@merc81, yes. To be charitable to the instructor, maybe he/she had talked to the student repeatedly. Even then, I’m not sure I could imagine saying what he/she is reported to have said. I would just not call on the student until I was ready.
To answer the OP’s original statement I just toured Davidson and I’m pretty sure it meets every one of those requirements. That doesn’t mean its for everyone just offering my thoughts.
High schools. Make high schools like that, as closely as possible.
I expect E (undergrad research) will be the most important for my DS17. Whenever I’ve asked him what he wanted to do over the summer, research has been the answer, even when he was too young to get into any programs. I don’t expect that to change in college, so he’ll be looking at whatever the undergrad opportunities are in whatever field(s) he eventually narrows his interests to.
D (selection of majors and classes) will be second in importance to some extent, though a school without humanities majors would probably be fine with him. Personally, I switched from a STEM major to a humanities major, so it was good that my large state university had a wide variety of majors.
Like others, I’m not so sure about the A-C requirements. Some of my most interesting classes I had were classes taught by charismatic faculty in large classrooms. Some of the classes where I learned difficult material most effectively were taught by grad students. Some of the classes where I failed to learn difficult material were taught by tenured faculty in small classrooms. I can’t really assign a rule as to whether I preferred large vs. small classes and those taught by faculty vs. grad students.
F (low cost) would be nice, and the UC/Cal Poly schools are certainly lower cost for us than private options. But, that’s really a family issue that doesn’t affect the schooling.
I’m in CA, where we like to have A-G requirements, so I’ll have to suggest a G requirement:
G. Student is in the desired percentile of the overall university or major. I guess this is basically “fit”, and it explains why there isn’t really an ideal college for everyone.
“Desired percentile” varies for everyone I suppose. Malcolm Gladwell says you should be near the top. I’ve told my son (and he believes it from his own experience) that “If you are the smarted person in the room, you need to find another room.” Not sure who originally said that, but I think I read it first on the AoPS website. I guess we’ll aim for his scores being about 75th percentile, but we don’t have real scores yet.
A school where the student is in the 75th percentile is probably a low match or safety, except “reach for everyone” schools where almost all students are compressed into a small range at the top of the scale for academic credentials.
But what may be relevant here is that if the student is far away from the median student, a large school may be more likely than a small school to have a non-trivial population of outliers like that student, so that academic offerings may be more suitable (e.g. offering honors courses or other more challenging options to outliers at the top end of the distribution).
Of course all LAC students aren’t like the one I ran into from Reed, but this particular thread included the proposal (for discussion) that small classes are superior to large. I don’t think small classes are better, or that people can’t express and discuss things in larger classes. My law school section was 84, and all of us took all first year classes together. We discussed, we were called on, we could ask questions. I think the other 83 class members were just as smart as Miss Reed, and just as prepared for class. She would disagree, and often let us know how superior her education was to ours. Yep, I took it personally. While I wouldn’t dismiss any school based on one person, those alums and how they act are representing their schools especially when they make sure we know they went to X. My uncle is one of those, and yes, I think he’s kind of a jerk about it. It works the other way too. I like my uncle’s wife, so I have good feelings about her school (also an LAC).
You never get a second chance to make a first impression and this was my first impression of Reed.
What I find is that smaller colleges, such as Reed, are often judged by the personal experiences one has with a single graduate. This contrasts greatly to larger universities, particularly prestigious ones, which seem to maitain their public status irrespective of the degree of impressiveness of their individual graduates.
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression and this was my first impression of Reed.”
Gotta love glittering generalities. I had thousand of chances during my career as a teacher. I’m sure some students didn’t like me (you might even have been one), but I’ve got plenty of evidence that most of them did!
Btw, @mackinaw, your anecdote was refreshing. “This will do …”
And those big school reps aren’t “Party party party, football, frat party, party party party” perhaps formed by not even knowing one grad of the school? When I mention where my daughter goes to school, the looks are either shock or pity, and most of those people don’t even know what city the school is in, have never been there, don’t know the cost or which programs are strong. Of course there are stereotypes of LAC and military schools and flagships because many stereotyped traits do exist at those schools. The stereotypes aren’t wrong, it’s just that may not be the whole story. If you go to Alabama or USC or Notre Dame expecting football not to be a big deal, I think you’ll be disappointed in your experience. Can you make it not a big deal to you? Sure, but it’s still there. LAC specifically advertise the small class sizes, free thinking discussions, how superior they are with all the artsy granola stuff. Why is it wrong then to meet an alum who has these traits and not associate them with the school? She was a reflection of what Reed was trying to sell, and I went there expecting it to be different, then that would be my mistake.
Of course by ‘first impression’ I didn’t mean I only met her once, and I’ve met a few other Reed students or alums and while they didn’t impress me as much as Miss Reed did, I can’t say they changed my opinions She owned it, and she wanted us to know that was how she felt about the school and its superiority to all other schools. It didn’t get her very far with the rest of us because most people don’t like to be told over and over how inferior they are. Lots and lots of college choices. We looked at some LACs but decided they weren’t right for my kids and yes, my opinions of the many people I’ve met over the years who attended LACs (and of course mention how they went to Yale within the first 5 seconds of meeting them) influenced my opinion on that type of school. I know lots of LAC grads and I’m even related to (too) many. For my kids, small class sizes weren’t an important factor, they weren’t looking for small discussion groups, and engineering isn’t usually an option. We looked at military options and ruled those out too, and yes, my opinion was influenced by the AFA grads I know and the active duty coast guard folks and other students applying to the academies. Good and bad, our experiences influence us.
