<p>I'm kind of interested in a Liberal Arts education but I don't really like how small the colleges are. Are there any larger colleges with a liberal arts feel?</p>
<p>Any big university that is in the upper ranges of selectivity will have lots of students majoring in liberal arts. Even less selective big universities with a heavy representation of students in pre-professional majors will often have more liberal arts majors than the entire student population at smaller liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>Look at the Claremont Consortium in CA. Five liberal arts-like colleges clustered together. Each school has within 800 - 1500 or so students, but they are all located together and offer cross-registration, 5C events, etc. Collectively, the student body has around 5,000 or so, I believe.</p>
<p>Besides the Claremont schools, there are two other small college consortiums.
One is the Massachusetts 5 College Consortium (consisting of Amherst, Hampshire, UMass-Amherst, and two women’s colleges, Smith and Mt. Holyoke). The other is the Philadelphia-area consortium, consisting of Haverford, Bryn Mawr (women only), Swarthmore, and UPenn. </p>
<p>These consortium relationships allow you to attend a small LAC but also get the wider course selection and social contacts of a larger school. The Claremont consortium seems to be the best integrated of the 3 (with the least physical distance among the schools). The Bryn Mawr-Haverford relationship also is relatively tight (with complete integration of some majors). </p>
<p>Some schools blur the distinctions between university and LAC. For example, Wesleyan (Middletown, CT) is large for a LAC (~3K students) and has some graduate programs. Brandeis is small for a research university (3500 undergrads). The University Chicago is larger than either of those, but still fairly small (with ~5400 undergrads). Its undergraduate curriculum is entirely arts & sciences (no business/engineering/journalism etc.), and its average class sizes are comparable to what you’d get at some LACs (75% < 20, 5% >= 50 students). Other universities that you might consider “LAC-like” in some respects include Yale, Vanderbilt, Rice and Wake Forest.</p>
<p>Another way to go is to choose an urban LAC. Many of them are located in rural/suburban towns. An urban location (or close access to a city center) will allow easier escape than if you’re in a relatively isolated place like Middlebury, VT or Grinnell, IA.</p>
<p>As ucbalumnus points out, you can get a liberal arts education at virtually any large research university. What you won’t necessarily get (consistently or without extra effort, from year 1) is close engagement with faculty and other students through challenging reading & writing assignments in small, discussion-based classes.</p>
<p>You might also want to look at some of the regional universities. Many of these schools are fairly small for a university, but much larger than a typical liberal arts college. They also lack extensive graduate programs meaning that professors often have more of an undergrad focus than at many, much larger, research institutions. These schools tend to feel a bit more preprofessional than their LAC peers, but typically have good offerings in the liberal arts fields, especially because as a larger school they can afford to have a greater depth of subjects covered. </p>
<p>As much as I hate to link to the rankings, check out the [US</a> News’ Regional University Rankings](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-universities]US”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-universities) as it shows the regional universities for each region. However don’t automatically assume that the rankings correspond with how good a school is. For instance, University of Dallas is a phenomenal school for humanities minded, hard core Catholics, and is probably a much better fit than #3 ranked LMU whose students are not nearly as religious.</p>
<p>^ A few things to point out about the “regional” universities (the ones that show up in the USNWR top 10 lists, anyway):
- they tend to be in urban locations
- they often are Roman Catholic
- they generally are just as expensive as the “national” LACs, with less generous need-based aid than the top 40 or so national LACs
- they tend to have fewer very small (< 20 student) classes and more mid-sized (20-49 student) classes
- their student bodies may be drawn more heavily from in-state or neighboring states
- they generally offer a variety of pre-professional majors (business, communications, health, etc.), which tend to be among the most popular at these schools. In this respect, they aren’t “liberal arts” colleges at all.</p>
<p>Brown or maybe Dartmouth might be good fits for you.</p>
