<p>As I have been continuing my college search, the idea of attending a liberal arts college has caught my attention. I don't know very much about them, but am attracted to the idea of small class sizes, community, etc. What makes liberal arts colleges distinctive? Would you recommend liberal arts colleges to someone who is completely unsure about what they want to major in? Do liberal arts colleges provide a more reputable experience that would be beneficial for gaining admittance to prestigious graduate schools as opposed to an undergraduate education at a state school? What are some of the top liberal arts colleges? I know I have quite a few questions, but if anyone has any opinions or insight regarding these questions or other general knowledge concerning liberal arts colleges I would really appreciate it!! Thanks in advance!</p>
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<p>Liberal arts colleges are typically small, and tend to have a more limited selection of majors and upper division courses. These are often seen as a disadvantage. Their typical advantage is having small faculty led classes at both lower division and upper division courses (whereas research universities tend to have large lower division courses with faculty led lectures and TA led discussions).</p>
<p>Some liberal arts colleges have cross registration agreements with other schools, which can increase the selection of available courses.</p>
<p>Quality of preparation for PhD programs obviously varies by school and by major.</p>
<p>Are you completely unsure of major, or do you have some idea (e.g. humanities, social studies, science)? Many liberal arts colleges have specific strengths and weaknesses, so choosing one whose strengths match up to your possible majors will result in a better fit than one whose strengths are in majors you are not interested in.</p>
<p>Some liberal arts colleges are state schools. Truman State and University of Minnesota - Morris are two typical examples which are relatively low cost even for non-residents.</p>
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<p>What a LAC has:
[ul][<em>]Small size. Most LACs range in size from a few hundred to 3000 students. Public LACs are often larger than private ones, but they almost never exceed 5000 students. Although universities can also be very small (Caltech and Brandeis), they tend to be a bit bigger.
[</em>]No graduate degrees. A few LACs grant PhDs (Wesleyan and Bryn Mawr), some have law schools (Washington & Lee and Lewis & Clark), and some have other graduate schools like education (Willamette). In general, however, most LACs grant only BA/BS degrees. This is contrast to universities, which also house graduate schools of medicine, law, dentistry, business, divinity, etc.
[<em>]Few or no pre-professional programs. Some LACs have majors in business (Skidmore), engineering (Bucknell), communications (Susquehanna), nursing (Hiram), etc. In general, however, most LACs focus on the liberal arts.
[</em>]Focus on the liberal arts. The liberal arts consist of the humanities (English, philosophy, classics, religion, art history), social sciences (economics, history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, psychology, political science), sciences (biology, geology, chemistry, physics, computer science), math (math, statistics), and the arts (theatre, dance, visual arts, music).[/ul]
What a LAC does not have:
[ul][<em>]More focus on the liberal arts than a college of arts & sciences within a university. Most universities contain a college of arts & sciences that has the exact same array of programs as a LAC. In fact, a university often has much greater breadth and depth than a comparable LAC.
[</em>]More curriculum requirements than a university. There are LACs and universities with core curriculums (Chicago and Colgate), LACs and universities with distribution requirements (Penn and Bowdoin), and LACs and universities with no requirements (Brown and Amherst).[/ul]</p>
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Truman State’s Carnegie classification is a master’s college/university, or a regional university in US News lingo. Like the College of Charleston, Truman State considers itself a “liberal arts university.”</p>
<p>Perhaps a better example of a public LAC is UNC Asheville or the New College of Florida.</p>
<p>LAC’s also tend to have great school spirit alumni networks-Holy Cross, Bowdoin, Williams, Davidson.</p>
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<p>That’s true, of course. However, I suspect that if anything, the quality of preparation is more consistently good across the top N LACs than it is across the top N research universities.
This is suggested by the PhD production data. LACs with varying degrees of selectivity show up among the top 10 lists (e.g. Amherst, Reed, Spelman, St. John’s, Wabash, Hendrix). Only the most selective research universities do (e.g. Harvard, Chicago, Princeton, MIT).
