<p>I just wanted to chime in that some large universities may offer the experience of an LAC right on their campus. For example, Harvard, Emory, and Columbia all have undergraduate divisions (Harvard, Emory, and Columbia Colleges) that cater especially to undergrads and are relatively medium-sized schools (5,000-6,000 students). You get the experience of being in a small liberal arts college that's especially for undergrads but also get the experience of having access to world-class facilities and professors at the same time. It's pretty awesome. And schools like the University of Georgia have undergraduate honors programs that feel like a small liberal arts college.</p>
<p>In addition to that, many liberal arts colleges have begun more professional programs that cater towards students who want some professional training. Morehouse College has four business administration tracks now. Many colleges have instituted 3-2 programs in engineering, where one spends 3 years at the LAC and 2 years at a top engineering school like Georgia Tech or Renessaeler and gets a bachelor's degree in a liberal arts discipline and engineering. Agnes Scott College has a similar 3-2 program for students in nursing, and my school is developing one. We're also developing a program in global finance and international business, funded by Lehman Brothers, who routinely recruits at my school.</p>
<p>There are also plenty of large universities that are in close proximity to small liberal arts colleges, so there are opportunities for cross-registration and participation in both cultures. No, we didn't have many well-known, world-renowned faculty at small Spelman College. But we were located in Atlanta, and many of my classmates were doing research at Georgia Tech, Georgia State, and Emory. I had many classmates taking classes at these schools, and we had library privileges at all of them. The 5-college consortium has U-Mass Amherst in it.</p>
<p>So, I think the lines between 'large research university' and 'small liberal arts college' have been blurred in the past years because of increasing collaboration. Of course, you want to select your school because its resources fill your needs, but don't forget to determine what kind of relationship your school (be it big or small) has with a school of a different kind to gain access to their stuff.</p>
<p>Not so in many humanities fields. Take Classics, a core humanities discipline. My D will have had 6 years of Latin and 4 years of Ancient Greek by the time she starts college. Most LACs have only 3-4 Classics faculty who spend much of their time teaching introductory- and intermediate-level language courses, with only a smattering of upper-level courses---not really enough to make a real major for D if she places out of the intermediate level in either language. Only a tiny handful of LACs offer enough depth in Classics to work for her if she decides she wants to go in that direction. Same in Philosophy, another core humanities discipline. Some LACs have very good philosophers on their faculties, but frankly I haven't seen one yet that offers what I would consider a full array of courses within the discipline. Amherst, for example, is far better than most, but in 2007-08 it offered no courses in such core areas as epistemology, philosophy of language (apart from a seminar on Wittgenstein & Quine), philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, or any aspect of non-Western philosophy, for starters. Very few LACs offer more than 3 or 4 modern languages, typically only the most common (Spanish, French, German, then either Russian, Italian, or possibly Chinese). Very few LACs offer a true linguistics curriculum. And so on.</p>
<p>In the most popular humanities and social science majors---English, history, econ, poli sci, psych---LACs tend to have large enough faculties to offer a pretty thorough grounding in the discipline. But get much beyond those disciplines, and the faculties and course offerings tend to get pretty thin pretty quickly. </p>
<p>This is not a criticism. Some LACs are very good schools, and what they do, they do well. Graduates of LACs often go on to do very well in grad school in fields in which their undergraduate education was somewhat limited in scope, but of a high quality. But for understandable reasons, they simply cannot provide the curricular breadth or depth that larger universities can.</p>
<p>Consoltation, liberal arts education are only History, Science, English, Foreign Language, Art, Sociology, and Psychology. </p>
<p>What I mean by preprossional or technical or whatever is Engineering, computer science, buisness (though i'm not sure if it's liberal arts), nursing, architecture, economics, journalism, finance, etc. </p>
<p>so like Taxguy said, LACs are for kids who want a strong "overall" education but ONLY if they pursue a liberal arts education right? IDK... and Pursuing a technical doesn't count?</p>
<p>Then just what the **** is the point of LACs?</p>
<p>This is depressing. And it particularly depresses me.
Why do people bother applying to and attending LACs?
