<p>Good stuff tk. The berkeley posters love to claim how class sizes are comparable to the privates even with disparities of several hundred (sometimes 400). We’d need actual enrollments at JHU for a true comparison as the enrollment in classes were always below (usually substantially below) the limit as opposed to over at berk. Not sure how Michigan breaks down, however. Might be better.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>How many different organic chemistry classes offered during the last fall in Michigan?</p>
<p>At Northwestern, there were four (1 for chem and integrated science program majors and 3 for other majors/premeds).</p>
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<p>Here’s where I’m finding the Hopkins numbers:
<a href=“JHU Public Course Search”>https://isis.jhu.edu/classes/</a></p>
<p>For General Biology II (for example), I only see the 200-student enrollment limit (not the actual numbers). Note, however, that 4 instructors are listed for the course. At least 3 of the 4 are Lecturers with PhDs. Dunno if you get one of the 4 for up to 200 students, or if the 200 is divided 4 ways.</p>
<p>This lecture course appears to be paired up with a lab, which shows enrollment limits of 44-74. The lab is taught by a Lecturer with PhD.</p>
<p>By the way, for the English department at Berkeley, the biggest enrollment I see for the current term is 78. Many classes have under 20 students.</p>
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Exactly! And that’s because of the nature by which English classes are taught. There is more need for interaction/discussion in English and other humanities courses versus lower division, fact-based lectures.</p>
<p>Other small classes are found in foreign languages, Classics, and more obscure social science departments, like demography.</p>
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I assume this is Gen Chem 1 and Organic Chem 3 series.
Science and engineering majors can take the more intensive Gen Chem 4 and Organic Chem 112 series.</p>
<p>Regarding JHU numbers:</p>
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Cell Biology has limit of 320
Intro to the Human Brain has limit of 300</p>
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Haha! But there are 21 sections listed with lecture at same time with same instructor. 22 is limit for discussion section. Lecture portion can be surmised to be 22 students x 21 sections = 462 students.</p>
<p>^ Or maybe B. Hamilton ushers in one group of 22 students after another for a 2-minute “micro” spiel.</p>
<p>^ Heh. Good one.</p>
<p>I gotta say that JHU Schedule of Classes website is not very user friendly.</p>
<p>tk, thank you for the great research. Your findings match my own observations. As I have often said, at the intro level, most classes at research universities will be too large for any sort of individual attention, regardless of whether the university is private or public. Most intro-level classes will have 150+ students. In many instances, well over 200. Whether it is 150 or 600 does not really matter. A professor cannot really provide individual attention to more than 20 or 30 students. Those popular intro classes will be divided up into smaller discussion/lab groups led by senior PhD students or junior faculty.</p>
<p>“Haha! But there are 21 sections listed with lecture at same time with same instructor. 22 is limit for discussion section. Lecture portion can be surmised to be 22 students x 21 sections = 462 students.”</p>
<p>At least JHU has the decency of capping those sections at 22. I have seen several highly ranked universities that boast of having a high percentage of classes with 20 or fewer students do the same thing but cap the sections at 19 or 20.</p>
<p>I think class size claims and data must be well audited by a neutral party before using them as a basis for comparison.</p>
<p>Northwestern>UMichigan and Chicago>>>Ann Arbor.</p>
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<p>I won’t disagree with that as a general proposition, but the full statement would be Chicago>>>Ann Arbor>>>>>>>>>Evanston.</p>
<p>And actually for a college experience, Ann Arbor>>>Chicago. Chicago’s a great city when you have a job and an apartment in the city. It’s even a great city when you’re a tourist with a wad of cash to burn through in a few days. It’s not a great college town–the most prominent colleges there being the University of Chicago, in an OK but somewhat isolated neighborhood surrounded by some pretty scary areas, and UIC, close to downtown but largely a commuter school. Northwestern isn’t in Chicago; well, its law and medical schools are, but that’s of no consequence to undergrads. It’s in Evanston, and as college towns go, Evanston is pretty boring, actually toward the bottom of the Big Ten. Its only redeeming features are that it’s on Lake Michigan, but during most of the academic year that’s more a curse than a blessing due to the icy winds coming off the lake, and that it’s near Chicago. But it’s in a bland suburb, not Chicago.</p>
<p>^When was your last time in Evanston? It’s not just “near Chicago”, it shares the border with Chicago. You don’t seem to know what you are talking about.
