<p>Starting college admission process thingy soon
Could anyone explain to me the difference between a Liberal Arts College and like a regular university?</p>
<p>So like what makes a university get ranked nationally while others get ranked as liberal arts?
What exactly is liberal arts?
Do these schools provide the same opportunites etc?</p>
<p>Thanks!!! =D</p>
<p>Google.</p>
<p>There’s the general definition and the U.S. News ranking definition.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, liberal arts college (LAC) around here and most places is used colloquially to refer to small (typically < 5,000), undergraduate-only or mostly undergraduate colleges. LACs are typically characterized by their small class sizes - which often permit close relationships with professors and more discussion in classes. Generally speaking, they also pride themselves on the “liberal arts education,” which is a well-rounded general education that requires students to take classes in the social, natural, and physical sciences as well as the humanities and mathematics/quantitative reasoning. They tend not to have professional majors, although that may vary and some LACs are actually professionally focused - like Babson College, which is an LAC focused on business. Smith also has an engineering major, and Harvey Mudd is focused on the sciences and engineering. Examples of the more traditional kinds of LAC are Amherst, Swarthmore, Rhodes, Reed, Occidental, Sweet Briar (women’s), Wesleyan (women’s), Spelman and Morehouse (historically black).</p>
<p>U.S. News defines a liberal arts college for the purpose of their ranking as a college that “emphasizes undergraduate education and awards at least half of their degrees in the liberal arts fields of study.”</p>
<p>The “liberal arts” part is the least relevant part of the definition, because you can study the liberal arts at large national universities and most large national universities consider themselves liberal arts institutions. For example, at Columbia - a large research university - you’ll take courses in the Core Curriculum designed to make you a well-rounded individual, and most of their majors are not pre-professional (there’s no business major, or communications, for example).</p>
<p>The biggest differences between LACs and universities are</p>
<p>-Size - generally speaking. LACs tend to have less than 5,000 undergrads and I would say that most probably have less than around 3,000 undergrads. But they’re not the only ones. Rice, for example, has only ~3,000 undergrads itself, despite being a research university. Tufts is also pretty small, with just over 5,000 undergrads. The size tends to mean smaller classes and classes that are more like seminars than lectures.</p>
<p>-Major research programs and graduate programs. At large national universities like Columbia, Harvard, Penn State or UCLA, the professor’s primary job is as researcher. Professors are expected to bring in major grants and publish a lot of papers. They need lots of graduate students to do that, especially in the sciences. This often (but not always) means for undergrads that they will have grad students doing some part of the teaching in their major. This also differs by department. Grad students may teach your science labs and math labs, or they may teach entire classes. For example, at Columbia advanced graduate students can apply to teach the Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization classes in the Core, and most sections of University Writing are taught by English graduate students (and I actually think it’s required as part of the PhD program in English). The math and science tutoring rooms and the writing center are also usually staffed by a mix of grad and undergrad students, supervised by a faculty member. It may or may not be more difficult to get close to professors, depending on your personality and the size of the school.</p>
<p>LACs don’t have major research programs and usually have no or very few graduate programs, so the professor’s primary job is typically to teach (although at elite colleges, they share that responsibility with doing research - they usually only teach 4 classes a year, about equivalent to what a professor at an Ivy would teach, whereas at mid-ranked colleges they may teach 5 or 6). Therefore, your labs probably will be led by the professor, and you likely won’t have any classes taught by a grad student.</p>
<p>There are tons of threads on this on CC…just look back and you’ll find more answers</p>
<p>Be aware too that the concept of a liberal arts college differs from a liberal arts education. </p>
<p>Most universities have within them a liberal arts college (in addition to an engineering college, law college, etc). When students pursue a liberal arts degree within a university they typically take broader coursework (Humanities, Social Sci, Sci, English). These are more likely to earn minors because they have more elective credits then students in other disciplines.</p>
<p>So, for example, a student seeking a degree in Computer Science could choose to enroll at:
<p>@juillet Wesleyan University is a co-ed LAC. Wesleyan College in Georgia is a women’s college. Wellesley College is a women’s college :)</p>
<p>So is going to a LAC good? Like for example. Lafayette College. They have engineering and it’s a LAC. Does this mean you will get a well rounded education?</p>
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<p>Liberal arts includes math and science, although many H/SS majors avoid such courses or take “rocks for jocks” type of courses.</p>
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<p>Whether a school is a LAC has little bearing on whether it requires students to get a well rounded education. Some LACs (e.g. Amherst) have no or minimal breadth requirements, while some non-LACs (e.g. MIT and Chicago) have extensive breadth requirements.</p>
<p>For Lafayette, you can review the breadth requirements at <a href=“http://catalog.lafayette.edu/4082.htm”>http://catalog.lafayette.edu/4082.htm</a> and compare them to those of other schools.</p>
<p>For engineering majors a “well-rounded” education isn’t as feasible, since there are such strict requirements for engineering majors. This leaves minimal room for other classes and electives.</p>
<p>In general LACs are unique in how they let you dabble in lots of different subjects. This is something certainly available at universities but it’s something I’ve found similar among most LACs.</p>
<p>By definition, I think LACs are undergraduate focused institutions that epitomize the liberal arts & sciences and lack a graduate school (there are few exceptions). However, you can still find something like that at a research university too.</p>
<p>I’d suggest visiting a LAC and a research university to see if you can get a very broad vibe on what a LAC is like in comparison to a research university.</p>
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<p>It depends on what you consider “well rounded”. Engineering majors typically have about 45-50% liberal arts courses (25% math and science, plus 20-25% humanities and social studies breadth).</p>
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<p>Dabbling is less dependent on the school (unless it has a very large core curriculum that restricts free elective choices) than on the prospective majors. If the majors require starting early, or have large numbers of requirements, then there may be less flexibility to dabble for a few semesters before deciding on a major.</p>
<p>“Well-rounded” in this context typically means 1/3 classes major-related, 1/3 classes non-major related, and 1/3 classes you’re totally free to choose or that form a cluster of some sort that’s unrelated to your major. Engineering doesn’t allow that because there’s a prescribed path with not only a,specific set of classes but also a specific order in which to take them, and the vast majority of classes are related to the major. </p>
<p>The big difference I find between a LAC and a Liberal Arts College within a university is that at a LAC, this well-roundedness is valued and, often, constructed in a meaningful way that gives the college its identity. There’s a belief in the inherent value of the liberal arts (like the tongue-in-cheek remark in the eponymous movie: “A Liberal Arts Education will solve all your problems”); that “liberal arts ethos” typically is absent in the Arts&Science or Liberal Arts colleges within a large university. In addition, at many large universities, frankly, liberal arts come after the College of Science, the School of Engineering, and the Business School - both in consideration and funding.</p>
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<p>Yeah, I know 
I deliberately referred to a variety of different types of LACs, other than the standard top ones you see referenced here on CC. I’m from Georgia, not too far from Wesleyan College, so I meant Wesleyan College the mid-ranked women’s college in central Georgia, not Wesleyan University (top-ranked co-ed LAC in CT) or Wellesley (top-ranked women’s college in MA). Those are both LACs too, though!</p>