<p>I posted this question in a related thread, but haven't had any feedback, so here goes:
there seems to be consensus that gooc LACs do a great job preparing students for graduate school, but how do they well do they work for kids who aren't interested in going on to grad school? What are job placements like compared to their "peer" universities. Some of the LACs seem to have rather narrow major choices, how does that work out for the student who might only want a 4 year degree?</p>
<p>I can tell you with a reasonable degree of confidence that, other than having excellent preparation if the student applied herself, the LAC won't hurt and it won't help. As I've said before, I have lived on both coasts and in Chicago and, in the 37 years since graduation, I have never had a single employer who had heard of Williams College.</p>
<p>But not that this matters either. In the last three job offers we've made in my office, we had applicants with degrees from Dartmouth, Princeton, and Reed, among many others. The jobs went to applicants with undergraduate degrees from Evergreen State College, Western Washington University, and University of California-Irvine. Yes, we did spend 15 seconds noting the Princeton degree, and then we moved on. Had it been a BYU or Washington State degree, it might have been another story.</p>
<p>DadII:</p>
<p>There is a range of size among LACs and universities, from 1200 to 50,000+. Neither my Ss, who attended a high school with 2000 students, would have felt comfortable at at LAc with only 1200 students; it would have felt too small. Yet, neither would have felt comfortable at a large uni, either. Small LACs have fewer faculty members. When one goes on leave, it has a larger effect than at a large university. It also means that some courses are offered only in alternate years. This issue can be mitigated if a LAC is part of a consortium. Availability of courses was an important consideration for S2, less so for S1. For S1, a larger LAC was the best fit. For the other, a mid-sized university.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider, besides size, is location. Some LACs are close enough to larger cities (Swarthmore comes to mind) but many are in more isolated locations, which makes travel a bit more of a challenge. It also means that the dominant campus culture is more important. At a large university, it is easy to find many different and quite diverse groups of students.</p>
<p>Finally, based on my Ss' experience, LACs do have smaller size classes, but sometimes, students get shut out of classes they need. S1 at his LAC was never in classes of 200+ students, but was shut out of several classes of 30, even in his senior year. S2 has been in classes of 200+ students but was never shut out of one; and he has been in classes of fewer than 10. As for student-faculty interaction, it varies as well. Both Ss are rather reticent, but surprisingly, it is S2 at his mid-sized university who has cultivated close relationships with some profs. </p>
<p>Both got great educations, in very different fields.</p>
<p>DadII, I did a little checking from Common Data Sets for some LACs. For Pomona College, using the 2006-07 CDS males were admitted at a 21.8% acceptance rate, females at a 15.1% rate. At Carleton College for 2007-08 the acceptances rates were 32% for males and 28% for females, so not quite as big a boost there. Bowdoin College for 2007-08 had 22% for males and 16.3% for females. So, they are all still selective whether you're male or female, but being male can increase your odds. To find this info out for schools you're interested in, search for the school's CDS and look at question C1.</p>
<p>My impression (without the backing data) is that the Big U sends a higher percentage of its BA/BS grads into the working world, and the LAC sends a higher percentage of its grads to the Big U for grad school. Thus, the undergrad school choice may be guided by the career interests of the student.</p>
<p>The individual school threads here on CC can be a good source of feedback regarding a school's Career Center.</p>
<p>Someone on CC once said that visiting individual LACs is particularly important. At a certain point, many big schools share characteristics. But LACs have such individual atmospheres or "personalities." Coupled with the fact that there is a small number of students, a child who doesn't "fit the profile" won't have as many alternatives for their social life as he or she would at a big school.
