<p>I'm looking for a school that has aspects of both LACs and research universities (where professors actually teach the class, no TAs; where there are larger/more research projects that undergrads can participate in). Are there any schools that fits the bill? Also if known, what are the average class sizes of the schools that fit this, for lower divison and for upper division?</p>
<p>Quick rundown of stats: chinese, CA resident, 4.01W GPA, 3.87UW GPA, 33 ACT, 8 APs total, wide variety of extracurricular (music, sports, etc), will spend this summer in a lab at an university</p>
<p>I think I told you this before but Berkeley’s College of Chemistry is small. All courses are taught by profs…yes, TAs lead the discussion and lab sections. However, Berkeley chemistry is one of the top graduate chemistry programs in the country, so it’s not like you’re learning from junior graduate students.</p>
<p>Chemistry majors need to take General Chemistry 4A and 4B which is the more rigorous gen chem course taught to chemistry and chemical engineering majors only. Upper division courses are smaller.</p>
<p>There are only 186 chemistry undergrads total…about 50 per class. Berkeley also has 59 world class chemistry faculty members. The college cannot be beat for resources if you love chemistry. </p>
<p>Since you’re in-state, you get to attend at a fairly cheap price.</p>
<p>Yup you suggested UC Berkeley before. It seems great, I’d love to go, but I’m not positive I’d get in (my GPA seems to be a bit low for Berkeley)</p>
<p>I asked similar question…about LAC and just in general, but I’m being a bit more specific this time.</p>
<p>For Chemistry I would say a research university. You would want as many research and internships as possible and research universities devote more funding towards labs and research.</p>
<p>But at a research university, wouldnt the classes be huge, and taught by TAs? Or is that just for lower division classes? And would it matter if it was a large research university or a small research university? What are the differences in the research opportunities and professor availability/class sizes there?</p>
<p>Your stats are probably better than 50/50 for Berkeley… GPA a little low, SAT a little high.</p>
<p>The smaller atmosphere you describe — Occidental, Pitzer, Pepperdine. The Catholic small Unis (San Diego, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, San Francisco), would work too, but your stats would put you at the top of that student pool.</p>
<p>UCBChemGuy – you listed the number of Chem majors at Berkeley. OP might be more interested to know how many students would be in the first 5-6 chem classes taken during freshman and sophomore years (I mean from what you’ve heard). I get the idea that all the Bio majors might also be in those classes, potentially making them over 100 in size.</p>
<p>Rice… we only have 3400 undergrads (and even less graduate students). Although intro chem and orgo are large (up to 200 students each), large intro classes are going to be found at almost every university. However, the upper level classes do get smaller. Check <a href=“http://courses.rice.edu/admweb/swkscat.main[/url]”>http://courses.rice.edu/admweb/swkscat.main</a> and choose “Fall 09” or “Spring 10” to see class sizes this past year. Buckyballs were invented here and Rice has very strong nanotech research; Rice’s chemistry department is fairly strong. Chemistry professors at Rice are generally very good teachers too.</p>
<p>Yes, I was asking about the class size, not the number of majors, but its okay. I know that the lower classes will be large, but I am wondering about the upper classes, if theres much of a difference.</p>
<p>I will be applying to Berkeley for sure, been thinking of Occidental, and I will think about Rice. That link is really helpful!</p>
<p>Pretty much any LAC worth its salt is going to have undergraduate research opportunities in chemistry. At my tiny alma mater (Knox) professors are required to publish, and they are also required to involve students in any grant-funded research. I did a year of undergrad research my senior year of college.</p>
<p>I currently teach chemistry at a major state university. (I’m not tenure track and don’t do research, I only teach.) There are undergraduate research opportunities here as well, but I talk to a lot of undergrads who want to do research but have no avenue for finding a position. They send cold e-mails to professors and get no reply, or they drop by a professor’s office unannounced and make a nuisance of themselves. If you want to do undergraduate research at a big university, the best way is usually to distinguish yourself in some professor’s class, and hopefully that professor is doing research that interests you. It’s just a lot harder to distinguish yourself when there are 200 kids in the class and the TA’s are doing all the grading. When I was a grad student we had three undergrads who did research in our lab. Only one of them actually made any kind of contribution to the program. The other two were nothing but a drain of time and energy on the grad students they were working with (including me).</p>
<p>So the short answer is that research in chemistry can easily be done at any decent LAC, you just won’t have all the resources you would have at a research university (but IMHO you don’t need that at this point anyway). If you want to do research at a big school, make sure you work toward that goal from your first class. Also attend faculty seminars and graduate student seminars (they have them almost every week) to see who is doing what. Ask questions and show your interest. And when you get a research spot, please please please don’t become a waste of time for the poor grad student who got stuck working with you. They’ve got enough weight to pull as it is, and they need you to be able to pull your own.</p>
<p>So what you are saying, it is generally easier to land a research position at a LAC (and do more meaningful stuff)? Aren’t there less spots available too? And what about at the more competitive ones, like Pomona or Harvey Mudd, where I wouldn’t be able to stand out?</p>
<p>At Harvey Mudd there are 10-20 chemistry majors per year and about 10 chemistry professors. One year of research is required to graduate, but you can do a lot more fairly easily possibly starting freshmen year. The only competitive part is getting in to Harvey Mudd. Standing out won’t be an issue, you’ll just have to be motivated enough to do the work. Pomona is also fairly small and I don’t think they have many chem majors, though I’m not certain.</p>
<p>All of the students at Mudd are required to do research. I don’t know how easy it is at Pomona. I visited Mudd as an admitted student (still trying to figure out where to attend), and even then, you get an absurd amount of personal attention. Even those that don’t stand out seem to get more than enough attention (probably even more so in chem, which is one of the smaller departments).</p>