<p>D at Wellesley, S at Northwestern.</p>
<p>That’s nowhere near true due to the lesser amount of faculty at LACs. People going into academia tend to take jobs wherever they can get them.</p>
<p>That’s fine if you don’t want those things, but you can not justify saying universities are superior to LACs with your personal opinion. Different strokes.</p>
<p>Why this needs to be a “competition” is ridiculous. Why can’t they just offer different things, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder? Why does there have to be a winner or loser? How lame.</p>
<p>Thank you! Cobrat, xiggi, and myself have stated just that point many times now. This incessant arguing is getting really old.</p>
<p>The OP asked what makes Unis better, and I along with monydad have pointed out the things that make Unis better. I guess the LAC supporters are self-conscious or something, because they insist on having an answer to every weakness that an LAC has. You’d think LACs were perfect under their logic. That’s clearly not the case, as way more people apply to Unis.</p>
<p>Let’s do this the American way, let the market/consumer decide which is better. There are more Unis and more people applying to Unis than LACs…so…are Americans just stupid?</p>
<p>I believe wholeheartedly that there are pros and cons to both LACs and universities.</p>
<p>That said… YES, Americans are stupid. ;)</p>
<p>Instead of reading what we’ve actually said about the pros and cons of both universities and LACs, let’s focus on your misconception of our logic.</p>
<p>Top universities were often established centuries before a large percentage of LACs (e.g. Harvard was established in 1636, Swarthmore in 1864, Reed in 1911), meaning they’d have a longer track record of prestige. Universities are generally more affordable, so clearly they would have more applicants. Universities also tend to focus more on education for vocational purposes, which I would say is more practical for most people; not everyone has the same views regarding the purpose of a college education.</p>
<p>We can’t all be that stupid considering we have what are considered the top postsecondary education establishments in the world. ;)</p>
<p>Oh, I wasn’t commenting either way on whether Americans are stupid for choosing universities over LACs; just that Americans are stupid, period. 
Admittedly I’m not American (yet), but if I were/when I am, I count myself in that population.</p>
<p>I’d agree that the masses are extremely misguided in their ways, both politically and socially, in the US. I mean for come on, how does Rand Paul get elected for senator? How does such a large percentage the lower still believe in trickle-down economics? And people still believing homosexuality is a choice? It’s absurd. We need an overall better education system.</p>
<p>But enough with that digression. I believe over the past 12 pages the OP’s question has been adequately answered.</p>
<p>And about the longer record of prestige, affordability, and practical skills taught at unis (like business and engineering, id imagine) THAT is what makes Unis better than LACs. Because at the end of the day, people choose a school based on which will teach them what they want to learn, which is cheaper, and which is more prestigious.</p>
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yes yes, it has! Thank you all once again! I cannot express how glad I am for the CC community. It is simply wonderful! :)</p>
<p>Yes, those are some of the advantages of universities and they are better in those aspects. Overall, no one is better than the other. As we’ve said, they both have their pros and cons.</p>
<p>And no, I’m just not an ignorant Tea Partier, bro.</p>
<p>Glad it helped. 
Cheers.</p>
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<p>This made me laugh.</p>
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<p>Because we’re human, and we all feel we have to be better than the person next to us.</p>
<p>My daughter is an undergraduate physics student at Harvard, so that is the frame for my comments and also the department that I am most interested in. I searched for the undergrad institutions of all of the faculty of the department. The Harvard website generally just lists the PhD, but I killed a few hours on the internet to see what I could find. Of the 63 physics faculty members I could not identify the undergrad institute of thirteen. Of the remaining 50, only three went to LACs (if you include Wesleyen University) and the other 47 went to research universities. This fits what we had assumed when we were choosing her college and makes me more comfortable (not that I was ever uncomfortable with choosing Harvard) that a undergrad at a top research university is great preparation for someone hoping to get a PhD in physics and eventually teach at a top physics program. </p>
<p>Again, I am not saying that LACs cannot lead you to the same result, and I am certainly not denigrating what LACs have to offer. There are many that provide a great education and college experience. Its just that for my daughter’s plans a research university looks to be the best choice for her.</p>
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<p>My refutation of a few points by monydad was mainly because I attended and graduated from the very same LAC that his daughter and her acquaintance attended and their negative experiences were the exact polar opposite of mine and most of my classmates. In fact, it was so alien to my own experiences that I was half-wondering whether he was talking about some other college. </p>
<p>What’s more interesting was how the issues they experienced sounded quite similar to warnings UCB and UCLA admissions were telling my high school classmates and their parents years ago to anticipate graduating in 5-6 years because critical core/major courses many not be available during a given semester, year, or even two years. A warning which prompted most of those classmates/parents to opt for LACs where they can be sure to graduate in 4 years. </p>
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<p>Engineering, I will grant you though a few LACs like Swarthmore do have engineering majors. </p>
<p>As for undergraduate business, unless it is at an elite undergrad b-school like Wharton, Stern, McIntire, Ross, etc…the graduates are often treated no differently and sometimes even looked upon with much more skepticism than their liberal arts counterparts from what I heard from several HR colleagues and hiring managers at a few NE financial companies. </p>
