<p>Wesleyan would be considered in the same league with top LACs like Carleton and Swarthmore, right?</p>
<p>Also, are academics at Wesleyan more competitive, collaborative, or something in between? What are typical class sizes?</p>
<p>I would say that academics at Wesleyan are not competitive at all. We're very laidback, and even though a lot of people spend a lot of the day studying, it's definitely collaborative and supportive, and people love their study breaks.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is probably slightly more difficult to get into admissionswise, but Wes is similar to Carleton. But hey, we have better weather :X And overall, in terms of postgraduate reputation, getting into grad schools and jobs will be about as easy/difficult at whichever of these top LACs that you go to - it's really how well you do while you're there.</p>
<p>According to the website, "All professors teach undergraduates. All students have faculty advisors. All tenured faculty have teaching and research responsibilities. Student/faculty ratio is 9:1. Average class size is 22 students, and 60 percent of all students enroll in classes that have fewer than 20 students." This is my first semester, and two of my classes are seminars with under 20 students, 1 is a lecture with 25-35, and another is a lecture with 100 students. While there are a lot of small seminar classes, there are also large intro lectures, but more advanced classes tend to be smaller.</p>
<p>Also, there are some alternatives. While there is an 100 person intro psych lecture class, there's also an alternative 20-person discussion-and-presentation-style intro class that covers the same material, to help cater to students with different needs.</p>
<p>Do you know about class sizes typical for polisci or biology?</p>
<p>Intro bio is quite large. Intro polisci class is capped at 40, an subsquent classes are at least smaller than that.</p>
<p>If you look at "Wesmaps," the online course catalog, you can see the caps for various classes. <a href="http://www.wesleyan.edu/course/govtc.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.wesleyan.edu/course/govtc.htm</a> is the link for all government classes this year and <a href="http://www.wesleyan.edu/course/biolc.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.wesleyan.edu/course/biolc.htm</a> for all bio clsses.</p>
<p>If you look underneath the details about each section for a course, it will say " Reserved Seats: (Total Limit: ##) " This number will be the amount of students the class is capped at. Underneath, it will give you a breakdown of how many seats are reserved for each class year, which should give you an idea of the level expected for the class.</p>
<p>Can underclassmen petition to take classes that are reserved for upperclassmen if they have the background for it? Also, how easy is it to get tutorials set up?</p>
<p>It's very easy to take classes if you can convince your professor you're ready to handle the material. It's very personalized, and if you're interested and able to take something, you can. If you're interested and not completely qualified, often they'll let you take it anyway and let you drop out on your own... :P</p>