<p>I've recently been looking at liberal arts colleges and I have tons of questions about them.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What makes a college a liberal arts school? If its just something like well rounded education, then why isn't the University of Chicago considered a liberal arts school?</p></li>
<li><p>How would a top liberal arts school like Amherst, compare to Harvard or Duke? (In terms of prestige, educational quality, quality of professors, job opportunities after college etc.)</p></li>
<li><p>Why is it that liberal arts colleges are ranked separately from national colleges on U.S News? Are they so drastically different that they cannot be compared with regular colleges?</p></li>
<li><p>Are top liberal arts schools worth the money?</p></li>
<li><p>How difficult is it to get into a top liberal arts school compared to a top national university? (Especially for an Asian male) </p></li>
<li><p>What kind of people go to liberal arts schools generally? Mostly girls, boys, both, whites, non-whites, rich, poor, conservative, liberal etc.?</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Liberal arts colleges are schools without a graduate division. Chicago does have a graduate school, so it is not often called a LAC, although it is still referred to as a liberal arts college by CollegeBoard.</p></li>
<li><p>In terms of educational quality, there’s not much of a difference between Amherst and, say, Harvard. On the other hand, there will be some differences in prestige. On the other hand, job opportunities are still quite good.</p></li>
<li><p>It doesn’t make much sense to me, although admittedly, LACs would probably be given an unfair disadvantage if they were ranked along universities, since professors at LACs don’t get paid as much as their colleagues at universities due to the fact that research pays more.</p></li>
<li><p>Slightly easier. Some LACs have affirmative action for Asians, although not most. More than likely, you’ll find slightly less discrimination at an LAC.</p></li>
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<p>This is based on my having gone to a liberal arts college and now being in the employ of my alma mater, Rhodes College.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Practically speaking, any institution that focuses primarily on undergraduate education (forgoing graduate education and research to a certain extent) and that focuses on delivery a liberal education could be considered a LAC. By “liberal education” I mean a broad course of study that facilitates a student’s ability to make connections between disciplines and understand issues through multiple perspectives. For example, when I’m managing a software implementation, I think of it from a computer science perspective as well as an anthropological one (recognizing different cultures, values, and meaning of language between groups like faculty, executives, admin assistants, etc.) as well as an economic one (what are the opportunity costs for undertaking this project or pursuing a particular feature) as well as a historical one (what past decisions brought us to the current position, and who were the actors and their motivations). </p></li>
<li><p>How does a top LAC compare to a top research university? How does a neighborhood parish compare to a 10000 person megachurch? Neither is “better” than the other, but some people clearly find themselves able to connect to God and one another more easily in one environment than the other. You’ll get a great education at either and have tons of opportunities at either, but you’ll have to interface with very different environments at each. </p></li>
<li><p>LACs and unis are ranked separate because they have different missions. The resource allocation decisions are very different. 1/2 or 2/3 of a research university (and the outcomes on which you’re presumably ranking them) are based on graduate education or research and are completely non-applicable to most LACs. </p></li>
<li><p>Whether it’s worth the money depends entirely on how you value what you expect to get out of an experience at a LAC. I didn’t incur any financial costs in attending Rhodes; my costs were opportunity costs. I had to forgo the opportunity to go to Duke and Vanderbilt and UM-Rolla. To me it was without question, hands down, easily worth those costs.</p></li>
<li><p>My guess is that it’s easier to get into the research university just because there are more seats - the numbers are more in your favor. That said, when you’re looking at places with 10% acceptance rates, it’s more or less a lottery.</p></li>
<li><p>There are somewhere around 500-1000 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. (I could look up the exact number if you really want). Consequently, if you can imagine a specific type of person, there’s probably at least one of those attending a LAC somewhere. The better question is what kind of people go to the schools you’re interested in (or alternatively, what schools have the kind of people that you want to go to school with). That question is easily answered with a small amount of reflection and research.</p></li>
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<p>I’m not so sure about that. A lot of those “colleges” are really business schools and job training schools with a “liberal arts” track tucked into their curriculum. <em>Daedalus</em> published an article about ten years ago in which the author estimated the number of true LACs with robust, well-funded programs at no more than 270. I’ve seen estimates since that article was published that the number may be as low as ~150.</p>
<p>Thank you for your information. I think I might enjoy attending an LAC based on Lynxinsider’s description. Out of curiosity, does anyone know any LAC’s with unusually strong economics departments? I am rounded in my academic interests, but economics especially fascinates me.</p>
<p>Try the LACs in this list (first posted by interesteddad):
Number of PhDs per 1000 grads</p>
<p>Academic field: Economics</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Graduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000
graduates over the ten year period </p>
<p>1 Swarthmore College 16
2 Grinnell College 7
3 Williams College 7
4 Carleton College 7
5 Harvard University 6
6 Agnes Scott College 6
7 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5
8 University of Chicago 5
9 Yale University 5
10 California Institute of Technology 5
11 Princeton University 5
12 Macalester College 5
13 Stanford University 4
14 Pomona College 4
15 Oberlin College 4
16 Wellesley College 4
17 Trinity University 4
18 Bowdoin College 3
19 Earlham College 3
20 Berea College 3
21 Amherst College 3
22 Wabash College 3
23 Bard College 3
24 Rocky Mountain College 3
25 Coe College 3
26 Wesleyan University 3
27 College of William and Mary 3
28 Colby College 3
29 Columbia University in the City of New York 3
30 Hillsdale College 3
31 Franklin and Marshall College 3
<p>@tk - source is IPEDS database at National Center for Education Statistics. [The</a> Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System - Home Page](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds]The”>IPEDS)</p>
<p>I pulled the list of institutions in 2008-2009 that were listed as Baccalaureate-Liberal Arts. there is some wiggle room, but my experience has been that it’s a decent categorization.</p>
<p>Asian male is not an extremely overrepresented demographic at most LACs, especially if you like small town/rural environs. Middlebury, for instance, recruits (presumably high-stat) Asians at about the same level as URMs. Look for schools with <10% Asian population; they are probably looking to increase the total “domestic minority” percentage and would love to do so without taking a hit on stats.</p>