<p>Hi everyone, I'm currently a Junior in high school and next year I will have to apply to some colleges. Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but what are LACs and how do they differ from regular colleges/universities. Which of the two is more beneficial and if you guys could help me compare/contrast them, I'd really appreciate it.
I know I can find most of this information elsewhere online, but I'd like to hear the opinions of other CCers.</p>
<p>“Liberal arts colleges” are usually smaller schools which emphasize small faculty-led classes at all levels (including the frosh/soph levels) and an emphasis on liberal arts (humanities, social studies, and science) subjects. The tradeoff is usually in fewer upper level course offerings, or less frequent offering of any given course (as infrequently as once every two years). Strength or weakness in a particular department is often more noticeable at a LAC or other small school.</p>
<p>Some LACs have cross registration agreements with other schools to mitigate the usual disadvantages of fewer upper level course offerings or less frequent offering of any given course, although convenience of such (administratively, commuting, and school calendars) needs to be checked.</p>
<p>It is best not to look at schools as members of a class like LACs (versus research universities versus other schools) but to look at each school individually to see how it fits the student, academically, financially, and otherwise.</p>
<p>If you search CC there are tons of threads on this exact question. IMO the colleges fall into three basic categories:<br>
- LACs which are small undergraduate only institutions 2) Mid-sized universities which have grad schools but are still not huge and 3) Large universities
You should visit schools which fall into each of these categories and get a feel for which type of institution would be best for you.</p>
<p>One class of schools that is common among the more selective schools is research universities. These have high research activity and graduate students working toward PhDs. These graduate students also serve as TAs in usually-large frosh/soph level courses, allowing fewer faculty members to teach them, leaving the faculty more time for upper level (including graduate) courses and research.</p>
<p>Compared to the LAC model, there is less “automatic” interaction with the faculty in class, although a motivated student can end up with a lot of choices between the faculty member and several TAs to visit during their office hours.</p>
<p>But there are other medium and large schools that are not research universities as the description normally fits them. These typically have few or no PhD students, although they may not necessarily be considered LACs due to either size or emphasis on pre-professional majors over liberal arts majors (although large size may mean that they have more liberal arts faculty and students than some LACs). Examples are the California State Universities.</p>