These differences in the academic experiences are very important, but I suspect that for many kids the decision to go or not go "LAC" might have more to do with the sense of whether they fit in socially -- whether they want more hustle and bustle, more faces in the crowd, big time sports, or what have you.</p>
<p>Rather than attempting to compare a Liberal Arts college to a large research university, I'd like to point out that the school dumped into the LAC category do not form a groups that is uniform. The reality is that LACs come in all sizes and flavors. As an example, and for a reason that made sense to someone at Carnegie, the military academies are even considered LACs. </p>
<p>While few people would confuse Harvard with Dartmouth (despite being Ivy League schools) there is a tendency to view the LACs as a homogeneous group. Yet, despite their common large size, Smith is not Wesleyan; Pomona is not Williams nor Reed; and Harvey Mudd is not like any other LAC as its closest match and old rival is none other than Caltech.</p>
<p>When looking at LACs, great care is warranted to analyze department by department. For instance, one person interested in a CERTAIN type of education in Economics or Government would find a world of difference between a school such as CMC and other LACs such Oberlin or Smith. </p>
<p>Further, LACs that form a consortium (in the spirit of Oxford) such as the Claremont Consortium are different from a LAC such as Grinnell, where one needs to navigate by miles of corn fields to reach unimportant things such as ... an airport. </p>
<p>All the variances listed above serve to highlight the differences in students who made their final decisions with an eye on that ever elusive best fit. While it is quite certain that students who selected a LAC would have been quite happy at a larger school, one common characteristic is that very few students ever regret their decision to follow a less common path in education. Of course, the less common syndrome is also dwindling fast as many large schools seem to reinventing themselves by creating smaller schools and honor colleges within the giant walls and building the programs along the lines of a typical LAC. </p>
<p>In conclusion, when looking at LACs, one needs to go well beyond the brochures and quick evaluations. Most LACs do have a well defined identity that defies quick characterizations.</p>
<p>Also, Dad II...find out about those masters universities. DD attends a very well regarded masters university in CA. It is not on the US News university list (it's not a comprehensive university with PhD programs)...and it's not a LAC. I personally think this category of colleges is largely ignored, and too bad because there are some excellent schools on it. DD goes to Santa Clara University. The school has an excellent engineering program and an excellent business program. It "feels" like a LAC...but it's not on that list.</p>
<p>Isn't Santa Clara University on the Best Western universities list, though, thumper1? (My niece goes there.)</p>
<p>My own experience is that kids know within an hour of setting foot on a LAC's campus whether this is their cup of tea or not. D wanted to cut the Pomona tour short after all of 30 minutes, and we never visited another LAC. She hated the fishbowl atmosphere, and all the "personal attention". Sure this is the LAC's strength, but some kids just don't want it.</p>
<p>I just have to second those who recommend choosing and visiting LACs carefully. I really, really wanted my D to consider LACS and I spent a tremendous amount of time looking at quirky, offbeat schools that would fit her personality.</p>
<p>The result? She loathed all the LACS we visited. Her major complaint was the insular feel and the "personal attention" that GroovyGeek mentioned (maybe our D's are twins...) I guess the lesson I learned is that no matter how well you think you've prepared, nothing beats actually visiting.</p>
<p>Also, if your kid is a little - hmm - offbeat, it can be even harder to find that fit in a LAC where the "critical mass" of other offbeat kids is harder to obtain.</p>
<p>Okay, so visiting seems to definitely be a "must". I also get the differing personalities of individual LACs and not lumping them together.</p>
<p>I have a sense of which ones seem to be more cerebral, academic ones. As well as the artsy, quirky ones and the "preppy ones", I think.</p>
<p>xiggi -- which other LACs would be CMC-like? Or, if Harvey Mudd students might have an affinity to Caltech, which unis or colleges would have a similar "feel" to CMC? thanks!</p>
<p>scout59. LOL.</p>
<p>^^scout59 -- I too have a quirky, offbeat D and she too avoided LACs like the plague (she also attended a very small private school her entire K-12 experience and wanted to get away from the fishbowl aspect of small.) she also noted that although she wanted to find a critical mass of like minded kids at college, she didn't want the school defined by that, but wanted the setting to be big enough to have a true diversity of all sorts of kids. The choice was Honors College at Big State U for her...</p>
<p>broetchen,
Mudd was the first college my S fell in love with. (While Caltech may be close in size and emphasis to Mudd, the feel is VERY different, and S did not care for it as much, though he did apply.) He then wanted to direct his search towards more schools with the Mudd feel and academic (math/CS) focus -- which led us to Chicago and became the other favorite on his list. From Chicago (because he liked the core and deep math), he looked at Reed, which he loved. Other LACs he considered were Claremont and Ponoma.</p>
<p>However, availability of graduate level courses proved to be a crucial issue, so he wound up looking at small-midsize universities.</p>
<p>"However, availability of graduate level courses proved to be a crucial issue, so he wound up looking at small-midsize universities"
We went through exactly the same progression- started the college search with LAC's in mind, but found that those which had the programs my son wanted, did not have the depth in those programs compared to most universities, where qualified undergraduates can take graduate level courses.</p>
<p>Pizza...what is the "Best Western" university list?</p>
<p>^^ it is sub category of the USNW list of colleges - listing those in the western part of the country.</p>
<p>Orchestramom - my D's choice sounds similar. She's chosen a large urban university that appears to have a real diversity of kids. At the Accepted Students' Day we attended, she was thrilled to see so many of "her tribe" in the audience - I guess they must all share some kind of supersecret telepathy that parent's can't discern. Anyway, she seems happy with her choice (and she never thought twice about those LACs she ditched long ago.)</p>