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At Harvey Mudd, 64% of the classes have fewer than 20 students. At Cornell, 61% of the classes have fewer than 20 students. Cornell and Harvey Mudd have nearly the same class sizes. The individual colleges at Cornell are like LACs. There are a few large lecture classes for freshman like the famous Intro to Psych but they are incredibly entertaining. That's why they have become such a tradition.
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<p>I've heard the Intro to Psych class is particularly ridiculously huge, like in the thousands. Also, the stats you provided are misleading. The classes at Mudd that are bigger than 20 students tend to be around 30 students or less. There are no real giant lectures besides core physics lectures to my knowledge (still only around 150 students). And half of the physics classes are spent in <15 students recitations with only phD professors (mine was even with the physics department head). Other than the physics classes and systems engineering, I can't think of a class that even has a recitation. Almost all classes themselves are recitation size. Cornell I'm sure uses TA's to teach some recitations. The only thing students do for Mudd classes is grade some homeworks and provide tutoring, but the professors grade the tests and teach all the classes.</p>
<p>How can you say Mudd and Cornell have "nearly the same" class sizes when there are a maximum of three courses at Mudd with 150 students and the next highest is maybe a couple of engineering classes with 40 students (all of these courses have recitations 50% of the time as well)?</p>