Well, yes. And I think the reason they want to “bait and switch” subject matter is because:
- they don’t understand the question or,
- they’re more comfortable answering a different question.
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If you review the tread, you will see that I was replying to specific comments concerning the possibility of reaching the “cutting edge” at the undergraduate level.
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Ok, I didn’t want to put it quite that way, but you’re forcing my hand: they are not a traditionally strong domain of LACs. Change my mind. 
The breadth and depth of course offerings in Math and CS at even top LACs are inadequate if a kid is passionate in those areas. We’ve looked carefully at Williams, Amherst etc both for course content within courses and the breadth of courses offered and found them lacking.
And the quality of peers is far from what you get at a top tier place. It is night and day.
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We might as well acknowledge that there will be a continuing pull to hijack the thread into another debate between LACs and research universities. This happens whenever the focus is on research universities and what it is they actually stand for.
It is not called hijacking. If you are going to define something, part of the definition is in terms of what it is not. Good critical thinking skills taught at a LAC would make this apparent 
So, let me see if I understand you correctly: You’re saying a research university is not a LAC?
If a LAC is everything, then there is nothing called a LAC. Clearly those don’t need to be the only two categories. There could be many many categories, and these are two of the many.
I have no idea what you just wrote.
It’s not complicated. A LAC is different from a Research University. A LAC is also different from a place like Juliard. And different from a for profit college. And different from a trade school. Etc. It is different from many other things. Otherwise people wouldn’t have given that specific name. People want to buy into this mythical thing. They think they know what it is. Just leave them alone.
Interesting that you are still trying to make this about LACs.
You were concerned that the thread is being hijacked. I am saying we are still within the thread. No hijacking is happening.
Much of these ratios are kinda bogus, because faculty at research universities are only part-time teachers, and even less of that time is dedicated to teaching undergraduates. Faculty at LACs have a much higher percent of their job as teachers, and 100% of that time is dedicated to undergraduates. So each faculty member at a LAC is roughly the equivalent of two research University faculty members, when it comes to undergraduate teaching.
In LAC terms, the actual faculty to undergraduate ratio at Stanford is NOT 1:5, it’s maybe 1:10.
Then there is the fact that, for their calculations as to how many faculty there are, “part time” faculty are all considered to be 1/3. However, most adjuncts are hired to teach at less than 1/4 the time of a TT or tenured faculty member.
In short, those “student-faculty” ratios that are advertised by research universities do not actually represent how this affects undergraduate teaching.
Of course, when we talk about the quality of education, well, when almost all of the classes are either taught by faculty members, with the TT/tenured faculty at research universities mostly being judged on their research output, and the adjuncts teaching with no job security, no office space, few resources, and no continuance.
The problem is, once again, that people here do not really seem to understand what a faculty member at a research university does, and how they divide their time, or how adjuncts fit into the entire story.
As for the number of small classes, that really means nothing, since about half of those small classes are only for graduate students, while the rest are for upper class students. The first two years are going to be spent in classes where there are at least 60 students.
The number, and even the percent of “small classes” doesn’t really tell the story. What you really need to do is to look at the total number of students who are taking small classes each year versus the number of students who are taking small classes. So if a university has 20 classes of only 5 students and 10 classes of 50 students, that means that, in that year, there are 500 places in large classes, but only 100 places in small classes. So, if there are 200 students, and each need to take 3 classes, no more than 100 of them can actually take a small class, and these will still take two large and one small class. Yet the advertising can claim “67% of our classes are small!”.
All that being said, we have another issue that I have mentioned 1,000 times here.
Class size and faculty ratios are not some magical indicator of quality of education. There is little to prove that, at the college level, class size really determines how the college education affects the student’s later success, once you have controlled for the income levels of the students.
In fact, looking at the success of large public universities at increasing the income levels of their graduates, versus that of expensive private universities, I would say that class size means little, in a general sense. It’s good for some students, not so good for others, and unimportant for most.
However “small class sizes” and “high student to faculty ratios” are good selling points for parents who are asked to spend $80,000 a year.
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I reviewed the thread. I stand my my comment. We all have good reason to be proud of our offspring and the choices our families have made, but with that pride often comes a tendency to overvalue the path one’s family has chosen, and for some certain families this unfortunately entails denigrating the paths others have chosen. IMO this is at the heart of this never-ending debate. It is not enough for some of those whose kids attend certain schools to be proud of their kids. They must take it a step further and demean and disparage all other options.
In short, when posters feel the need to call into question “the logical reasoning skills” of LA majors, or repeatedly take shots at liberals arts colleges as being inherently inferior, that says quite a lot about those posters, but very little about the topic at hand.