Personally, @twoinanddone, I found your description of the Reed graduate to be mostly humorous. Subsequent posts that were somewhat critical may have just been a prompt for a clarification of your viewpoint.
In terms of my own impression of Reed graduates, I’d say that the ones who have self-identified on CC are often interestingly literate and generally non-defensive.
I think I understand your position that a LAC model isn’t necessarily more pedagogically sound than a university model, but I was a little thrown off when you wrote that you are related to “(too) many” LAC grads. That seems to bring the discussion backwards again. Perhaps I didn’t understand your meaning …
Lastly, “artsy granola” is not what I think of when I think of LACs. Particular LACs, maybe; LACs in general, no.
I do not believe that there is a nuversal idealized college. The most ideal college for specific student is the one that fits this specifics student the best. All criteria have different “weight” and criteria list is different from person to person.
The ideal college for my D. was:
- that had combined bs/md program that accepted her
- offerred great Merit award, preferrably at least full tuition
- within 4 hours driving from home
- student body is diverse, not in skin color or socioeconomics, but in interests and intellectual levels. She did not care to be surrounded with intense pre-med crowd 24/7, she wanted to be with the variety of people.
- has a Music Minor
6 non-urban
7 pretty campus
8 great food service
She knew that Honors are small classes and frankly large ones did not scare her.
We also knew that Research opportunities (that was a MUST for her) are absolutely at every college, including the lowest ranked and whatever.
I understand that D’s criteria may be laughed at by most others. I just wanted to show that what is a must for some has very minimal (if any) value for others.
I graduated in '83 and my highly selective Boston school was $12,000/year all-in. I felt it was a good mix of large weed-out classes and smaller specialty classes. From 1913 to 2013 average inflation in the US was roughly 3% (the last decade has actually been lower). So if colleges had maintained that rate of price increase, I’d be able to send my kids to that same school for about $30,000 all-in today. But in actuality that school would charge me $65,000 if DS1 entered as a freshman. I do think that if schools had given more effort to cost containment that they should be able to offer their education for about $30k. Even if they built some buildings, amenities, endowed chairs , let’s say 40k. But I think they were more concerned about building their own reputation and “keeping up with the Joneses”. Also I spoke with a board member from another well known Boston school and undergraduate tuition rate was honestly low on the agenda. Graduate programs, cutting edge research, other things take priority. Lastly , parental love and desire to launch their kids is highly in-elastic.
@patertrium, Average net costs likely aren’t $65K, however. Probably closer to $45K (with many paying the full $65K and more than a few paying far below that amount).
If DS1’s package comes back at $45k I’ll be jumping around for joy!
We found that by abandoning the entire “reach” concept and selecting a wide variety of schools where our son was in the top 30%, he ended up with great merit scholarships at all of them and was able to pick from among many interesting colleges where he can get a great education. My advice: unless you are made of money or will get vast amounts of need-based-grants, ditch the concept of ‘reach’ and ‘high reach’ - it leads to either huge debt or huge disappointment.
The University of Minnesota-Morris comes to mind. It is not well known but it is a public alternative to the small liberal art school experience.
A. Small class sizes.
The biggest intro classes are capped at 75, most other classes have under 20.
B. Sufficient capacity exists so that the school can hold the line on small class sizes without shutting any student out of a class because it is too full.
I can’t really speak to this, but I would assume so.
C. All class sessions led by regular faculty, with minimal or no use of TAs or adjuncts.
No TA use, all classes taught by professors.
D. Good selection of majors, and good selection of course offerings in each major, including core junior/senior level courses for the major offered at least every year (preferably every semester if part of a sequence of prerequisites).
35 majors, as well as the opportunity to make your own.
E. Undergraduate research opportunities (which presumes that there is some research activity at the school).
Perhaps more opportunity for undergrads that at a big school–there are no grad students and a lot of research is done.
F. Low cost.
About $20k for all costs, for in and out of state students.
While Morris perhaps doesn’t fully meet every single requirement, it certainly comes close. I visited it recently and was pleasantly surprised at what I found.
I definitely think Davidson meets all of these.
A small class sizes
Even the intro courses are capped at 32 and tour guide said most classes are like 10-15
B capacity
Only about 1700 students total so I assume this is a non-issue
C ta and adjunct use
None that I’ve heard of
D good selection of majors
Perhaps the only area where it falters. 25 with 17 minors but you can create your own major.
E undergrad research opportunities
It’s only an undergrad school so all research opportunities are only for undergrads. Tour guide said professors love working with undergrads and the research they do is always unique not the same things over and over.
F low cost
Davidson trust meet 100% financial need without loans. Even though tuition is high cost is low.
I would like to expand on the prompt though. The ideal college would have
Great academics
A lot of diverse Extracurriculars and sports
Small classes and the capacity for everyone to be in the classes they want to be in
Affordable
Great location
Big enough to be diverse, small enough know people (about 2k-10k undergrads)
Lots of majors minors and a dual degree program, great programs in each major
Great faculty professors teaching classes
Nice dorms (suite style) and food (diverse and tasty)
Lots of unique undrgrad research and study abroad opportunities
History
High graduation rate and high rate of students going on to grad school and jobs
A diverse (male/female, black/white/latino/asian, Christian/Muslim/Jewish/Atheist etc.) group of smart, thoughtful, friendly students
Great libraries and access to new technology
A gorgeous campus that is big enough to discover new things every day but is small enough to easily navigate
Great reputation and prestige
Atmosphere that is competitive without being stressful, that fosters growth but has room for relaxation
Find a college that has all of those things.
Rollins has almost everything there. Even research opportunities.