Hello College Confidential! I’m a junior that is continuing his college search as the senior year approaches As I was looking at different colleges, I couldn’t help but to wonder the difference between a liberal arts college and a university/college. Like what makes them different from each other? My current goal is Northwestern University but I know that’s a reach school and I want to find a college that is perfect for me if I don’t get into NU, whether that be liberal arts or not.
I am planning to major in engineering and go to med school. With this in mind, which college would it be wise for me to attend? Any type of opinion/input will be very appreciated. Thanks~
Liberal Arts are schools like Colgate, Haverford, Middlebury… etc. They are small schools that have about 1000-2000 students. They have small classes as well. Universities are big and do more research than a liberal arts school
Good new/bad news: LACs may not be the best choice for engineering; on the other hand, engineering may not be the best choice for pre-med. GPA killer and all. Some LACs like Davidson are known for having high med school placement rates.
@NASA2014 Is that the main difference between the two? Just smaller student size for LAC and more researches for universities? What about graduation requirements? I heard some people say LACs require classes that are outside your field. Is this true?
@Zavalon if you major in some kind of engineering on the premed track with the intention of going on to med school, your undergrad experience will be miserable. The most important thing, as a premed student, during undergrad is to get the highest GPA possible. This will be incredibly difficult as an engineering major. There is a reason most premed students major in Bio, and it’s not just because the premed requirements overlap with the major.
LACs do not have PHD programs, So graduate students are not doing the teaching and competing for professors’ attention. Also, LACs only offer majors in the liberal arts and sciences (sometimes engineering too, but rarely) - so no business, education, criminal justice, nursing, etc.
Most LACs AND most research universities require a certain amount of coursework outside your major. This may be called a distribution requirement, general education, or a core curriculum. There are exceptions on both sides, such as Brown (research U) or Amherst (LAC) that have fairly minimal requirements. On the other hand, both U Chicago and Reed College have fairly extensive cores. It depends more on the specific institution than the LAC/research U distinction.
If you’re thinking about going into engineering or med schools, liberal arts colleges probably aren’t the best place for you. Don’t get me wrong, LAC’s are great and they offer solid academics in a small, tight-knit environment. But your interests align more along the basic university track. LAC’s are more for people who desire that well-rounded academic approach in a close community; it also serves as a great place for people who aren’t sure of what they want to do and dabble in different things. Universities do more research because of their size etc.
I don’t recommend majoring in engineering if you want to do pre-med. Engineering kills your GPA and med schools desire STRONG grades (3.7+ preferably) to accept you. Major in biology or something like that.
There seems to be a misconception that a LAC has different requirements for graduation than the Arts & Science division of a research university. That’s not true. The A&S division of a university is just a large liberal arts college surrounded by other university divisions. You will most likely receive a B.A. at either place, having majored in something that emphasizes your analytic and communication skills. Common among them are a spectrum of basic (as opposed to, applied) science research subjects. LACs are an excellent place to go for premed.
However, in many universities you would have to choose between a separate engineering school OR arts and science. Engineering typically has the most prerequisite requirements of any undergraduate major which means you have less time to experiment with other majors. So, yes. That’s an important to decision to make at the outset.
That’s an interesting chart, and a useful counterpoint to the conventional wisdom, which I’ve been echoing here.
I’m curious, however, about exactly what that chart is showing. Is it overall GPA of engineering vs. science majors? If so, then the conventional wisdom is certainly wrong.
Or is it in-major GPA of science vs. engineering majors? If so, science majors may still have an edge, as science majors typically carry fewer required courses than engineering majors. A chemistry major at Swarthmore, for example, has twelve required courses, by my count[0] - 3 math/physics prereqs, eight chemistry courses, and one 100-level seminar. An engineering major has twenty required courses - seven core engineering, five from an engineering elective program, 4 math and 4 science.[1] In that case, chemistry majors would have a significant edge in potential GPA, with an 8-course margin that could be filled with leniently-graded classes.
Or, is it some other metric entirely? Not easy to tell from the context.
“The next big choice to make when choosing a pre med school is whether you want to attend a large university or a small liberal arts college. Can you get an adequate pre-medical education at both of these types of institutions? Yes, for the most part. Almost all big universities will have the necessary pre-med science courses as they typically will have several science departments. Lots of liberal arts colleges, on the other hand, may have a wealth of courses in literature and the humanities but only a few in the biological and physical sciences. Given that your advisor and dean’s office can play a large role in the application process to medical school, you should ensure that they have the necessary services should a student wish to apply to medical school. Remember, you can major in Chinese or Art History and still go to medical school, but you also need to make sure that you will have a good science background in preparation for your future studies in medical school as well as for your MCAT preparation.”
“you can major in Chinese or Art History and stil go to medical school”
Though not a false statement by itself, this exactly communicates a misundersanding of liberal arts colleges. I checked one sub-2000-student LAC, and they have 47 biology courses available, and – for the record – 40 math courses. The idea that LACs are for humanities specialists only borders on the willfully ignorant in some cases.
(This is not directed at you, @TheDidactic. You reasonably expected your link to provide reliable information.)
It appears to be the GPA in engineering versus science courses, based on what the paper says.
Granted, as you say, engineering majors have more technical courses than science majors (though less of them are science than for science majors). However, the same chart indicates that it is humanities (as opposed to social studies) that tends to have higher grading than engineering. But many science majors are not that strong in, or enjoy, humanities, so that humanities courses may not be the best courses for them to try to boost their GPAs with.
Ditto for the notion that LAC’s don’t have “several science departments.” I just checked out the offerings of my alma mater, a school with fewer than 1,800 students. The college offers majors in biological chemistry, biology, chemistry, environmental studies, geology, neuroscience and physics. Clearly a student would have no problem taking the foundational courses they’d need for med school.
So it seems like many of you think engineering is not a good major for med school. I wanted to major in something that has high salary just in case the whole med school thing didn’t work out. But as I was researching more about engineering and med school, it seemed like many biomedical engineering (bioengineering) majors go to med school? Is this because biomedical engineering is easier major to get good GPA than for example, chemical engineering? Or is there another reason to why this is happening?
And I’m still sort of confused on whether liberal arts college has engineering program or not. I looked on Davidson’s website and it said engineering is a “pre-professional” program. What does this mean?
Biomedical engineering major requirements tend to include the pre-med courses, or most of them, while other engineering majors tend to need more pre-med courses outside of their majors. However, biomedical engineering tends to have worse bachelor’s level job prospects than many other engineering majors, though better than biology.
Davidson advertises a 3+2 dual degree program, where you do 3 years at Davidson, then transfer for another 2 years at a school with engineering. This is generally not the optimal way to study for an engineering degree; few 3+2 students actually make the transfer to the “2” school.
As I was looking at different colleges, I couldn’t help but to wonder the difference between a liberal arts college and a university/college. Like what makes them different from each other? My current goal is Northwestern University but I know that’s a reach school and I want to find a college that is perfect for me if I don’t get into NU, whether that be liberal arts or not.