I think you made up your mind a long time ago, and that’s not going to change.
But for anyone reading along who might be wondering if a strong interest in and talent for math is compatible with a liberal arts education, you might want to take a look at the types of undergraduate institutions that produce the most Ph.D.s in STEM fields. From the National Science Foundation:
[O]n a per capita basis, more graduates from Carnegie-classified baccalaureate colleges: arts and sciences focus earn a doctoral degree in science and engineering (S&E) than their peers at other types of Carnegie Classification of institutions.
https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf22321
In other words, Liberal Arts Colleges produce more STEM Ph.Ds per capita than do undergraduate research programs. In fact, on a per capita basis, seven of the top ten feeder programs are Liberal Arts Colleges:
1 California Institute of Technology
2 Harvey Mudd C.
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4 Swarthmore
5 Reed
6 Carleton
7 Grinnell
8 U. Chicago
9 Haverford
10 Pomona
For those students who have treated math and CS as a race from an early age and have already checked off many upper division undergraduate courses (or higher) in high school, they may run out of courses in some LAC programs simply because these students are in essence looking for a graduate level program but many of the LACs are focused on undergraduate programs. But there are plenty of talented students who are passionate about math, CS, engineering who haven’t had the inclination or upbringing to check off the same boxes. These students may be as well off or better off at a liberal arts program. Even some of the students who checked the boxes would benefit greatly from a liberal arts approach, whether your family personally values such education or not.
In short, what is best for your family isn’t necessarily best for every student “passionate” about math or CS.
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Regardless of the experience at your high school, there are many LACs that are extraordinarily selective, such that overwhelming majority of kids attending the college are in the top 10% rank in their high school class. Some example stats from 2021 CDS are below:
Pomona – 7% admit rate, 93% in top 10% of class*, 30% are valedictorians*
Swarthmore – 8% admit rate, 90% in top 10% of class*
Amherst – 9% admit rate, 91% in top 10% of class*
Williams – 9% admit rate, 90% in top 10% of class*
*Among the minority of kids who submitted rank
There are also many kids for which LACs are their first choice college. However, none of this contradicts the statement that few kids from a particular high school are likely to attend the listed LACs; or larger research colleges are likely to have a larger number of matriculating top students from a particular high school. LACs often have a small student body and tend to attract a small and self selecting group. Certain particular HSs have a much larger or smaller portion of kids applying to LACs than others, for a variety of reasons.
For example, I can’t recall anyone from my HS who applied to any of the LACs listed above,. Some did attend LACs, but they were primarily LACs in the upstate NY area. Most people I spoke with from my upstate NY HS had at least heard of larger CA colleges with a Div I football team like Stanford, UCLA, or Berkeley. However, nobody I spoke with had heard of Harvey Mudd. Instead most kids tended to favor SUNYs. Among private colleges, Cornell and RPI were especially popular. A common theme was among publics, privates, and LACs was favoring upstate NY colleges.
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I always learn something new from your posts. Sometimes I disagree with your analysis. But I still learn.
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According to the admit rates and the 1 decile class rank you cited, that would be self-evident?
Among the top 10% of students, there will be a good share with specific career ambitions that might steer them to universities and colleges known for their engineering, comp sci, pre-med, etc. programs.
That automatically leaves only a fraction of those top 10% HS students to attempt the top LACs, of which 90% may be rejected - ergo, leaving <1% who will attend?
I realize that my anecdotal experience is just as anecdotal as yours, but among the top students of my daughter’s (public) HS class are several who enrolled in those top LACs (plus some attending a few other top LACs omitted from your list), and I also know of a few who had applied, but were rejected from some of them. And then there is a unknown, larger quantity whom I never was close enough to, to have learned that they might have been rejected.
I’d say the ballpark top LAC attendance count was about the same as those who enrolled at an Ivy League university. So I’m not sure what conclusion that leads to?
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Whether it be claims that Math is not the traditional domain of liberal arts, or supposedly “empirical” claims that the “top kids all go to non-LACs,” I am always amazed when advocates for the quantitative fields make supposedly factual claims without any factual verification whatsoever.
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Might I remind members of the forum rules: “Our forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place, and one in which members can post without their motives, intelligence, or other personal characteristics being questioned by others."
Examples of phrases to avoid (and this list is not exhaustive):
Let me explain it to you in words you can understand
You clearly don’t understand
That shows how little you know
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/guidelines
The conversation tends to work better when one does not attempt to put words in another user’s mouth.
Your school might not be representative - as the top LAC’s data show that they draw almost exclusively from the top 10%.
Or, in a typical year at your school, they didn’t gain acceptance?
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