[File:Evanston</a> Skyline 4.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evanston_Skyline_4.JPG]File:Evanston”>File:Evanston Skyline 4.JPG - Wikipedia)
Based on this photo, Evanston looks more urban and hip than Ann Arbor to me. By the way, Ann Arbor has half the population density of even Evanston; I’d rather be in a “bland suburb” of a very exciting city than even the most exciting “college town” any day simply because at the end of the day, college town is still just a college town. </p>
![http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evanston_Skyline_4.JPG]File:Evanston](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evanston_Skyline_4.JPG%5DFile:Evanston){kind=link}
<p>It’s just ludicrous that you’d bash Evanston’s weather when Ann Arbor gets significantly more snow!</p>
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<p>Population:
Chicago 2,874,312
Ann Arbor 113,934
Evanston 74,486</p>
<p>To say you overrated Ann Arbor is an understatement. ;)</p>
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<p>LOL. Hot under the collar, are we? </p>
<p>I was last in Evanston about 6 months ago–just passing through because we stopped at an Indian restaurant on Devon Ave. in Chicago, and the most convenient rout to get back to the expressway took me though a corner of Evanston. I lived in Chicago–the city of Chicago-- for 10 years, and I still get back there 2 or 3 times a year, most recently about a month ago. Don’t have much occasion to get to Evanston, because there’s not much there, but I did take my D2 there about 18 months ago to tour Northwestern and check out Evanston. Her reaction? “Meh. It’s a boring suburb. Ann Arbor and Madison are much more interesting towns.” </p>
<p>Evanston is not Chicago. I’d rate Evanston somewhere below Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington, and Iowa City as a college town.</p>
<p>When was the last time Evanston made anyone’s list of top college towns? I can’t recall it ever happening. It’s known around Chicago as a sleepy bedroom community. More lively than its North Shore sister communities Wilmette or Winnetka perhaps, but that’s not saying much—those places barely register a pulse.</p>
<p>As for winter weather, it appears there are no official records for Evanston, it being an inconsequential suburb. Just comparing Ann Arbor to Chicago, winter weather is almost identical, the only difference being about 2-3 more inches of annual snowfall in Ann Arbor and 2 degrees colder average December and January temperature in Chicago. What’s potentially very misleading about that, however, is that the official Chicago weather records are kept at O’Hare, which is many miles inland. It’s well known in and around Chicago that the lakefront communities in Chicago and on the North Shore, including Evanston, tend to have much more “lake effect” snow than inland areas like O’Hare. So my guess–and my experience–is that there’s actually much more snow on Chicago’s North Side lakefront and in North Shore suburban communities like Evanston than in Ann Arbor. There are just no official records to prove it.</p>
<p>But snow isn’t much of an issue for me one way or another. To be honest, it usually snows more on milder days, and I’ll take mild with snow over bitter cold any day. It’s that winter wind off the lake that’s a killer on Chicago’s North Side and on the North Shore. It’s not a constant thing, mind you, but on cold winter days when there’s a wind from the north or northeast, and it comes barreling across the lake with nothing to slow it down for several hundred miles, it just knifes right through you. There’s a reason it’s legendary; it’s known on the South Side as “The Hawk” or “Hawkins,” and people learn to fear and respect it. As well they should.</p>
<p>^^^^Well stated and absolutely dead on accurate!</p>
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<p>Oh dear, have you ever seen a man competing with women in a beauty contest? If that’s still not obvious, NYC and Chicago never made anyone’s list of top college towns. You love to make a big deal about college towns; I am a foodie, so when I think of them, I think of mediocre, if not fake “ethnic” restaurants. If that’s your cup of tea, power to you.</p>
