<p>Hi.</p>
<p>Getting straight into it, can someone please explain to me what exactly a liberal arts college is? </p>
<p>I know, the question is sorta eh.. but I just felt that getting any answer from an actual student or experienced person would give me a better idea. So far, all I know is that the overall student population at a liberal arts college is a lot smaller than a UC and so the class sizes are obviously smaller. And that's about it.</p>
<p>But does "liberal arts" college mean that it doesn't follow the traditional system of GEs, lower divs, and upper divs?? Is a liberal arts college a radically different school system, just a smaller version (population wise, not quality wise of course) of a UC, or something else that I didn't list??</p>
<p>WHY DO I ASK? Well, a lotta kids apply to UCs because that's what everyone does right? But I'm just starting to learn about liberal arts colleges and want to know what its about!</p>
<p>To define a Liberal arts college, I guess first look to what defines a university. A university has graduate and undergraduate programs. Within the undergraduate curriculum there will be several colleges, a liberal arts college (majors such as english, history, art, many sciences, etc.) perhaps a journalism school, a college of business, a college for education, school of pharmacy perhaps, etc.</p>
<p>A liberal arts college just has that "college" i.e. the liberal arts majors. It is not a university so no grad schools and it doesn't have the other colleges such as a school of business, school of pharmacy, etc. It just has the undergrad liberal arts majors, hence it is a liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Upside with no grad schools is no TA's, no grad students teaching classes, etc. The entire focus is the undergrad experience. Downside is simply if you are looking for a particular major that would be found at a different "college" within a university. AGain, you'll just find liberal arts majors, no Business school, etc.</p>
<p>Historically, LACs tend to be unique to the United States and more common back east than out west. They were simply the earliest forms of higher education to rise up among the English Colonies: a small group of pedagogues, often clergy, who often gathered in one building to take on the training of future ministers, usually within a specific sect or denomination. Harvard was founded by Puritans, Yale by their close cousins, the Congregationalists, Princeton by Presbyterians, Brown by the Baptists, and so on and so on. </p>
<p>The LACs you see today (the NESCAC colleges, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Haverford, The Seven Sisters, etc.) are simply colleges that for one reason or another chose not to add grad schools, law schools or other appurtenances even after they became secularized. </p>
<p>You don't see them so much West of the Mississippi because after 1865, the Morrill Act, granting land-grant status to at least one college in each state, made state financing the preferred method of spreading higher education to the prairie states and beyond. The Claremont Colleges are unusual in that they came into existence after the Civil War, were not part of any religious order and, exist in California.</p>