I just need to say that this has not been our D’s experience AT ALL at Purdue, which is definitely a big school. Maybe it’s because 1/2 the student body are enrolled in the CoE, but the hyper focus is on academics.
Yes, about honors college making a big school feel small, but also living learning communities in general. Purdue has a dozen living learning communities for engineering alone. Not being accepted to honors doesn’t mean there will be a “tiny cog” experience!
I will be honest that both my H and I went to a private university, less than half the size of Purdue. We were very worried about her choosing a big school because of everything you mentioned. Our daughter’s largest class was 300 students, with mandatory recitations of 25 students. My largest class as an undergrad at Cornell was 1,000. No recitation. Plenty of my intro courses had 300+ students. That isn’t a big school phenomena.
One month into freshman year, D was having weekly coffee meetings with a professor. By the end of the 1st year, she was on a first name bases with the assoc. dean of honors engineering. All her professors knew her by name. They actually talked about her because the first day of o chem, her prof told he knew she was a co-op student and chatted with her at length. The dean of chem e teaches one of the fundamentals classes so he can get to know every single student that comes through his department…and he does an hour long one on one with each of them.
Our D has been a course grader, was asked to TA, is doing research on campus, etc… She’s had a much stronger connection to professors than we ever had as undergrads.
The facilities are absolutely amazing. Labs, maker spaces, smart rooms, etc…
And when she wants to go to a basketball game she’s got the big school rah rah sports, along with amazing arts, 1000+ clubs, etc…
What’s the saying? You can make a big school feel smaller, but you can’t make a small school feel bigger.
To each their own in terms of preference but I wanted to shed some light on the stereotypes.
I do realize that my D’s major is MUCH smaller than aero (only 180 chem es in her year) but she has plenty of friends who studied AE and they are all employed or went on to grad school, and loved their time at Purdue.
YMMV but that’s been our family’s experience.