funds can and cannot be used for. Between her Swarthmore grant and outside foundation grants, I believe that she ended up reaching nearly her full budgeted goal, including her stipend.</p>

<p>There are also stipends for working in existing Swarthmore projects, both during the school year and in the summer, although getting a stipend in some of these may be dependent on need-based financial aid and work-study programs, just as it would be for getting paid to work in the library, give admissions office tours, do scientific research with a professor, or any of the other summer opportunities on and off campus.</p>

<p>Swarthmore's study abroad programs are fully-funded by your financial aid package. Many of these specifically include research and/or service work.</p>

<p>Finally, there are discretionary funds for independent study available for majors in each department along with specific targeted scholarships such as this new one:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/releases/05/lemkin.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/releases/05/lemkin.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>These can include foreign summer projects where appropriate and often include service work in foreign countries.</p>

<p>If you want specific information on any of these, I would e-mail, call, or visit:</p>

<p>Deborah Kardon-Brown or Pat James at the Lang Center.</p>

<p>Steve Piker at the Foreign Study Office.</p>

<p>The chair of academic departments of interest to you, for example, the Asian Studies program, the Sociology department, the Dance department, etc.</p>

<p>The mechanism is not so much "here are 50 stipends, let's fill them". Rather, "come up with a good idea and the college will help you find a way to make it happen".</p>

<p>I can't give you a specific percentage. But, a sizeable percentage of Swarthmore students receive stipends at or near the range you are talking about for all kinds of things in the summer. There are many working on campus each summer. BTW, this is true for almost all well-heeled colleges and universities.</p>

31

<p>
[quote]
The goal of every college professor is to earn tenure (life time employment).

[/quote]

Very True.
A number of schools also have post-tenure review to prevent their faculty members from slacking off.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Because liberal arts colleges only have one division (undergrad education), their tenure requirements place heavy emphasis on undergrad teaching.

[/quote]

Not a chance in the world of being true.</p>

<p>Nearly every tenure track program (university or LAC) amounts to "publish or perish." If a rising professor does not publish enough works of significance, he or she is banished. What works are significant is not measured only by others within a faculty member's school, but by scholars in schools across the country, etc. The most brilliant Ph.D graduates usually want to go to schools where they have access to the best resources in order to produce significant works and make it to tenure. Better research resources (e.g. labs, research facilities, and grad students) are found at universities not LACs in nearly every instance. The bottom line is that the brightest faculty go to research universities; the next tier go to LACs.</p>

32

<p>
[quote]
I do have to wonder though. There are some classes where bigger can be better like sociology classes, cultural classes, and philosophy classes. Classes where you want to be able to express yourself, but you also want to hear multiple viewpoints. I don't know. Maybe those are the larger classes at Swarthmore. How's your d like Swarthmore so far? Pros and cons.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I would be surprised if any sociology class at Swarthmore has more than 20 students. Both of the seminars my D took her first year were capped at 12.</p>

<p>The large classes (30+ at Swarthmore) are mostly concentrated in the overly popular departments: Bio, Econ, Intro Psych, probably the intro survey chem courses, etc. plus a few, such as the intro Art History survey course, where the lecture format/viewing slides is the appropriate approach. </p>

<p>Lack of diversity is the last thing I've heard from my daughter's experience at Swarthmore. She's had professors from Jordan and Japan, classmates from Nepal and Rwanda, friends who "came out of the closet" to their parents during freshman year, and so on and so forth. She came home in May and loaded up our Netflix DVD queue with "Bollywood" movies from India, a taste she acquired at Swarthmore.</p>

<p>She has only been able to come up with two "cons" when we've talked about her first year, both rather trivial. One is that she finds eating in the dining hall repetitious. Second is that she finds the amount of "debate" outside the classroom to be excessive at times. This one was, in part, a function of an election year and, in part, learning not to sit next to the known hard-core "debaters" at dinner every night and, just like in the real world, staying away from politics and religion. From what I can tell, she and her friends are equally likely to talk about books they have read for classes or hot movie stars at any given time.</p>

33

<p>Razorsharp:</p>

<p>The question is not where "the brightest" (whatever that means) get tenure. The question, for undergrads, is where do the best undergrad TEACHERS get tenure.</p>

<p>While publishing is a component at both types of schools, there is a huge difference in the tenure weighting at an R1 research university and an undergrad liberal arts college. At R1 universities, research is the first priority of the faculty, in large part because research is often the largest single revenue stream. At LACs, teaching undergrads is the first priority, in large part because undergrad tuition revenue is almost always the largest single revenue stream. </p>

<p>Colleges and univerities are businesses. They priortize to meet the needs of their primary customers. A business where undergrad students are the primary customer is going to prioritize differently than a business where undergrad students are not the primary customer.</p>

34

<p>Dstark:</p>

<p>Here are some coarse class size comparisons from the new USNEWS data:</p>

<p>Classes under 20: Swat 74%, UChic 55%
Classes with 20-49: Swat 24%, UChic 39%
Classes with 50+: Swat 2%, UChic 6%</p>

<p>This is why I think the student/faculty ratios published for universities are suspect. The class sizes don't jive with published ratios. If you have smaller student/faculty ratio, you should, logically, have smaller class sizes!</p>

35

<p>Are these recent stats? Because the Swat website says 71% of classes are under 20, and I heard that UChicago classes under 20 are more than 55% (though probably lower than 70%). I'd agree Swat beats out UChicago on class size -depending on your major. Btw, for what it's worth, the diversity at Swat is comparable to a lot of other institutions these days.</p>

36

<p>I suppose the only advantage of higher student-faculty ratio then, is that there's a possibility of working with a greater variety of faculty outside of the classroom... Actually, I happen to know that UChicago utilizes a lot of professionals from nearby museums and things to teach like one class. I suppose this could be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on these people's availability to students during the rest of the school year.</p>

37

<p>On the other hand, if you have profs at Swat teaching multiple classes with 12 students, and profs at UChicago teaching one class with 25-maybe availability to students outside of class evens out?</p>

38

<p>Interestedad, thanks for the info.</p>

39

<p>Nina:</p>

<p>The class size data is from the just released USNEWS database. It is taken from the 2004/2005 Common Data Set questionaires completed by each college.</p>

<p>The class size information is from the fall semester 2004 -- so it is the most recent available.</p>

<p>Schools will begin posting their 2005-2006 Common Data Set forms sometime in the October/November time frame.</p>

<p>If you want accurate data for Swarthmore, go to this link:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It has the Common Data Set filings for the last six years. And the Factbook link has current and historic data on just about everything. The data here will be more accurate than "factoids" on the admissions office webpage.</p>

<p>Many colleges have a similar "Institutional Research" webpage with similarly detailed data.</p>

40

<p>Hmm... well Swat sounds like a great place, honest. Now, impressing my parents of this is a whole other matter. Although liberal, they are basically the antithesis of idealistic, or deep-thinking for that matter...</p>

<p>For instance, conversation:</p>

<p>Me: There's this great school, it has smart students, really small classes, and lots of individual attention w/ collaborative learning, and...</p>

<p>Them: I think you need to get over this need for individual attention. The world doesn't work that way. Don't say small classes are better learning environments, we got a GREAT education at a state school. Saying small classes provide better learning is elitist and not true. Also, I've never heard of too many great people coming from Swarthmore, besides congressmen, who aren't necessarily that smart. You go to college to get a job. People who go to college focused on personal fulfillment are rich people from families where they don't have to work, or people whose parents were hippies from rich families.</p>