<p>I thought I was a “small school girl,” too, when I was applying to colleges. I’d attended a tiny, all-girl’s high school and loved the intimate feel. I spent a year at a LAC (not one of the prestigious/more selective ones), realized that I would be horribly bored if I stayed there for four years, and so transferred to Cornell, which, it turned out, I adored.</p>
<p>Big schools aren’t just an undifferentiated mass of anonymous human beings, but a collection of small communities. You will make friends in your dorm, in your major, in the classes you take to fulfill your distribution requirements, and in the clubs you join. Although LAC adherents like to tell horror stories about horrible overcrowded, impersonal classrooms at big schools, that has not been my experience either as a student or now, as a professor at one. There are more students, but there is also a wider number and range of classes. The crucial number you should check, therefore, is not the total number of students but the average/median class size at the large university that has offered you a full ride. In my own case, I forged friendships with my professors at Cornell that have lasted through my adulthood. I also have many friends among my former undergraduates.</p>