<p>Among the issues which caused this skepticism were past serious issues with basic quantitative/written communications skills, work ethic, and the knowledge that the business was considered a “slacker major” at many of the local/regional public and private universities. A reason why there was a surprisingly large number of LAC graduates/liberal arts majors alongside the engineering/CS majors among my colleagues. It was also the main reason why the only business majors I worked with at that firm were from the elite undergrad b-schools like Wharton, McIntire, and Stern.</p>
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<p>Your daughter probably had quite a few Science TFs who were LAC graduates…including some from my college. Incidentally, one good college buddy is now doing his Biology/Biochemistry PhD at her campus after doing a biology/violin double major at our LAC.</p>
<p>“My refutation…”
What exactly do you think you “refuted”?? I reported what actually happened to them, that is not subject to your 'refutation". If it didn’t happen to you, bully for you. Unless you’re calling me a liar, is that what you’re doing? I didn’t see where you did. But if so, first of all I’m not, everything I said happened did happen. Second of all that is a violation of the terms of Service of Collegeconfidential.</p>
<p>“…most of my classmates”. I’ll let other readers decide how qualified you are to speak for “most of your classmates”. But leaving that aside, I, for one, did not attempt to quantify exactly what would be the experience of exactly how many people. I pointed out that these things can happen at such a place, due to the school size, because I know for a fact they did. And i detailed how this obviously can happen.</p>
<p>“Your daughter probably had quite a few Science TFs who were LAC graduates…”</p>
<p>Here is a post from another Harvard grad student about her area:</p>
<p>" Well, not in my program (biological sciences at Harvard) – our top feeders are MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford, which together account for about a quarter of the students who have attended my program over the past four years.</p>
<p>There are only three LACs in our top 20 feeders – Brandeis, Bucknell, and Swarthmore. "</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>I was refuting your point that your daughter/acquaintance’s problem is indicative of problems/weaknesses of LACs because the same problems occur in larger universities…sometimes with far graver ramifications than not being able to take a desired course. </p>
<p>This was the case of several in-state cousins and colleagues who took 4.5-5 years to graduate from UCB and UCLA because their required core/major courses weren’t available during the first 4 years they were there or they were shut out because not enough sections of such courses were being offered. Didn’t help that neither school had the flexibility, willingness, and possibly the resources to work out a win-win solution for the student and the institution concerned which caused them to delay graduation by 1/2 to 1 full year. </p>
<p>This was such an issue the admissions staff at both schools WARNED my high school classmates and their parents to anticipate graduating in 5-6 years instead of 4…indicating this was a serious problem. Keep in mind this took place years before the current California economic crisis.</p>
<p>I’ve read stories of impacted majors and delayed graduations at some state universities, that may well be the case and I have no opinion to the contrary. My own family’s experiences have been with private universities of some modest repute, and nothing similar happened to any of us, as what happened to some of us at the LACs. </p>
<p>It seemed reasonable to me that many applicants to selective private LAcs might alternatively be considering selective private universities,and not so much the University of Central Florida, or whatever red herring was raised previously. So I did not think of the need to specifically address situations at some public universities. But yes if you are alternatively considering a state university in the midst of tremendous fiscal problems, this may pose some particular other considerations. Considerations which may be just as different from ths situation at many private universities as they are different from private LACs.</p>
<p>Its true every university is not the same, and every LAC is not the same, as someone pointed out earlier. But the ones, of whatever type, that are small tend to be more likely, IMO, to offer a greater proportion of courses only every other year, and fewer sections of courses, and there are obvious issues related to the relative infrequency of courses offered. As well as the total number of courses offered.</p>
<p>Universities no doubt have their share of issues, but likely their various situations are not all the same, based largely on their financial health perhaps. But there are certain characteristics associated with being small that seem somewhat less subject to great variation, to me. But where they do vary, so be it.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>I agree that financial conditions of the state where a given state university is located is a factor. </p>
<p>However, I don’t know if that is the sole reason for the problems my in-state colleagues and cousins faced as they attended UCB and UCLA when California’s financial health was much rosier…late '80s and throughout the '90s. </p>
<p>Incidentally, the HS classmates who applied and visited UCLA and UCB were also targeting schools like Stanford, Pomona, Harvard, Reed, Caltech, UW, Harvey Mudd, Princeton, Swarthmore, etc. They wanted UCB and UCLA because they were also considered peer schools of the private schools they were applying for and they had a strong preference for being on the West Coast. It was also indicative of how difficult it was to gain admission as an OOS applicant. </p>
<p>In terms of merely being shut out of desired courses…including some critical to their majors, I have also heard dozens of accounts from those in many private universities…including some ivies well-known for their bureaucratic administrations. While it didn’t impact their time-to-graduation, this experience did disillusion them in ways very similar to those of your daughter and her acquaintance.</p>
<p>Sure you can get shut out of a course. But if it is offered every semester, and not just once for the entire rest of your tenure at the school, there are more chances that at some point you will be able to take it.</p>