[COLLEGE</a> PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]COLLEGE”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>
<p>Self-selection and other factors, possibly unrelated to academic quality, may be confounding these numbers. Nevertheless, it stands to reason that you’ll tend to find better preparation for graduate work in the arts and sciences at schools with small classes, high levels of student-faculty engagement, challenging reading & writing assignments, and total focus on the arts and sciences. These factors, in my opinion, tend to trump the advantages of more course offerings, bigger facilities, and super-star researchers. You can find those LAC-like qualities at many research universities, but they are likely to occur more consistently (for the average student throughout all 4 years) at actual LACs.</p>
<p>YMMV. Certainly, it’s a good idea to carefully check the course offerings in your intended major at every school on your list. At LACs especially, some required courses may not be offered every year. Many LACs won’t support some arts & science majors (like linguistics) at all.</p>
<p>“In a complex, shifting world, it is essential to develop a high degree of intellectual literacy and critical-thinking skills, a sense of moral and ethical responsibility to one’s community, the ability to reason clearly, to think rationally, to analyze information intelligently, to respond to people in a compassionate and fair way, to continue learning new information and concepts over a lifetime, to appreciate and gain pleasure from the beauty of the arts and literature and to use these as an inspiration and a solace when needed, to revert to our historical past for lessons that will help shape the future intelligently and avoid unnecessary mistakes, to create a sense of self-esteem that comes from personal accomplishments and challenges met with success.”
- Howard Greene and Matthew Green, The Liberal Arts: What is a Liberal Arts Education and Why is it Important Today?</p>
<p>The small class sizes offer the ability for close student-faculty relationships through mentoring, and experiential learning. The philosophy of the LAC’s is based on inter-disciplinary study, practical “hands on” applications of knowledge, service learning, and cross-cultural experiences.</p>
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<p>That is likely because research universities tend to have more pre-professionally oriented students (including some of those majoring in liberal arts subjects). Also, the research universities are likely to have better on-campus recruiting, since some employers may not think that a small school is worth the bother to recruit at (i.e. the LAC students may not find as many employers coming to lure them away from their PhD plans).</p>
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<p>This likely varies by major. It is likely that some majors like biology and psychology would find the LAC advantages maximized and the LAC disadvantages minimized, while the opposite is likely the case for some other majors like math. Of course, specific LACs may differ here.</p>
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<p>Proof?</p>
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<p>A weak argument. The research universities that have the highest PhD production rates–Caltech, MIT, UChicago, Harvard, Princeton–also have the biggest number of on-campus recruitment events. Harvey Mudd and Swarthmore students are also courted by employers, yet these schools produce more future PhD-holders than any other LAC. There is little to suggest that if recruiters liked Harvard less, it would produce more academics, or that the reason Swarthmore produces more academics than Penn State is that Penn State students have better professional opportunities (which they don’t).</p>
<p>Another point that people always trot out in these discussions, that LACs do not offer enough upper-division classes to prepare gifted science and math students as well as research universities, must be acknowledged as a tenuous generalization. Harvey Mudd, Reed, Carleton, Grinnell and Williams, for example, obviously do well enough in that area, or their alumni wouldn’t get math and science PhDs at such high rates.</p>
<p>The best thing to do is to visit different types of schools and see what suits you. Try to look at a LAC, a mid-sized university, and a large university. You can get a great education at any type of these schools.</p>
<p>My S visited a LAC and felt it was too small/too confining and he thrived at a mid-sized university. My D visited a LAC and immediately loved the atmosphere and the close relationships students developed with other students and professors, small classes all taught by professors, the ease of getting involved, the chance to do research as an undergrad, and she is thriving as well. My S was very well prepared for grad school and I’m certain my D will be as well.</p>
<p>In terms of finding out the top LACs, I suggest you get a college guide book, look at the USNWR listing of LACs (I don’t love rankings but it is a solid list of LACs), and do some online research. There are too many great LACs to list and not knowing your academic stats, area of interest, etc. makes it hard to pick out ones that make sense for you.</p>
<p>The bottom line is you should choose the atmosphere where you feel most comfortable and can thrive. And of course size of school is one of many attributes so considerations like cost, location, what you plan to study, etc. come into play as well in making any final decision.</p>
<p>I went to a small (2300 students) liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Pros:
- Small classes. The largest class I had was a biology class of 50 students.
- Very small community - you feel very connected to your classmates and others at the college.
- Nurturing environment - not true of every single LAC, but many of them have a family-like atmopshere.
- Close relationships with professors. Professors at LACs are there because they wanted to make teaching (instead of research) a priority. They’re expected to spend a lot of time mentoring and advising students, and are expected to - and typically want to - spend time guiding students in research and other career fields. There aren’t as many people competing for their time.