<p>While it’s true that they tend to be in urban locations (which IMO is a positive for the majority of students able to afford these schools), their Roman Catholic affiliation is often minimal at best. Additionally, at some of the better regional universities (I’ll take Loyola Marymount as an example since I’m extremely familiar with the school), the vast majority of classes have less then 40 people. The students may predominately come from in state, but that’s true of most liberal arts colleges of their selectivity. In fact, even at the most highly ranked liberal arts college (Bowdoin for instance) the majority of students come from one region. Many of the better regional universities are also in states with enormous populations. LMU for instance is in California, a state of 38 million people. So although they may mostly come from in state, the state is usually as large as some regions of the country. I hardly ever hear people advising a student from the Northeast to avoid coming to Beloit because it’s mostly comprised of students from a three state midwestern region which actually has less people than California does. </p>
<p>The preprofessional aspect is absolutely true, however many students at liberal arts colleges also major in fields that could be thought of as preprofessional, eg econ, biology, political science, etc. </p>
<p>Also agree that they tend to give worse need based aid, although they may award better merit scholarships to kids that would ordinarily be competitive for fairly good LACs, or in LMU’s case, the mid to top tier UCs, but opt for a regional university instead.</p>
<p>Among the better regional institutions, Trinity University (Tx) gives great need based aid, isn’t terribly preprofessional, and has, from what I’ve read, great academics. I’m sure there are other regional universities which fit this mold.</p>
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<p>This is true of moderately selective schools like San Jose State (where most courses are limited to 35 students, even at the frosh level, but pre-professional majors make up about 75% of the students). But the absolute number of students in liberal arts majors, and the offerings in liberal arts departments, can be greater than that of entire liberal arts colleges (the 25% of undergraduates in liberal arts majors of the 25,000 total students is 6,250, which is larger than most entire liberal arts colleges).</p>
<p>Given that many of the schools that fit what many see as the desired liberal arts college model the best are very selective and/or expensive, many students may need to find other schools that can be suitable for affordable safety purposes.</p>
<p>No doubt, if you want to major in English or History, you can do so at virtually any regional university. Many students do just that. However, a significant minority of students at these schools - or even the majority - major in pre-professional subjects. At Loyola MD, 47% major in Business or Speech/Communications. At Villanova, 63% major in Business, Engineering, Health, or Communications. Schools with this emphasis are bound to have a very different academic and social atmosphere than schools where all students major in liberal arts and sciences.</p>
<p>If the OP wants a “liberal arts feel”, but with broader liberal arts course offerings or a bigger student body, then I don’t think a regional university is likely to fill the need. The OP did not indicate that selectivity or cost were the main issues. Chances are, a regional university won’t have more of that liberal arts “feel” at all. It probably will not have broader course offerings in the arts & sciences (especially in newer or less popular fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, gender studies, area studies, etc.). It may not have a significantly larger student body. In my opinion, a “national” university (especially one of the smaller, more selective ones) is rather likely to have more in common than a regional university with a national LAC (at least w.r.t. curriculum, intellectual atmosphere, and perhaps demographics).</p>
<p>It all depends on what someone really wants. For other students (or for the OP, if I’ve misunderstood), a regional uni may well be ideal.</p>
<p>Truman State is generally considered a LAC, although it is relatively large with about 6,000 students. But the “embedded LAC” at San Jose State has that number of liberal arts majors.</p>
<p>Dartmouth
Bucknell</p>
<p>Holy Cross at 2900 students is one of the better National LAC’S. Unlike most lac’s that are in remote,rural locations, Holy Cross is located 1 hour from Boston.</p>
<p>^ I’m not sure how that is much of a differentiator. I think most of what are considered remote LACs are within an hour of a fairly large city. Kenyon is an hour from Columbus, Earlham is an hour from Indy, Olaf is an hour from Minneapolis…</p>
<p>You should look at some of the public liberal arts colleges, preferably in your own state as the tuition would be lower.</p>
<p>[COPLAC</a> | Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges](<a href=“http://www.coplac.org/members/]COPLAC”>Members – COPLAC)</p>