<p>Some Liberal Arts Colleges are very expensive and not easy to get in, but I heard some kids decide to go there instead of State Colleges or some finest universities.
What are the benefits of going to a liberal arts college as opposed to a state school?
What are some of the cheaper liberal arts schools in the Midwest area?
What are some of the bigger liberal arts schools? I want to attend a small school, but I don’t want it to be too small (I realize that’s kind of a broad statement though, but I’m thinking of schools with more than 2,000 students).</p>
<p>I know I have a lot of questions, but any help would be much appreciated! The college selection process is so stressful, so I’m hoping this will help! Thanks!</p>
<p>Many students choose to attend liberal arts colleges instead of a state or public university because of need blind policies. In some cases, it is less expensive to attend a LAC for this reason. </p>
<p>You’re going to have to do your research on this one unless there’s another CC member who has time to do it for you and post it here. The easiest and quickest way to find larger LACs is to go to US News and World Report Rankings of the LACs. Go through and click on each college on the list until you get tired and compare their student popular sizes. Also, on collegeboard.com there’s a college match quiz that you can take and I’m pretty sure it asks you which region you’d prefer to attend school in and whether it not you want to attend a LAC. </p>
<p>The main benefit of attending a LAC is graduating with a strong ability to think critically.</p>
<p>Hope this helped, good luck!</p>
<p>Barnard
Colgate
Middlebury
Oberlin
Smith
Vassar
Wesleyan
Williams</p>
<p>All over 2,000 students.</p>
<p>A stand-alone LAC is no different than liberal arts college within a large university except that it doesn’t have the extra foot traffic of graduate students, law school students, med school students, dentists, nutritionists, business school students, etc, all sharing the same campus. Consequently, LACs tend to have highly evolved senses of community .</p>
<p>I will respond to your questions but you should strongly consider taking this out of the Amherst forum and into the more general college search forum where you might get more responses.</p>
<p>Liberal arts colleges are usually characterized by (1) size – almost always fewer than 3000 students, with some exceptions, (2) small class sizes – at most LAC’s only a few of the intro courses exceed 50 students and classes that exceed 100 are very rare (again, with exceptions), (3) emphasis on discussion vs. lecture style teaching, (4) 90+% dedication of resources to the teaching and support of undergraduates, and (5) a curriculum that usually focus on “pure” academic subjects (sciences, humanities, social science, and arts) over “applied” subjects (engineering, health sciences, etc.) with an increased flexibility to do interdisciplinary study if desired. Students attending these schools usually think they are receiving more individualized and better-fitted attention in their education than they perceive they will get at larger, more diversified schools. And, in truth, the LAC’s are very strong in developing future graduate students, even when compared to the elite universities.</p>
<p>True costs are difficult to evaluate because financial aid plays a big roll and the schools with the higher sticker-prices also tend to have more financial aid available. However, you might consider some of the public LAC’s for “cheaper” presenting costs, such as U of MN-Morris, UW-Superior, U of IL-Springfield and Truman State (MO). As for some of the bigger midwestern LAC’s, look at St. Olaf, Oberlin, Gustavus Adolphus, St. John’s/St. Ben’s, and Carthage College (all over 2,500), although there are many more possibilities that are just a little smaller.</p>
<p>From what I heard, you can go to a liberal arts college, study what you want, and still be able to go on to any career you want to go on to. That sold it for me. I had thought about engineering but then decided I don’t know what I want to do. Amherst seems like a great school, though.</p>