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<p>According to currentresult.com, the difference is about 5 inches, not 2-3. The number of days with snowfall at Ann Arbor is about 70% more. Given such misstatement and having taken a meteorology class myself, I found your little theory on the difference between O’Hare and lakefront neigbhorhoods sounds kinda fishy or even silly. Common sense tells me if it’s really that far off, they would have found another place to report the weather of the Chicago core, which is the lakefront. The fact is lake-snow effect is not really that common in Chicago as the wind most often come from NW direction. When it does happen, the effect would extend well beyond O’Hare. It’s silly to think 10 miles would make that much difference for a weather phenomenon. [Ann</a> Arbor MI Snowfall Totals & Snow Accumulation Averages - Current Results](<a href=“http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Michigan/Places/ann-arbor-snowfall-totals-snow-accumulation-averages.php]Ann”>Ann Arbor MI Snowfall Totals & Snow Accumulation Averages - Current Results)
[Chicago</a> IL Snowfall Totals & Snow Accumulation Averages - Current Results](<a href=“http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Illinois/Places/chicago-snowfall-totals-snow-accumulation-averages.php]Chicago”>Chicago IL Snowfall Totals & Snow Accumulation Averages - Current Results)</p>
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That’s interesting. My friends in Chicago seem to think Evanston is pretty nice with plenty of restaurants and shops. No developer would develop sleek condo buildings targeting urban professionals there and those 2br/ba units wouldn’t be going for 500K if Evanston is as sleepy as you claimed.
[807</a> Davis (unit 1512), EVANSTON Property Listing: MLS® # 08298205](<a href=“http://www.highrises.com/city/chicago/listing/08298205-807-davis-unit-1512-evanston-il-60201/]807”>http://www.highrises.com/city/chicago/listing/08298205-807-davis-unit-1512-evanston-il-60201/)
[Optima</a> Views Homes for Sale in Evanston IL | Evanston Illinois Real Estate | AllChicagoHomes.com](<a href=“http://www.allchicagohomes.com/evanston-homes/optima-views/]Optima”>Optima Views Homes for Sale in Evanston IL | Evanston Illinois Real Estate | AllChicagoHomes.com)</p>
<p>But I can see some Lakeview residents may think Evanston as sleepy bedroom community for the rich. But then the same people may think Ann Arbor is hicksville. ;)</p>
<p>?? Evanston isn’t “known around Chicago as a sleepy bedroom community.” If you don’t live here, don’t surmise “what Chicagoans think.” I don’t pretend to know what people in Detroit, or Mpls / St Paul for that matter, think of their local and nearby communities.</p>
<p>And if you were on Devon getting back to the highway, and cut through a corner of Evanston, you weren’t anywhere near the downtown Evanston area that is relevant to NU students. </p>
<p>How many years ago did you live here? Evanston has changed a LOT. I wouldn’t recognize it from the Evanston of my mid-eighties college experience.</p>
<p>The Evanston area as a whole, encompassing Chicago, is a more desirable experience in general than is Ann Arbor, in my opinion. Evanston is much more lively than some of you are giving it credit for. It has changed significantly from even a decade ago. On top of that, you have Chicago, one of the premier US cities, a stone-throw away and this is a big part of the Northwestern experience. </p>
<p>Umich has a nice college town in Ann Arbor but it doesn’t have the depth and versatility that the Northwestern area affords its students. The nearest city to Umichigan is detroit, which is neither close nor desirable. </p>
<p>Northwestern students get the best of both worlds, really - An attractive campus and environment in Evanston, with a great city in close proximity at their disposal.</p>
<p>Ann Arbor “doesn’t have the depth and versatility”…I hate it when the Michigan folks try to pump their 3rd tier school and 4th tier college town with 5th tier diversity and vitality.</p>