Which college is tops for actual education?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>OK, I know there are many, many factors other than education to consider when choosing a good college. Prestige, tuition, location, type of campus, size of student body, social life, opportunities, placement, etc etc. </p>

<p>But if one were to take all of that out of the equation completely and simply look for the college that provides the BEST all-round liberal arts type education, which one would that be? I am not looking for the best value for money, nor the college with the most nobel laureates, CEOs, etc. Just an educational institution that really does the best job of educating its students. </p>

<p>Any opinions?</p>

2

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<p>Since you’re phrasing it that way, it seems to me it would have to be a school with either a core curriculum or wide-ranging distribution requirements, so that all students would be exposed a variety of subjects. There are a number of colleges which fit that bill, and it’s impossible to say that one is better than another, since the actual education a student gets is going to depend on the work he or she puts into it.</p>

3

<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Carleton, Pomona, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Haverford</p>

4

<p>There is not one answer to your very general and broad question. It will be different for each person. The real question should be “what college is best for ME?” (or for YOU, if we are advising someone else).</p>

5

<p>vicariousparent,
There isn’t a best. There are many. It’s all about fit.</p>

<p>How do you judge? It will differ by individual and the answers are not universal, but I suspect that the following elements are useful for making this judgment:</p>

<ol>
<li> What is the quality of your fellow students? I would argue that they provide the greatest influence on an undergraduate experience and I mean that academically, socially, intellectually, perhaps even spiritually or morally. Also, what are the other students like and how broadly diverse are they (social interests, religious, ethnic, geographic)? Who will be your lifelong friends?</li>
<li> How big is the school and its environment and how many other students are in the classes that you will be taking? For actual learning, I think that this is an absolutely critical factor. The bigger the class sizes, the less important the quality of your classmates and probably the more self-reliant a student needs to be. And of course, the level of interaction between students and with a professor is inversely related to class size. Is there an institutional devotion to great teaching or does it seem more oriented to building its research reputation? Ideally, IMO an undergraduate would like to see both, but clearly great classroom teaching has enormous value for teaching students how to think critically.<br></li>
<li> What is the nature and quality of the faculty? Are there TAs doing a lot of the teaching or are actual profs doing the work? Is the research reputation of the college relevant to the areas that you think you might want to study in? If so, can you get an opportunity to do real work as an undergrad? If not, then don’t let this overshadow what you are looking for in the school. Are the high profile profs accessible to the average undergraduate student? How and how often?</li>
<li> Is the school spending money to support undergraduate education and preparation of students for post-graduate life or is it more focused on development of its research activity (and most likely its focus on grad students) and reputation among academics? Does the school have sufficient money to compete effectively with peer institutions?</li>
<li> Outside of the classroom, what is life like for a student? How does one have fun? What are the major social activities at the college? What things can/should/will the student get involved in and experience individual growth? How do these affect the undergraduate experience? How important is athletic life at a school (either playing a sport or intramurals or attending an event)?<br></li>
<li> How pretty is the school? How is the weather? What does it mean to students to be in an urban or suburban or rural location and which do you like? How is the access to the school and its location and how accessible are other places a student might want to go?</li>
<li> How much does it cost?<br></li>
<li> What do the alumni say about the school? Did they love their time as undergrads or did they go there for other reasons (academic field? prestige? sports team?, etc.)</li>
</ol>

<p>There is more for sure, but these are good questions/elements to consider in starting and conducting a college search. </p>

<p>For me, I have thought and posted a lot about schools which provide the best undergraduate experiences which I define as the schools that offer

  1. excellent academics;
  2. excellent social life; and
  3. excellent athletic life. </p>

<p>IMO, the best schools in the nation for this are:</p>

<p>Private: Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame</p>

<p>Public: UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U Michigan, U North Carolina</p>

6

<p>"IMO, the best schools in the nation for this are:</p>

<p>Private: Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame</p>

<p>Public: UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U Michigan, U North Carolina"</p>

<p>Hawkette:</p>

<p>Those are all great schools on your list, but why are there no LACs?</p>

7

<p>For certain students, the LACs are clearly the best choices as their small size affords a great classroom experience, the chance to really know almost everyone in the environment and the opportunity to build a tight knit community. But I doubt that their social life (breadth or vibrancy) can match that of the above named colleges and their athletic life definitely cannot.</p>

8

<p>Depends on the student. Different students have different educational needs.</p>

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<p>The athletic life at LACs is different than at the big Us. For my son that difference is a plus. He wanted NO big-time athletics, but his small LAC has lots of very inclusive team sports opportunities. If students want to play rather than watch, that would be the better option. My son only applied to small LACs. What HE considers a great social life is lots of kids who want to talk about stuff, off-beat dances, plays, movies, clubs, music. His campus is small, but VERY vibrant.</p>

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<p>Hawkette, I thought the OP asked: </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I doubt that your position about “the social life (breadth or vibrancy) not matching that of the above named colleges and their athletic life definitely cannot” is particularly relevant. </p>

<p>And for that matter, do you really believe that the BEST all-round liberal arts type education is found at Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame or at … UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U Michigan, U North Carolina? </p>

<p>While there is an obvious canned answer available at usnews.com, it hardly provides an answer to the OP’s question. An all-round liberal arts type education requires a lot more than lip service or mere listings in the catalog, especially at schools that have no distribution requirements.</p>

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<p>It is irrelevant in many respects what is best for someone else. Or how it is ranked. The only relevant question is whether a school is the best school for a particular student and that is a very subjective answer…meaning exclusive to that person. It doesnt matter if Michigan is the best for all 40,000 students there. It only matters if it is the best school for <my kid=“”> or the <kid i=“” am=“” advising.=“”></kid></my></p>

