Seems likely that larger schools will have more than 2 kids interested in any given class. Good chance that whatever class you are taking at larger schools will have kids majoring in the subject.
Look at Ohio State and Duke course offerings for Persian:
https://nelc.osu.edu/CoursesandPrograms/CatalogExcerpts/Persian
If you mean that only two students sign up, probably less likely at a huge university. If you mean that the course will be offered even if only two students sign up, that is probably more dependent on the wealth of the university and whether the instructor can be redeployed to another course that needs an instructor.
@socaldad2002 That happened to my D at a large flagship last semester. She wanted to take a class that wasn’t on the schedule. She went and talked to the prof and he was happy to offer it even if she was the only one who would take it. Ultimately another student signed up. So there were 2 in that class last semester. Prof was very flexible with the weekly schedule and syllabus as a result.
That’s the problem with generalizing and assuming based on limited to no experience with other schools …
It doesn’t have to make sense to people who doesn’t have same privileges and values. You are the one with money and smart kids, you must be doing something right.
No one ever talks about the boost these schools give in the job market. I was reading a thread where several people cited the year they graduated and what they made that year. Well I graduated that year too and was making about 30-40% more than they were( not including bonuses). Often, firms will compete for top students. I’m not looking to go down the path of some great kid from a top state school who works for McKinsey, or some kid who went to Harvard and took women’s studies or whatever and works as a social worker, I am talking about competition among the top employers and the bonuses they give for top graduates from day one. In the 90’s I was part of the hiring for brand new graduates. Many had zero skills only a degree and they obtained higher salaries than the going rate. That initial boost likely still affects them today.
Has to be factored in. Not for private vs. public when the schools are equal but very top vs. mid tier. Over a lifetime that number could be huge. Yes, it’s partially the kid, but it is also partially the school.
I am not a fan, however of excessive debt. Hard to tell which kids have the drive to likely go into certain fields. Parents should help with this. If my kid was going to be a teacher, great, I’d guide one way. If the same kid wanted to do a Phd, I might guide another way. Let’s face it, not all kids are out to do particular things. Some are very content to work in a middling job and have work-life balance.
One size, doesn’t fit all. One isn’t better. The worst experiences seem to be kids who aren’t reasonably motivated taking on lots of debt then complaining about the burden.
I realize my experience is from >25 years ago, but as a linguistics major, I knew it would improve my grad school chances if I took a year of a non-Indo-European language, and I decided I wanted to take Hungarian (non-Indo-European, despite its geographic location).
I was one of 2 students at my ~35k public flagship who signed up for Hungarian I, and the class was taught. I then was the only student who signed up for Hungarian II, and the class was taught.
Fast forward to being a professor at an under-resourced medium-sized public regional comprehensive, and while the target for an undergrad class is an enrollment of at least 15, lower enrollments (recently I’ve had as few as 6, colleagues in my department have had some with fewer) can be approved if there’s a demonstrated need for the class and the exception is approved by the dean of the college it’s in.
And looking specifically at foreign language classes, it appears that the smallest course section in that sphere being offered at my institution this semester (even limiting this to the first-year sequences) has 3 students, and a number of other language sections are in the single digits. And if that’s the case at a place that’s running at bare-bones funding, I have to expect it’s even more so at a flagship with a proper endowment and such.
A recent grad turned down a full athletic scholarship to Stanford to go to a different school with a more suitable “vibe”.
I don’t mean this as snarkily as I fear it’s coming across, but: Have you even ever spent any time on CC at all?
A “strong writer” by high school standards, is often not a “strong writer” by college standards. I’m not saying students don’t learn to write well in high school, but please don’t perpetuate the myth that the skills they acquired before college render them strong writers in a college environment, or beyond. There are so many students that are shocked when they receive a C or D on a paper in college because they always received As in high school and were told they were great writers. It’s relative.
I’m not saying students don’t receive proper writing instruction in state schools. I think there are professors doing great work at ALL different kinds of colleges and universities. Yet, equating high school level writing with college level writing is naive, at best.
This is so true.
In grad school I was a TA for freshman Western Civ …
One of the most telling things was how ill-prepared straight-A students from rural HSs were compared to B students from big urban/suburban schools.
I am talking about kids coming from a HS with grad classes of 50 or fewer students … they were Valedictorians, etc. They get to college (this is/was a quite selective private university) and nearly fail out. They were not prepared. They could not write well. (atrocious blue book exams, a 5 page paper was so beyond them) A friend in the math department said the same problem existed there.