- No graduate students. That means all your classes are taught by professors, and you’re not competing for time with professors.
- I agree with par72’s comment about alumni networks. When I meent another alumnae of my college, it’s like finding a sister or a long-lost cousin. We share so much in common, and because our college is small, we have shared experiences. I also have a friend who went to Holy Cross and they have a really strong alumni network - she has about a million friends from Holy Cross, and they all do stuff together even though she’s about 2-3 years out of college.</p>
<p>Cons:
- Limited majors. Most LACs have your basic natural and social sciences, humanities, and fine arts. If you want to major in something like accounting, finance, nursing, advertising, public relations, risk management…basically anything pre-professional (aside from engineering - more and more LACs have that as a major), then an LAC might not be a good choice.
- More limited resources. This is not as much a problem at really top LACs, but in general smaller size means fewer resources. For example, my LAC shared a library with 2 other LACs and we didn’t have nearly as many holdings/volumes/journals as the big universities nearby us. This may also translate into a smaller career center and fewer cultural things like museums and art galleries on campus.
- Fewer activities. Most LACs have a good offering of activities most students want to do, and you can always start your own club. Mine even had an anime club! But if you have an obscure or less-common interest, the club for that at your LAC may be very small or nonexistent. Bigger schools may also offer bigger budgets to their student groups and student government.</p>
<p>Do LACs provide a more reputable experience? Not necessarily; it depends. You’d probably get better preparation for grad school at Swarthmore, Amherst or Williams than you would at, say, SUNY-New Paltz or Virginia Commonwealth. But you would probably get better prep at Berkeley, Michigan or UVa than you would at, let’s say, Rhodes College or Antioch. It depends more on the school’s individual characteristics than whether it’s large or small, or public pr private.</p>
<p>Some of the top LACs: Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr (if you’re a woman), Amherst, Mount Holyoke (if you’re a woman), Hampshire, Smith, Williams, Carleton, Dickinson, Reed, Pomona, Pitzer, Scripps (women’s), Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd (STEM majors), Middlebury, Bowdoin, Wellesley (if you’re female), Vassar, Davidson, Colby, Bates, Grinnell, Macalester, Oberlin, Barnard, Colorado College, Connecticut College, Kenyon, College of the Holy Cross, Lafayette, Occidental, Trinity, Skidmore, Whitman (in Washington state), Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg</p>
<p>The rankings themselves are subjective and are not as important as the list of schools:
[National</a> Liberal Arts College Rankings | Top Liberal Arts Colleges | US News Best Colleges](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges]National”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges)</p>
<p>Thanks so much for all of the info! It has been really helpful!</p>
<p>Juillet, I guess one of the questions that I’m struggling to answer involves a more specific scenario. As a Utah resident, the University of Utah is a highly probable option for school due to its low costs, location, etc. What I’m trying to figure out is whether or not I can get significantly better preparation for competitive grad schools at a LAC add opposed to the U. I realize that it largely depends on the school, so I’m looking for some help as to were to “draw the line.” I will use other factors such as size, location, programs, and selectivity when making more final decisions, but for now I’m just looking for suggestions to put me in the right ballpark as far as LACs are concerned.</p>
<p>A little info about myself.
-male
-Utah resident
-currently a junior (few students at my school try to go OOS)
-4.0 UW gpa
- by senior year 9 AP tests, only 7 classes including chem, bio, apush, calc bc, stats, lit, Euro, world history, human geography.
-unlike most people in this site, I don’t know exactly what I want to study. Some possibilities are humanities/social studies or sciences (chem or bio related)</p>
<p>Thanks so much for all of the help!</p>
<p>If majoring in chemistry becomes a strong possibility, look for ACS approval:
<a href=“American Chemical Society”>American Chemical Society;
<p>Biology is a very common major, though it is also a very broad major with many subareas (biochemistry, genetics, botany, zoology, etc.). If biology becomes a strong possibility for your major, and you have specific subarea interests, you may want to check the faculty rosters and course offerings of various schools.</p>
<p>But be aware of the poor job and career prospects for biology majors. Chemistry is not all that great either. See the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-5.html#post15975553[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-5.html#post15975553</a> . Make plans accordingly (e.g. avoid debt, live frugally) if you choose such a major.</p>
<p>Please bump</p>