Small, possibly liberal arts, college?

<p>I recently read my friend's book that basically bashes big school and promotes small liberal arts colleges. As a result, I'm a bit inclined to apply to a relatively smaller school now (all the ones I'm currently applying to are 10,000+ in population). Only thing is, my tentative major is something in business, most likely accounting. So I was wondering if any of these relatively small schools even offer classes in those areas. And if there are, can anybody recommend to me a few to look at?</p>

<p>My stats are decent: 3.8 unweighted, 1560/1600 SAT, roughly 5% class rank, and some music extracurriculars.</p>

<p>Why do you want to major in accounting? Accounting jobs are not close to the most desirable business jobs. Truthfully, the best feeders into the elite firms are not the business schools (except Wharton and perhaps MIT), but rather the Ivies and other top 10 schools and top LACs. I don;t think enough people realize this. If you look at the list of banking and consulting feeders, the Ivies excel. </p>

<p>The best business feeders that have a LACy feel or are LACs: Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth, Princeton, Brown.</p>

<p>Case Western in Cleveland has an excellent business school (with a good accounting program) and 7500 undergrads.</p>

<p>Holy Cross-top30 Liberal Arts School offers accounting major. HC is also SAT optional with nice location-1 hour from Boston.</p>

<p>Hmm, another question. How does an education at a LAC help as far as jobs go. Won't the business school be able to teach me more about the necessary skills? Or do employers not care much at all about that? </p>

<p>I remember reading that most graduate business schools generally want to see you have a few years of work experience before taking you in. So Wouldn't it be harder to find work if I just graduated from a LAC?</p>

<p>Not really. There are two categories of business jobs, 1) "executional jobs" and 2) elite business jobs. Category one includes things like marketing, accounting, jobs in fields like advertising, etc. Category 2 is basically top (New York) finance or consulting (top 5 firms). The category two jobs catapult you to the top of business. And the category two firms recruit at the Ivies (plus stanford, duke, williams, chicago, amherst, northwestern, etc). The top employers care much more about WHERE you got your degree than your functional education.</p>

<p>I was a Dartmouth anthro major and my brother is a business major at a top 5 b-school. I think I got 3-4 times as many interviews as he did at the elite firms, and our GPAs are similar.</p>

<p>Also, what about for non-business areas? Does a liberal arts education provide you with everything you need before grad school like the books say?</p>

<p>Yes, LACs prepare you for Master's degrees.</p>

<p>In general, I would agree with slipper. You can also get those top jobs from LACs besides just Williams and Amherst, but there will be more from Williams and Amherst. In my bulge bracket investment banking analyst class, there were also people from Bowdoin, Haverford, Colgate, Middlebury, Colby, Hamilton. </p>

<p>To answer the OP's first question, Washington & Lee and Bucknell are the only two of the top 25 LACs that I know of where one could major in accounting or some business-like discipline.</p>

<p>Look into Bucknell.. they have accounting and other business majors. I was looking for something similar to you and Bucknell was my top choice for a loong time. I've now decided on majoring in econ at Colgate, which I hear is a good decision.</p>

<p>Wake Forest would be an excellent match/safety.</p>