This statement is reliant on rankings that are primarily dependent on metrics primarily involving research output (as measured through publications and securing grants) and in some cases reputational surveys (which, of course, are correlated to the previous).
I have been discussing actual quality of undergraduate instruction, class sizes, student-faculty ratios, etc… Guess what?: the characteristics of institutional/faculty priorities/focus that provide schools with really high rankings based on research output are the same ones that would provide generally worse undergraduate instruction.
Similar to all R1s, UCs are not hiring/retaining/promoting faculty based on undergraduate instruction. There’s a huge focus on research output and obtaining grant funding. And they have had large enrollment increases to try to make up budgetary shortfalls due massive cuts in state funding.
This is also displayed in the Texas policy of auto admitting the top 6% from each individual Texas high school to UT Austin. It provides geographical diversity and represents the entire state. Otherwise UT would be overpopulated with kids from affluent areas of Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.
I haven’t read through your argument above, but are you then stipulating that really a small LAC education is inherently better? Because many of not most of my classes at Harvard were large lectures from professors + discussion sections with TAs. Fairly similar to what my son is getting his first two years at UCLA. I was happy and he seems happy!
I teach at, and my kids attend, a private Christian school in California. We do have plenty of students that apply to and are accepted at UCs. It tends to be the stem kids as the humanities kids are more likely to choose a private Christian school. Our school has dropped a few APs, but expanded dual enrollment a ton over the last 5 or so years. Our students have the ability to graduate from high school with their associates degree and about 1/3 of our students do so. I do think the dual enrollment helps with college admissions.
Harvard is listed as having 70.6% of its classes with fewer than 20 students and only 11.1% with 50 or more. Those numbers are a lot “better” than UCLA (if you agree with my value assessment of).
Other private R1s with less of a focus on grad programs are likely going to look a bit better than that. Random example: Northwestern as 76.3% of classes with 19 or fewer and only 5.5% with 50 or more.
LACs have numbers in the mid-70% range in the first category, and minuscule to none in the second. If you think this is an pedagogical advantage for undergraduate education, it’s clear what type of school comes out on top. Surveys of professors who prioritize undergraduate education are going to be very clear on the matter. And what types of classroom experiences do honors programs at large public universities try to replicate and use as a model? (hint: it’s not large lecture classes)
Out here (Midwest/East Coast), UCs have been increasing in desirability, as much among private school families as public school ones, at least in the recent experience of my friends and acquaintances. UCs are expensive OOS; this is less of a drawback to boarding and private day school families (skew wealthier).
These kids are judged in context by UCs, so weighted GPA/# of APs becomes a relative thing.
There are a couple of elite private universities who are accused of dishonesty in their data to raised their rankings. University of California has impressive rankings in both domestic and international ranking like QS and times higher education ranking. In fact some UC’s have higher ranking than some ivies like Brown and Cornell where international students are not familiar with. These international students use the consolidation of all rankings to make decisions based on reputation and rankings. These international students will only go to the best schools and the UC’s are definitely up there based on the consolidation of all rankings.
I suppose that Harvard’s entire approach to undergraduate education might have changed since I was there, but in talking with friends with kids who are there, it certainly seems like the lecture-style CORE classes in Sanders Theater persist! I do wonder how those statistics are calculated. What’s the source you are drawing from? For sure if you count all of the DISCUSSION sections that take place, capped at around 20, you might get to only 11% are bigger than 50. But I’m otherwise skeptical. Unless renowned professors themselves don’t teach undergraduates these days. If I was taking a class with Robert Coles, EO Wilson, or Helen Vendler you can believe that it was with at least 200 or 400 of my closest friends!
As for the benefits of LAC, I quite agree! I wanted that for my daughter who is heading to a UC this fall. But not for an extra $120K over the course of 4 years. One can’t have everything, and there are lots of ways to excel at and enjoy an education at a large public school.
Source: US News (I had mentioned that in an earlier post with a run-down of stats for UCs compared to some other top publics). These are almost surely derived from the CDS for each institution.
Of course there is plenty of room to manipulate these stats and colleges can and do cap enrollments at 49 and 19 for some classes for those purposes. And they also sometimes try to count discussion sections as separate classes.
It’s interesting to think about how kids individually feel strongly and differently about how they want their classes to be. My UCLA son recoiled in horror when his sister talked about attending a literature class with 11 other kids on admitted students day at Oxy earlier this month (she was the only prospective student; the rest were first years). The teacher called on her and took attendance and there was no “sitting in the back.” He called that “nightmare fuel.”
So while maybe it is objectively a “better” learning approach to sit in high-school sized classes in college, some students do not WANT that to be their every experience. He definitely does not. The only LAC he applied to was Pomona because at least there would be 5x the students within the consortium, but now he’s sure he wouldn’t have liked it regardless. He has ways to make a big school feel smaller, and that’s sometimes outside of the classroom. A D1 football and basketball program with rah-rah school spirit and him getting to play in marching band? He wouldn’t trade it for small classes and professors who know him well at Oxy. Especially not for nearly twice the cost. And that last part is why his sister won’t be getting that either, but I’m sure she too will do just fine at a UC by finding the right programs and activities to make a big school feel smaller. Both kinds of schools are great in different ways!
