<p>What are some competitive schools that are small but have a lot of options as far as majors go? </p>
<p>I like talking to my professors, but I also want to be able to explore a range of career options.</p>
<p>Also, unless it's a great school, I would rather not be in the center of a huge city.</p>
<p>bumpppppp</p>
<p>By the way, it’s not that I haven’t been looking, I just wanted to get some more ideas.</p>
<p>Usually, bigger schools tend to have more major options.</p>
<p>Is there a general area that you are interested in (e.g. humanities, social studies, science)? Some small schools emphasize a particular area and provide better depth in subjects in that area, although they other areas may be more limited. For example, Caltech and Harvey Mudd are strong in the sciences, but Caltech has only three non-science majors available (English, history, history and philosophy of science) and Harvey Mudd has no non-science majors available). Sarah Lawrence emphasizes visual and performing arts, literature, history, writing, and psychology, but has limited offerings in other subjects.</p>
<p>Your question is way too broad. There are literally hundreds of colleges that would fit your criteria. Can you say a bit more about your high school experience and your academic interests?</p>
<p>What is small to you? less than 2,000, less than 5,000?
If you give examples of schools you think are good choices people can suggest other schools</p>
<p>Ok, I’ll post my profile. One sec.</p>
<p>Colleges I was thinking of applying to:
<p>Stats:
-Unweighted GPA 4.0</p>
<p>-Weighted GPA 4.2</p>
<p>AP/Honor courses: None until this fall, but I am concurrently enrolled at a local community college where I have taken German 1-4, English 201A, and Precalculus.</p>
<p>Class Rank: I do independent studies with a small private school. I think I’m 1/10.</p>
<p>SAT 1 Superscored 720CR 730M 800W Comp: 2250</p>
<p>SAT 2: Aiming for over 700 in Math II and Lit. this fall </p>
<p>EC’s: Principal 2nd and Concertmaster of the local youth symphony in the past. This year I think I will be co-concertmaster. I also volunteer with the youth symphony by coaching younger kids in the symphony.
Publicity Director at a Scholastic Honor Society that does volunteer work at my community college</p>
<p>Honors/awards: Cal Poly All-State Festival Symphony Concertmaster
National Merit Commended
Applied for and received private art showing</p>
<p>Additional Info:</p>
<p>Race: White</p>
<p>Family’s Situation: Not from hard background</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for your time and effort answering my question.</p>
<p>Ooh and interests. I remember liking my chemistry class sophmore year. I also loved writing a research paper on Ocean Acidification. I like to follow the latest technological/scientific developments. Because I’m not scared of math, I’m thinking Engineering or Environmental Science might be good for me.</p>
<p>@BeanTownGirl… 2000-5000 sounds nice. I guess I could handle more, but I just don’t want to have 100-1000 people in one class.</p>
<p>Lafayette College</p>
<p>Thanks. Looks promising.</p>
<p>Anyone else? </p>
<p>Also, I hope my profile didn’t make it look like some sort of chances thread. I did basically copy and paste from a chances thread, but I was just trying show my high school experience so you could get a better idea of what I’m like and what I’m looking for.</p>
<p>Finally, you can see that science does appear to be my main area of interest, but I still am interested in other stuff (e.g. Writing, Design/Art). That’s why I was trying to be careful and look at schools with more majors.</p>
<p>bump10char</p>
<p>Middlebury and Claremont McKenna do not have engineering. If engineering is of strong interest to you, take a look at the accreditation listings at [ABET</a> -](<a href=“http://www.abet.org%5DABET”>http://www.abet.org) .</p>
<p>Other small schools with engineering include Swarthmore and Bucknell. The “Mines” schools in NM and SD also fit this, but do not have too many offerings in other areas.</p>
<p>Here is a list of colleges with undergraduate enrollment <= 5,000 and with engineering: <a href=“College Navigator - Search Results”>College Navigator - Search Results;
<p>You can try looking for the schedule of classes at each school to see if it will tell you how large each class is. The biggest classes are typically freshman level classes in commonly taken subjects like math, chemistry, biology, economics, and psychology.</p>
<p>Be sure to check the net price calculator at each school if cost and financial aid are a concern.</p>
<p>Assuming that you are a California resident, any reason you do not have UCs or other CSUs in your list, if you find a school as big as USC to be acceptable?</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus Ok, thanks for the input. As far as CM and Middlebury, I’ll try to explain what I was thinking. Claremont Mckenna has a general engineering program that I could start with, but if I really liked it, I could transfer to another school in the consortium like Pitzer or Mudd. If not, they seemed to have other stuff. Middlebury, is tougher. My bro goes there and he said the school has some sort of sister program for engineering with Dartmouth. But I’m not sure if it would work out well.
As far as USC, I guess I thought it would have smaller classes than most and was more respected. Is that true?</p>
<p>For USC class sizes, check the schedule of classes there. There are some common freshman level classes that are over 100 students.</p>
<p>The 3+2 engineering programs at many liberal arts colleges have some drawbacks, like uncertainty of being accepted for transfer to the engineering college, needing to transfer and start over at a new college which many students do not want to do, financial aid uncertainty at the engineering college, and the need to spend five years to complete the bachelor’s degree in engineering.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon (but is in a city), Tufts, Union, Bucknell. My son originally said he didn’t want to be in a city, but made exceptions for Case Western and CMU.
B.U… Northeastern and Drexel are too urban and too big for you? U. Rochester might be too urban but otherwise good. You may find schools that have everything you want but that are between 5 and 10k students so give them fair consideration.
Don’t overgeneralize about the class sizes in a <5,000 school versus a <10,000 school. It varies more with the quality of the school than anything else. You can research each school in depth by looking at the Common Data Set for each one. It gives complete breakdown of % of classes of varying sizes. Intro courses are often the largest almost anywhere you go, but it isn’t a big deal since at any good school there are recitation sections of less than 25 students that meet once a week to review what was discussed in lecture or to answer questions. Professors at any good school are accessible to students. Use the school specific forums on CC to solicit feedback as well.
If you are even considering engineering, then go to a college that has engineering rather than relying on “sister” programs. The exposure you would get in intro engineering courses are critical to help you decide if engineering is for you. You can talk to engineering professors and grad students to help you decide.</p>
<p>This may sound like a stupid question… what’s the quickest way to get to the common data set for each school?</p>
<p>Also, I forgot to answer your question about location, ucbalumnus. I do live in Cali, on the Central Coast. So I’m probably kind of spoiled as far as location goes. Is there a UC that sounds right for me?</p>
<p>Go to each school’s web site and put “common data set” in the search box. However, not all schools make it available (USC is among them). Some of the information found in it may be found in other places like [CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com) and [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics) .</p>