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I have heard that universities offer more resources for the very, very top students, whereas LACs offer equally good resources for the top half or so. Is that what you mean by "cater to different people"?
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<p>I mean that the educational environment is different. Now, obviously there are certain schools that are classified as research universities that are very LAC-ish, like Dartmouth and Brown, and to some extent Princeton. Hence, it's a difference of degree (no pun intended). But what it basically boils down to is that the LAC's strongly emphasize teaching and personal attention. Class sizes are small and are often times seminar-based. Professors are selected for their teaching ability, not their research. And the whole environment is built to foster undergraduate teaching and learning. As an undergrad, you don't feel like you're a second-class citizen to the graduate students.</p>
<p>Anybody's who been to a research university knows the feeling of getting a prof who's a brilliant researcher but who either can't teach well, or doesn't WANT to teach well (because he feels that it's not important and he'd rather get back to his research). Anybody remember the movie "A Beautiful Mind" where Russell Crowe taught at MIT and was just being a complete jerk to his students? He didn't care about teaching the class, he didn't want to be there, and he saw that task as not only useless, but downright annoying. The sad thing is that it's not just people like John Nash who behave that way. That's the sort of attitude you will sometimes get from faculty members at research universities - that they're not really interested in teaching. I won't say that bad teaching never happens at a LAC, but I will submit that it happens far less often. The fact is, LAC faculty members are not hired for their research prowess, but rather for their teaching skill. Hence, great research can't make up for poor teaching. </p>
<p>Hence, LAC's feature small, intimate classes, faculty members who are selected for their teaching skill, extremely strong culture and community bonding (because of the small student body), highly personalized attention. On the other hand, it is true that LAC's don't offer the vast array of resources that the bigname research universities offer. Yet I think the biggest issue is that the LAC's just don't have the big prestigious name brand. MIT is famous. Harvey Mudd and Cooper Union are not. And I understand that for some people, name-brand and pop-culture prestige is important. </p>
<p>The point is, when I say that they cater to different people, what I mean is what are you going to school for? If you are going to school for the brand-name, or you want to go somewhere that has lots and lots of students and lots of resources (but not necessarily lots of resources per capita), and you don't really care about teaching quality or interpersonal attention, then you should go to a research university. However, if you can forgo the brand name, and you want a highly intimate educational environment with small class sizes and strong teaching, then you should look for a LAC.</p>