<p>What do you think is the perfect student body size for a college? I'm talking undergrad. And why?</p>
<p>residential college of ~1000 in a major research university of 30k+. You get the opportunities of a big school and the small classses/prof interaction of a LAC.</p>
<p>I think the optimal size that balances resources, curriculum, and opportunities for undergrads with personal attention, manageable student services, and a sense of community is in the range 8,000-20,000 total enrollment with roughly 70% undergraduates. This would be my preference.</p>
<p>I would feel claustrophobic at an LAC. But, some students love LACs.</p>
<p>I think no less than 2000 and pref about 4000 undergrad. I went to a really small LAC (1200) and it got really small really quickly. I thought I didn't want a big school, but when everyone knows everything about everyone.. well, you really ought to leave room to reinvent yourself sometimes. It's hard to step outside your comfort zone if you get can't spread your wings.</p>
<p>I'm thinking 6-10k would be ideal for me. Big enough to where you don't know everything about everyone, yet small enough to where you don't feel lost.</p>
<p>I love the "medium" size schools of 3500-7500. LAC-type</p>
<p>Dartmouth
Brown
Georgetown
Rice
William & Mary
Tufts
Claremont Consortium
Wake Forest
Duke
Princeton</p>
<p>To name a few</p>
<p>totally differs from person to person. I know people who have transferred from the small and cozy to large state schools (despite sometimes significant downgrade in prestige) and have been happier there. For me, even 4000 undergrad was perhaps a bit too big. I coulda been happier in a small school, or at least one with a residential college system.</p>
<p>Clearly different folks will prefer different sizes of student bodies, but to the extent that one is looking for a school that has great resources and can provide a great diversity of experiences, you will need a school that has some critical mass of students, eg, 3000+. </p>
<p>My personal preference is for schools that provide </p>
<ol>
<li> Excellent student peers</li>
<li> Learning in a manageable classroom size (usually fewer than 20 students)</li>
<li> Having access to faculty that are renown in their fields and yet work for an institution that values and is well known for its classroom teaching excellence</li>
<li> Deep resources to assist in things like financial aid, academic advising, career planning, etc.</li>
<li> A good reputation for its graduates and their ability to work effectively across a broad cross-section of employers and/or attend a variety of top graduate schools </li>
</ol>
<p>My conclusion is that schools falling in the 3000-9000 size best provide this combination of traits and IMO the following are the colleges that merit the closest consideration:</p>
<p>NORTHEAST
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Tufts</p>
<p>SOUTH/SOUTHWEST
Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Emory, Wake Forest, W&M
Honorable Mention (though a bit larger in size): U Virginia, U North Carolina</p>
<p>MIDWEST
U Chicago, Northwestern, Wash U, Notre Dame</p>
<p>WEST
Stanford, Caltech</p>
<p>4000-8000.</p>
<p>I'd say between 5,000-7,000, probably. I went to a college with 2,000 people and it was a little too small, but when you combined us with the nearby men's college our ranks swelled to 5,000 and it was much more comfortable -- not too anonymous, not too personal.</p>
<p>It also depends on the school's resources and number of faculty. Student to faculty ratio is more important than raw numbers.</p>
<p>In support of juillet's excellent thought above about student/faculty ratio, here is some data on many prominent colleges that are not excessively big and are known for the quality of their students, class sizes, classroom teaching, resources, graduates, etc. </p>
<p>Student/Faculty Ratio , U'grad students , College</p>
<p>5/1 , 4918 , Princeton
5/1 , 3051 , Rice
6/1 , 5311 , Yale
6/1 , 6584 , Stanford
6/1 , 4926 , U Chicago
7/1 , 6648 , Harvard
7/1 , 8284 , Northwestern
7/1 , 7253 , Wash U
7/1 , 6719 , Emory
8/1 , 6394 , Duke
8/1 , 4164 , Dartmouth
8/1 , 6008 , Brown
8/1 , 5035 , Tufts
9/1 , 6532 , Vanderbilt
10/1 , 4412 , Wake Forest
11/1 , 7038 , Georgetown
11/1 , 5792 , W&M
12/1 , 8371 , Notre Dame
14/1 , 17628 , U North Carolina
15/1 , 15078 , U Virginia</p>
<p>For some reason, 5k seems like the perfect number to me. Anything over 6k is too big, and anything under 3k seems a little too small.</p>
<p>Also agree about 4-6K. Small enough to know lots of people and have community, big enough for lots of social activity.</p>
<p>hawkette-</p>
<p>would Georgetown not qualify under your parameters?</p>
<p>I prefer at least 30,000+ student body. Such as Michigan State University, University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, University of Wisconsin- Madison, University of Minnesota- Twin Cities, Ohio State University- Columbus, Pennslyvania State University- College Park.
Overall I just like large schools for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>Actually, the very large schools tend to have higher graduation rates although some of the elite LACs also have very high graduation rates. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the higher the number of GRADUATE students the higher the freshman graduation rate. I think large numbers of grad students is associated with high freshman graduation rates because schools with high numbers of grad students tend to be more selective.</p>
<p>Selectivity is more important by far than size in determining the quality of a school. </p>
<p>But, the larger the school, the broader the curriculum, the greater the diversity of personalities and talents, the richer the campus culture, the more opportunities to pursue interests, the greater the physical and intellectual resources.</p>
<p>Class size is not an important determinant of quality. What IS important is how engaged the faculty are with students.</p>
<p>docB,
My original post did not include Georgetown and should have. Please note that it is included in the 2nd set of data. Also, I erroneously included Caltech in my original post. Clearly Caltech, while a wonderful school, is much smaller than any other major university and would not fit with the criteria that I laid out earlier.</p>
<p>hawkette: how about some ideas for mere mortals in those ranges?</p>
<p>I agree that faculty engagement is key. I went to U-M, Ann Arbor for undergrad and found that while it was a huge school my class sizes and the dedication of faculty in the departments made it feel like a small school. Meanwhile, the breadth of the student body was really dynamic.</p>
<p>Hmmm... I'm a junior right now and keep flip-flopping on whether I'd prefer a large-ish (not huge) university or an LAC. I go to a tiny (64 people in my grade) high school, and even though it works out really well for me, I'm not sure whether I want to try something new for college and know what it's like to be a part of a much bigger community. I think Amherst is my ideal school but I'm afraid of being stifled or unable to spread my wings, especially after being in such a small school for 7 (grades 6-12) years! But then again... I don't want to be just another number; I'm used to knowing my teachers extremely well and don't want to lose that. Any thoughts? I'm tending to agree with those that say 4,000-8,000, or even 3k - 7k is the perfect size, but I don't want to limit my options. Hmmm....</p>