This is really a very personal decision due to the massive differences in size and atmosphere of the two colleges. New College of Florida is pretty tiny even for a liberal arts college. I went to an LAC with 2300 students and after two years I felt like I knew almost everybody; at a school with 835 students, that feeling will probably be amplified (even if it’s not actually true). That could either be really comforting or really stifling depending on the person in question. On the flip side, it could potentially be easy to get lost in a university with over 32,000 students. If you’re not the type to speak up, visit professor’s office hours, and seek out your own opportunities it can be overwhelming.
I just want to point out, thought, that you can do independent study projects and write a thesis at Florida State as well. For example:
Students do not need to be part of the University Honors Program in order to start their Honors Thesis. In fact, any FSU student with a 3.2 GPA (both FSU and cumulative) and 60 credit hours completed may begin work on their thesis. Additional requirements are in place for specific majors, so be sure to consult your department’s Liason for more details. - Source: http://honors.fsu.edu/Honors-in-the-Major/Starting-the-Process
However, there’s probably something really nice about being at a college where everyone is writing a senior thesis. It adds a sense of camaraderie about the process, as well as a deep scholarly interest and investigation amongst the senior class. Liberal arts colleges also naturally have more flow between subjects, and a place like NCF without traditional majors is even more likely to have that. So if you want to be on a campus where students are interested in a lot of different fields and the “lines” between departments and interests are far more fluid, NCF might be a good choice.
An interesting tidbit from the FSU classics department:
The Classics are for everyone, and students who major in Classics find themselves in a personable Department that offers them all the benefits of a small liberal arts college in the midst of a large state university. Professors know their majors, and the Directors of Undergraduate Studies will work with each student to help him or her to find the classes best suited to their interests and their career goals.
The classics department at FSU only has 80 majors (and 45 graduate students) on average in a given year. So while your general education requirements and divisional requirements may be pretty big, your intermediate to upper-level classics courses are likely to be quite small. The other thing is that large universities have the advantage of being able to offer more coursework - a quick perusal of the offerings for 2016 showed a variety of classes in the classics. There is a value to having small classes from the beginning, though - you foster intellectual discussion and depth at an earlier point in the college curriculum.
You say you find the Greek life at FSU unappealing - is that because you want to join a Greek or is it because you don’t want to join one? If it’s because you don’t, 6,500 students are in fraternities or sororities, which is a large number but only about 20% of the student body. I’m sure you can avoid it if you want to. If it’s because you want to join…with 6,500 students in what seems like over 20 Greek organizations I’m pretty sure you can find your niche if you wanted to. FSU’s Greek life alone is nearly twice the size of my entire undergraduate college (and nearly 8 times the size of NCF).
The tl;dr: your concerns about FSU can mostly be solved by doing certain things - choosing to write an honors thesis if you have a 3.2+; pursuing your own independent study with a professor of your choice in either department; avoiding or investigating Greek life more deeply. Your concern about NCF’s small student body can’t really be solved, though, unless it turns out that that’s something you love.