Why do they still exist if there are better options?</p>
<p>Are they particularly well-suited for the socially inept?</p>
<p>LACs just aren't upto it ... a Professor of Astrophysics at MIT has FAR in-depth knowledge of his subject that a Prof of the same subject at any LAC. Cut out Engineering, in science even, wouldn't you like to hear from a guy who's gonna win the Nobel than from just any Professor?? And what people feel that Profs are inaccessible at places like MIT, Caltech seem to misunderstand that it's just a matter of doing it yourself. In LACs the Profs come to you, at MIT you have to go to a Profs.
Maybe LACs are better for arts, social sciences, humanities etc ... but for science I would still prefer going to a place where I can work with the best of the minds and do hands-on cutting-edge research!</p>
<p>I'm really sorry to cut in on this but, would grad schools look down on people who've obtained degrees from LACs? In other words, if student A (LAC) and student B (university) both applied to a grad school with equal stats, would the grad school look more favourably upon student B?</p>
<p>nuclearfree: Grad schools do not look disfavorably upon people who went to LACs and they would not necessarily prefer a student who went to a university over one who went to an LAC. I'm at Columbia Grad right now and there are people from a wide variety of schools, both small colleges and large public universities. It really just depends on your experiences -- you need research experience to get into schools. At an LAC it may be a little more difficult to get into a good lab, especially in the natural sciences, depending on the resources one's particular college has. At my undergrad school pretty much everyone who wanted to do research was doing it and ladies were going to really great schools for graduate school -- I have plenty of friends at top programs, even the science geeks.</p>
<p>In grad school admissions there's really no such thing as equal 'stats' as grad school admissions are based much less on stats and much more on fit with the program. But if we're talking almost identical students, and one was from an LAC and the other from a uni, I don't think there'd be a distinct difference.</p>
<p>LACs can prepare you well for graduate school, but it really depends on the program of study that a student prepares along with his or her adviser. My school gave me excellent preparation for graduate study, so much so that I got into a Ph.D program straight from my BA that normally does not admit students without a master's. I think about 30% of it has to do with your school and about 70% of it has to do with you and your determination to get into a graduate program. I'm under the impression that you can get into a graduate program from virtually anywhere as long as you do what you need to do (cultivate relationships with professors to get good recommendations; do extensive research experience; excel in your classes; meet people and figure out what you want to do with your life). I knew that I wanted to go to graduate school off jump and so my entire undergrad career had that in mind.</p>
<p>adrivit: I'll have to disagree with you on that point. First of all, I don't necessarily think that an MIT professor on his own will have a deeper knowledge of astrophysics than a professor of the same subject at a small LAC. There are too many other factors at play. First of all, the MIT professor may be an assistant or adjunct that just got hired and the LAC professor could be a full professor of 20+ years -- would say that the MIT professor knows more! The LAC professor could be well-published and well-versed and the MIT professor may be less so. Knowledge in a field is SO much more dependent on situational factors than the institution someone is at, and being a grad student myself, research faculty go to where the money is. It does happen that large research universities generally have more money than small LACs, but sometimes you'll get a phenomenal well-known professor who wants to teach at an LAC.</p>
<p>It's also not true that at an LAC profs will come to you whereas at a larger school you have to go to profs. At any small LAC you have to take your education into your own hands and pursue contacts. Professors are not going to beg you to come to class, to do research with them, or to improve your work at any school regardless of size -- you have to do that yourself. On the flip side, the professors at Columbia are some of the warmest and most helpful I've ever had; they go out of their way to make sure that I am comfortable.</p>
<p>Also, as I pointed out, it is entirely possible to do research with a professor that's not at your school. It's easy to go to City College but conduct research at NYU or Columbia; to attend Spelman or Morehouse but do research at Tech or Emory; or to go to Lesley or Simmons but do research at Harvard or MIT. You just have to be driven and willing to travel a little bit.</p>
<p>In an environment where the student must seek out interaction with faculty, it is my experience that 80% do NOT. This is the large research instituion with >8,000 undergrads.</p>
<p>I would flip that with LACs. 80% interact with faculty as a matter of course, and 20% have to make an effort to avoid that interaction.</p>
<p>The middle ground is occupied by many of the Top 20 schools --- 3,500-7,000 undergrads. Even among this group, there will be an obvious different between 4,000 undergrads and 7,000 in access to faculty and amount of small class discussion.</p>