My DD is the same–she toured Cal Poly SLO and decided not to attend because “the small classes look like high school.” She wants (or thinks she wants) huge lecture halls like you see in movies like Good Will Hunting or TheSocial Network. To her that means “college.” She wants a big campus with big buildings and anonymity. Her dad is appalled at this thinking (especially as she’s giving up a coveted Engineering major by turning down Cal Poly SLO), but I just told her to try to sit in the front row or at least near the front at UCSB (where she SIR’d) and it will seem like a smaller class with fewer distractions. I just hope her first two years of undergrad aren’t a series of pre-recorded lectures. . .I hear some classes are like that.
I think in most cases, the students don’t have a problem with whatever their schools offer ONCE they are in it. They adjust, adapt, and learn to like it or at the very least, good with it. It’s the parents that like to complaint, especially the parents that don’t have much association with said college lol.
I try to keep my opinions from influencing my kids school choices, especially the negative opinions. My D is sooo happy at UCB. Never had any problem with signing up for her classes, never complained about class size. She knows lower division classes will be larger, upper division classes will be smaller. The more specialized the classes are, the less students in it. I have never heard her complaining about TA teachings vs. professor teachings (but I heard plenty on here from those who didn’t (nor their kids) ever attend the college! Go figure!). She got a lot of values out of the TAs, and the professors. She understands the nature of things, and never complained nor had any issues.
Now a little bragging, she will be graduating this May with 2 full degrees: MCB and Cognitive science, high honor in both. She also has 7 computer courses under her belt, she codes like a professional coder, can go against any student in EECS and even better than them (she TAed CS courses and was told by her TA she is one of the best programmers he has ever worked with). She was more than qualified to be admitted to CS program but has zero interest in majoring in CS. She said coding is a tool for her love of science, does not want to have a career in coding. Her senior thesis is being submitted for monetary award. She is taking a year to work for her professor as a research assistant before going for PhD. Doesn’t make much $$ but enough for rent and she got to do what she loves most. That’s the nature of STEM degrees and she is good with that. Her UCB experience is beyond what I had ever hoped for, and so much more.
My eldest daughter is about to graduate from UC Davis and does not have the same feelings regarding the quality of her education. She may be just one student, but if there’s one, how many other students feel the same way she does that are silent? Happy people don’t tend to be online complaining.
She has had a fantastic time there. (She was due to graduate last year after just 3 years but she was enjoying it so much she added a minor to her degree so she could stay one more year). The professors have been outstanding.
She has not had the experience you are talking about, so maybe it is major specific and not representative of the campus as a whole.
Just as rankings can be flawed, so can people’s opinions.
@YoLo2
My older son attended UCD as an Undergraduate and also did not have any issues with his education. All the UC’s have a large Undergrad population and it is expected to have large classes for many of the GE and lower division major prep classes. That is why these large classes have smaller usually 30 or less student discussion sessions. The professors were approachable during office hours and yes some TA’s actually did explain the material better than the Professor.
When I did a search on US News, I noticed that UCD’s acceptance rate for 2022 is incorrect so I would take their information with a grain of salt. Assuming for UCD, that 33% of the classes are at 50 or more students, that still leaves 66% that have a class size below 50. Upper division courses at UCD for my son were all around 30 or less.
I went to Cal Poly Pomona in the late 70’s and early 80’s and had several classes with 100 students. I did not think my education was compromised or substandard. As mentioned by several posters, some kids want larger college classes and do perfectly fine.
Kids have choices. You want some handholding and more personal interaction with the professors, then consider a private school. There is no right or wrong answer but what works for one student may not work for another.
As a CA resident, I am grateful that my son was able to obtain a very good education at a reasonable cost and is thriving.
If some one does not like aspects of the UC system, there is nothing making them apply. Plenty of wonderful colleges from which to consider besides the UC’s.
CalTech has small class sizes. Students don’t choose CalTech because they need handholding.
Some of us think that UC undergraduate admission system is very flawed. Their spending money on sports coaches and administrators while stiffing GSIs, adjunct and teaching faculties is despicable. Does this mean that we hate UCs and we should go somewhere else for higher education? Unless we can unconditionally cheer for everything UC does, we are against the whole UC system?
I think UCB provides excellent graduate education due to its outstanding faculty. I am less sure about undergraduate education, but clearly some of its majors are highly coveted. I would rather see UC succeed, serve its mission, attract the best and brightest for their undergraduate programs and not resort to dubious selection criteria. And also pay the GSIs, adjunct faculties better and not waste money on sports coaches and pen pushing bureaucrats.
The vibe of UCD is exactly right for D so I was surprised when she was WL though accepted last week because she is collaborative, friendly, non-competitive. Cal would be a horrible fit. I’m just worried that the academics will be too rigorous for her at UCD. Maybe this is the imposter syndrome rearing its head.
Hand holding is probably not the appropriate phrase. You make some valid points and I agree no system is perfect and there is always room for improvement. However, the UC’s must be doing something right in the eyes of the applicants, since 6 of the 10 most applied schools are UC’s.
My kids have graduated and moved on so I have no particular skin in this game. This discussion is about venting so everyone is welcome to do just that, along with giving their opinions if they agree or not. Hopefully with time, some of the many issues brought up in this discussion can be resolved.
