<p>I know it's a dumb question, but are they for people who want to have a traditional career path? Like a Doctor, Lawyer etc...</p>
<p>EDIT: I'm just trying to ask what makes LACs so special...</p>
<p>Rephrase your question to be a bit more specific.</p>
<p>Most of the schools I am applying to are LACs because I like them for a lot of reasons.</p>
<p>They focus on undergraduates and (generally) offer a better education than most big research universities.</p>
<p>They’re also smaller and tend to have better communities.</p>
<p>But isn’t the bigger the better? Going to a small school sounds boring IMO…</p>
<p>Depends on what you consider small. Some big LACs have over 5000 students. Some small Universities have less than 2000.</p>
<p>^ its not better when it gets so big that you as a student become just another number passing through</p>
<p>I assume the OP is asking what makes a LAC more appealing than a university for some people.</p>
<p>Just a few things off the top of my head:</p>
<ol>
<li>usually smaller class sizes, 7:1 student to instructor ratio at some LACs</li>
<li>no TAs</li>
<li>smaller student body; you’re less anonymous</li>
</ol>
<p>On the flip side, why some people wouldn’t want to go to a LAC.</p>
<ol>
<li>less research opportunities due to the lack of grad/PhD programs.</li>
<li>less prestige in terms of name recognition in many cases (at least to the general populace)</li>
<li>some people just like the large university setting.</li>
</ol>
<p>Different strokes for different folks.</p>
<p>Since they are smaller, the schools generally have small classes, and you get to know the professor on a 1 on 1 basis. Its a broad education where you can take many classes outside of your major to explore other aspects. Most of LACs do send a good number of grad to law school, medical school, and other graduate programs.</p>
<p>Check out Loren Pope’s Looking Beyond the Ivy League, page 78. The section that is sub-titled, “Bigger Is Not Better.” Pope notes that “the big university faculty members and administrators know that bigger is likely to be inferior,” and notes that these folks send their own kids in disproportionate numbers to LACs. That has certainly been my observation. My sister and her ex-husband both teach at a large public university and sent 3 of their 4 kids to LACs (and wish they’d been able to persuade #1 son to as well). Friends of ours who are college faculty – in both a large SUNY and a couple small private colleges – overwhelmingly send their kids to LACs as well. The reasons they do so are worth discovering.</p>