<p>My position is that much better learning occurs in the 1-1 or small group interaction than in static forms of delivery (non interactive professor or book). </p>
<p>LAC
Mid sized Research University
Large Research University</p>
<p>Say what? Great men, but two points define a straight line. Whether a professor is at a large research university or a small LAC has no bearing on their ability or skills as a teacher. One might argue that faculty at a small LAC are more interested in teaching. I have a PhD from Harvard in Applied Physics and had classes with brilliant people who were poor teachers (and some who were very good). Some of the best teachers I had were at Haverford College as an undergrad.</p>
<p>Any thoughts on how a good LAC would prepare a student for Grad Schools in Psycology (Counsoling), Creative Writng, or Studio Art as compared to a "State U"? I did notice a couple of LAC's have 24 hour access to art facilities if you are in classes - I assume you dont find that at a Big U?</p>
<p>The larger schools that I am comparing would be either Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Iowa.</p>
<p>I do object to the stereotype (not overtly stated by you, but I think implied in what you say) that says all (or most) undergrad teaching in major research universities is done in large lectures. Not so. It depends entirely on the field. In popular majors like English, poli sci, history, or econ, you may well be better off at small LAC because many of the classes at large universities will be large. In less popular majors like classics or philosophy the vast majority of LACs will have extremely limited offerings, and you'll either have major gaps in your undergrad program or be pushed into another major entirely. My experience as an undergrad at a major research university (Michigan) in a relatively unpopular major (philosophy) was that I had an extremely favorable s/f ratio, outstanding teachers who were very attentive to undergrads, all small classes, all the one-on-one interaction I could ever ask for, and a breadth and depth to the undergrad curriculum in my major that no LAC in the country could match. Which is probably why when I went on to one of the top grad schools in the field, only one of the 14 grad students who entered in my year came from an LAC; the rest were from places like Harvard, Princeton, Michigan, Cornell, Columbia, and Duke. </p>
<p>Of course, it's a little risky picking an undergrad school based on your projected major, because many people change once or twice. But even with that, there are advantages and disadvantages to an LAC; undergrad teaching may be very strong overall, and some majors may be outstanding, but you'll have substantially fewer majors to choose from, and some of the less popular ones may be quite weak. At a bigger school, the opposite problem: more majors to choose from, but probably a very mixed bag as to which will have manageable numbers of students, a good s/f ratio, and high quality undergrad teaching.</p>
<p>So much depends on the individual student. My D attends both a LAC and a Uni (Barnard/Columbia) and has gotten different things from each experience.</p>
<p>She has a major at each. </p>
<p>Columbia draws in speakers, energy but is disorganized.</p>
<p>Barnard runs like butter and provides tremendous faculty resources.</p>
<p>For a highly motivated student, prestigious univs have an amazing amount of resources but not all students can negotiate this system.</p>
<p>I graduated from a large research uni and I was one of the few of my group taking advantage of the graduate courses.</p>
<p>It's true. LAC's don't offer specialized career training, so if that is the student's goal a uni is obviously better. But if the goal is a strong knowledge base and skill set I think the personality of the student will determine this choice.</p>
<p>Looking back, would you have done it the same? Knowing what you now know about Harvard undergrad (by exposure) and grad (by experience), would there have been any advantage to you going Harvard/Harvard, or Harvard/Princeton, etc.?</p>
<p>IMHO, I think people come out learning the same thing, maybe even a bit more. What I mean is, a grad from MIT will not know any more than a grad from Harvey Mudd. Maybe the grad from MIT will have more creative solving skills the fact that he was smart in the first place to even get in.</p>
<p>Don't have much time to answer this one (off for the weekend), but briefly Princeton was my first choice for undergrad- didn't get in. For my particular interests I probably would have had a stronger education in my major there and would probably still choose it if I had to do over again.I did however get a lot out of Haverford. The honor code was a strong point and felt we were treated much more like adults than I was at Harvard. At the time the professors were called Mr rather than Dr (or first name if you knew them well), and this did not indicate a lack of respect. I believe it was part of the Quaker roots. I liked the sense of community</p>
<p>None (can't think of any) of my fellow grad students at Harvard went there undergrad, but did know some from Cal Tech, Princeton, UPenn, Middlebury, Rice, Brown, etc- my point being if you go to a decent undegrad and do well you can get into a top grad school (at least 30 yrs ago).</p>