I really want to go to a small school so that I don’t have to be in large classes and lecture halls, but I feel like large universities are the only things I’ve ever heard about. thoughts?
What do you consider large? Around 3,000 is considered medium. It’s more important to look at the average class size.
You will have heard of lots of small colleges after just several hours of research. What you were aware of prior to that point should not be of particular importance. In some ways, you are already substantially advanced in the search process in that you seem to have a strong sense of what you want.
I’d consider large to be more than 15,000, and thanks for the tip, ill look into average class size more instead of total size of the school lol
You’ve probably only heard of the big cities in states that are more than 1,000 miles away from where you currently reside. That doesn’t mean that many medium sized or smaller towns aren’t perfectly excellent places to live. It also doesn’t mean that the big cities work for everyone.
Colleges are the same way. Some, like myself, love larger schools. Others prefer smaller schools. Plenty of people don’t care.
There are many threads on CC discussing LACs and universities.
You can have a great expreince and any type of college , it is about finding the right fit for you. My D is at a LAC now and is having an amazing experience. My S loved his mid-sized university.
Many large schools are better known because they have big sports teams so that really should not be a determining factor in where you get your college education.
Though it might initially appear reductive, you can familiarize yourself with smaller schools by matching them statistically with larger schools that you may know of already. For example, by standardized scores, Union matches with UNC-CH, Bates with the University of Virginia, Middlebury with Boston College, Hamilton with UC-Berkeley, and Williams with the University of Pennsylvania. After you gain this statistical familiarity, you can then progress to selecting among your options along broader and more personal criteria.
If you are concerned about class sizes, try looking at the on-line class schedules of each college to see if class sizes are listed. Class sizes are generally larger in frosh level courses and decrease in size for more advanced courses. Some subjects like economics, psychology, chemistry, and biology are popular and tend to have larger class sizes than less popular subjects.
Of course, also check the catalogs and schedules to see what courses are offered and how often. Smaller schools may get smaller class sizes at the expense of offering fewer courses or offering them less frequently.
Re #7, in case it’s not apparent, however, a well-resourced small college, even one with less than 2000 students, may still offer over 700 courses.
I’d take a small school over a large one any way. You miss some of the “buzz” of a big school (and the sports), but smaller class size, closer interaction with fellow students, etc., are a plus. (By small I mean < 5000 students).
startclass.com (among other websites) will show you the class size.
Nope a 20171, average class size is not all that is important. Further, small schools tend to be colleges rather than universities. There are huge differences between the two. A study was conducted to look at which type faculty would prefer their own offspring to attend. They preferred that their own offspring go to colleges
Colleges are distinguished from universities by the fact that they focus on undergraduates and don’t usually have any (or at least not many) graduate programs. In a successful college, faculty often collaborate with undergraduates in research. Undergrads often serve the function that grads would serve in a larger university. So if they work in a lab, for instance, they often play a critical role in the lab and work closely with the faculty PI. In contrast, an undergrad in a university who works in a lab will often be an assistant to the grad student and might rarely even see the faculty member. The university will likely offer a much broader range of research topic areas. But the undergrad may be doing menial work like handing out questionnaires used in a graduate student’s research.
In colleges, faculty members are promoted and granted tenure on the basis of 1st teaching, 2nd Research 3rd Service whereas at Division 1 Research Universities faculty are evaluated on the basis of 1st Research 10th Teaching and Service. At a university, an outstanding teacher who is not productive in research will lose his or her job. An outstanding researcher who is a horrid teacher will be retained. The opposite is true for a college. That means that there are likely to be much better teachers at the college.
These are huge differences that color most aspects of college life. it is not just about classroom sizes.
I wanted my daughter to attend a small school but she refused. She attends a large university and I could not be happier with her decision. Most of her classes are small (30 or less). She has one lecture with about 200 students but her professor knows her name and she has established a relationship with her. She is currently meeting with somebody to get involved in undergraduate research and is in the process of waiting about two summer internships, one of which was recommended to her by her professor. She takes a research class with under 20 students. So far she is loving all of her teachers.
I think you can get a great experience at both and need to see which is the right fit for you.
It might be noted that through honors programs big colleges try to give their best students a small-college
environment. But from my experience, there isn’t a lot of difference between liberal arts colleges with 1500 students and smaller universities with fewer than roughly 8000-10,000 undergrads. I went to a private university that had about 8000 students, and I took an English class that had about 8 students the first week. By the second week, 7 had dropped the class, but it continued for the whole semester with me as the only student. Professor was super sharp with undergrad and PhD from Yale. What an amazing experience.
I wanted to attend a school that was at least 25,000 students. Huge football games, large campus, very diverse students. I turned down a better schools for this.
Small schools often have more of a community feel. Many of them will not have the facilities to even host huge lecture classes, and so there will not be any. Colleges focused on undergraduates will have a focus on the undergraduate, on undergraduate research, and on the teaching ability of professors. Large schools often have more resources, more professors, and a wider range of class options. Both have upsides and downsides. Consortiums of smaller schools can mimic the upsides of a large school, while honors colleges within large universities do the same for smaller schools. Essentially this comes down to what you feel is more important. There are a lot of fantastic options in both directions. I’ve been thrilled with the academic options at my small LAC, and clearly other posters have been at their large universities. If this is a function of wanting to go to a LAC but simply not knowing about where to start researching, I suggest the Fiske Guide, a few hours, and a lot of post-it notes to get your brain going about what you want in a college. Then you can better target your research.