<p>The process of defining and determining what is best for a particular student is what is important, and even that is a subjective test. For some academics is most important. For others, it is size or social factors.</p>

<p>If a person is searching for the “best academic experience for my kid”, there is not a hard and fast objective answer, based on sat scores or gpa’s of the other students at that school. It is based on the overall academic experience AS IT RELATES to the needs of <my kid=“”>. I would no sooner put my kid in at Princeton than a man on the moon. Not a good choice. Though Princeton is clearly an outstanding university with fabulous faculty. If the academic environment is not suitable to the needs/interests of my kid then it is a grave disservice to force the issue, simply for academic ranking. Suppose your kid has extraordinary stats, then what? You have a plethora of schools to choose from, and it is better to work from a “group” of schools and consider MORE than just the avg SAT scores and gpas. Size, location, geography, social and economic factors and the variable strength of programs from one school to another may alter that choice considerably.</my></p>

<p>Point in fact, had my kid been a different major than what is presently intended, we would have a made a different choice. If someone is a music major you need to look for the best music programs and then consider all the other factors mentioned. It doesnt matter if other top academic schools have a good engineering or biochemistry or international relations department.</p>

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<p>bethievt,
My apologies if my comments came off negatively or too strongly about LACs. Of course, students can have great social and athletic lives at these colleges and for many students, they are the absolute perfect fit. </p>

<p>xiggi,
My response above goes to how one interprets the question and when I read an inquiry about all-around liberal arts education, I think about the overall undergraduate experience. So I begin asking the questions that I think every student should ask as they go through the college search process. But you’re right that I probably ran with my answer farther than the OP asked. I just got a little excited. :slight_smile: :)</p>

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<p>No, no hawkette, it’s just that it is completely relative. What would be incredible schools for you and thousand of others might be not so great for my son and thousands of others. And what might be athletically or socially or academically best will be different from one student to another. On the other hand, I personally attended a small LAC, 2 huge state U’s and an Ivy League school and they were all great. A student who is serious about getting a great education can be assertive and get it just about anywhere. I started class discussions in classes of 800+ students. And also took small great graduate level courses at my practically free huge state U as an undergrad.</p>

14

<p>Thanks xiggi for clarifying my query. I am well aware and totally agree that there are many factors to consider in choosing a college. And these factors are discussed at great length on this message board. I am trying to ask a much more limited question in this thread.</p>

<p>The reason for my original question is that sometimes in all the discussion about campus, prestige, athletics, social life, one loses sight of the original function of an EDUCATIONAL institution. And I am not talking about the education you get by “learning from life” or being stimulated by your peers. I am talking about the kind of education you get from your coursework from your professors. </p>

<p>And I don’t have an agenda. I am looking for people to respond with specific names of colleges that they know (perhaps from personal experience) that the college does a good job of educating its students. </p>

<p>I like the point that someone made that the educational needs of different students are different. So okay, go ahead and make statements that specify which type of student you are referring to…eg “MIT is good for the quantitatively gifted students but it doesn’t do a good job of teaching the quantitately challenged students”… or maybe actually it is the other way around?</p>

15

<p>When I hear “liberal arts type education” I immediately think about…</p>

<p>–St. John’s
–Reed
–University of Chicago
–Columbia</p>

<p>As these schools provide a rigorous, mandatory liberal arts backbone in a Core Curriculum and emphasize small class sizes and discussion-based learning. Outside of the quality of Core, I can only speak of the University of Chicago-- I think I’m getting a fantastic, rigorous, quality education with opportunities to sink my teeth deep everywhere I look. I do not know how the quality of my classes compare to those of other schools.</p>

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<p>Anybody who does not include at least UChicago or St. Johns, imo, are automatically dumb when it comes to what colleges are best when it comes to education.</p>

17

<p>In the realm of liberal arts, I agree with you. But as has been pointed out, the question “which college offers the best education?” could just as easily be rephrased, “Which college provides the best learning environment for you?”</p>

<p>What I like about Chicago is that it’s very self-conscious about the education it provides, and the education is the school’s only real draw. (Weak alumni network, weak recruiting, weak grading scale, weak sports, weak fraternity system in comparison to peer schools). Not only are we self-conscious about providing what we think is the best education, but also we’re constantly talking about education.</p>

<p>Every incoming first-year hears an address titled “The Aims of Education” and the address and its giver changes from year to year. Here’ my all-time favorite Aims address, for those interested in reading it:</p>

<p>[The</a> Aims of Education Address (for the class of 2006)](<a href=“http://www.ditext.com/abbott/abbott_aims.html]The”>http://www.ditext.com/abbott/abbott_aims.html)</p>

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<p>Thank you unalove for the kind of specific answer I was looking for.</p>

<p>Interesting you should say that ‘education is the school’s only real draw’ for Chicago. I would think that its reputation and the fact that it is in Chicago would also be attractions. </p>

<p>BTW, what do you think of your neighbor- Northwestern?</p>

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<p>Columbia & Chicago do have the strongest university core curriculums, though not what they once were. Lawrence University originated the idea of a Freshman Studies program that has now been replicated at many LACs, providing a common learning experience for all matriculants. Thomas Aquinas is a very small excellent Catholic Great Books college. Thomas More College of Liberal Arts is an extremely small Catholic school with a rigorous core curriculum and three areas of concentration.</p>

20

<p>This is strictly my opinion, but my choices for the best schools in terms of undergraduate education would be: Carleton, Rice, Reed, Swarthmore, Amherst, Yale, U of Chicago, Columbia, and Smith. But there are literally hundreds of colleges and universities where a bright, motivated student can get a wonderful education and enjoy a great social life. As others have already noted, a great deal depends on finding the right match between student and institution. </p>

<p>Just my opinion. :)</p>