<p>Is anybody ACTUALLY considering Harvey Mudd as a liberal arts school??</p>
<p>I mean yeah they emphasize humanities, but I don't think that can really make HMC as a LAS.</p>
<p>^ I think its an added plus that its in the top 20 in the country for a LAC. </p>
<p>It’s pretty laughable when people make fun of it for being “low” ranked as an LAC. That’s not its main purpose- it’s a tech school, and it’s ranked very high in that. Being sort of an LAC just makes it cooler. : p</p>
<p>It is a liberal arts school in the fundamental sense of liberal arts eduction. The required curriculum, both through the Core and Humanties requirements has the goal of producing a very well rounded (if maybe exhausted) graduate. The focus may be on math and science, but it is not a narrow focus. It’s actually kind of amazing.</p>
<p>It is classified as a liberal arts college b/c as an undergraduate only science and engineering school, there were maybe 5 other schools it was “ranked” against, including such winners as devry and ITT tech. So, the BoD decided to have it ranked as a liberal arts college, to broaden the comparison to other high-prestige colleges.</p>
<p>“…there were maybe 5 other schools it was “ranked” against, including such winners as devry and ITT tech”</p>
<p>O.M.G. that would be like comparing harvard to your local community college.</p>
<p>US News and World Report ranks HMC as #14 of the LAC’s. It’s in pretty good company.</p>
<p>I’m not saying Harvey Mudd is a bad LAC
it’s just sooo… non-liberal-arts like to me.</p>
<p>D decided not to attend HM after admit student days because not “liberal arts” enough and so few electives. HM has changed the curriculum since and looks more attractive now. D is very happy at top LAC, majoring in physics, conducting research and studying studio art, fiddling, ballroom dance, and other activities. Glad she is where she is.</p>
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Really? I guess so, if you define liberal arts as “not math and science,” but I have a different perspective on it based on geek_son’s application-season findings and the conversations I’ve had with him since. I think their approach to the sciences is in itself a very liberal-artsy approach – requiring students in all majors to complete a broad-based education in many subjects so they’ll be able to draw insights and connections among different fields.</p>
<p>And then, having that broad-based “liberal sciences” education within a “liberal arts” education that seeks to broaden the base even more with coursework in the humanities and social sciences seems… well… kind of elegant…</p>
<p><<
top science and technology is “the state of the art”.
why not go to a science/engineering/math “liberal arts” school then?</p>
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<p>but in all honesty, you get a broad-band approach to everything at mudd. the bandwidth = infinity</p>
<p>I agree that mudd’s diverse class options are great and I love that. In fact, I probably will be doing a lot more non-science stuff than necessary. It’s just interesting to me, however, because I really can’t see Amherst applicants also applying to Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>My D applied to a number of schools just like Amherst. (and to HMC) It happens. What I don’t see is the Amherst student applying to HMC, however, the HMC student could thrive easily at most top LAC like Amherst. What do others think?</p>
<p>Reallly, I read “LAC” as generally meaning just ‘college’ (using the old definition of no grad students) and not “LIBERAL ARTS” very strongly. That said, HM does have a pretty strong leaning toward the broadbased view. ANd, I think if you try to split ‘schools with no grad students’ into more categories, it will get messy quickly and not improve the data set.</p>