This may no longer be true with the amount of online resources that would augment a tiny school district that can’t possibly have the staff to offer much.
Back then (early 90s) a huge portion of these students that I saw left after freshman year, some even after a semester … a few buckled down and figured it out.
I just looked at the foreign language offerings at my daughter’s school. There are over 30, including Persian.
Getting back to the original question, there is nothing wrong with attending your safety instead of an Ivy if it is a better fit. I would not allow my kid to apply to an Ivy League (or similar school) if I knew ahead of time that I couldn’t/wouldn’t pay for it.
As for top LACs, they are clearly some of the best schools in the country, but they are not for everybody. Thankfully, this country is blessed with many different types of schools.
Well, there’s different types of writing. In high school, S19 had very good instruction for memoir-type writing from a teacher who got his masters at Iowa Writers Workshop. We have a senior writing seminar class that only has 15 kids and it’s run by this teacher like grad school writing classes are run. Kids write and discuss and learn to revise each others’ work as well as get really great instruction from the teacher. They also read a lot of published essays.
BUT he never did a real research paper in his life and that’s where he’s learning a lot in college. Each student also has a librarian assigned to him to help learn how to write a research paper. S19 kind of freaked out when he had a 10-page paper to write but it was a good experience in the end and I’m guessing there are a lot of those in his future.
He’s taking a class called Art of the Essay next semester. I think he misses that senior writing sem! I’m guessing classes like this one have to be small at all schools. He was lucky to get in. I think something like 60 kids requested it and 12 got in. There’s just one section. At a bigger school, I’m guessing they’d have to run multiple sections of a class like that. And maybe they are just open to English majors.
It depends on the high school and the student, prof SD. I am quite certain that good writers from very strong prep schools can run circles around most of your students. Perhaps you havent encountered those kinds of kids.
I’d expect less popular languages classes to be small at nearly any college, and in many cases extremely small. For example, looking up some languages classes at Berkeley, I see multiple classes with 3 or fewer students enrolled, such as the intro Icelandic class at https://classes.berkeley.edu/content/2019-fall-iceland-1a-001-lec-001 and intro Finnish class at https://classes.berkeley.edu/content/2019-fall-finnish-1a-001-lec-001 , both with 3 students enrolled.
In general larger colleges offer the possibility of much larger class sizes than small colleges, such as giant intro math/science classes with hundreds of students, prior to breaking in to sections. Although there are also exceptions. Some not as selective publics favor relatively small intro math/science classes, often with less experienced persons teaching, such as grad/PhD students. Larger colleges also generally offer a larger variety of classes. I expect most smaller colleges would not offer either of the Icelandic and Finnish language classes above because there are too few interested students and/or professors to support them. They’d also likely offer fewer different sequence/level options, such as fewer options for slower or more rigorous than default. This has implications of how easy/difficult it is to find classes with a high concentration of like minded students.
You can get some general ideas from the CDS information on class and section size. Some specific numbers are below from some of the colleges mentioned in this thread. Berkeley has the largest sheer number of classes with 2-9 students, and likely the largest number of unique course offerings. However, Bowdoin has by far the largest portion of smaller classes. Duke falls somewhere in between. The specific class sizes will vary wildly between departments, so it’s best to compare specific departments and/or classes in the schedule, rather than make assumptions.
Berkeley
751 classes with 2-9 students, 265 classes with 50-99, 313 classes with 100+
198 sections with 2-9 students, 35 sections with 50-99, 31 sections with 100+
Duke
396 classes with 2-9 students, 70 classes with 50-99, 34 classes with 100+
150 sections with 2-9 students, 8 sections with 50-99, 3 sections with 100+
Bowdoin
107 classes with 2-9 students, 8 classes with 50-99, 0 classes with 100+
50 sections with 2-9 students, 1 sections with 50-99, 0 sections with 100+
It looks like 99% posters on this thread sent kids to community and state schools and not many Ivy/T20 parents post here on CC. There isn’t much point in having a one sided debate.
I need to echo @momofsenior1 experience but with my son at Michigan for engineering. I am comparing this to my daughter’s experience at Beloit College a small but great LAC.
Personally, I don’t see much of a difference in their school experiences. But both are very active and known on campus. I really do think getting involved helps. Both know their professors and more importantly they know my kids.
At Michigan my son just told me his largest class was chemistry (he is a junior in engineering) with 300 students but the breakout classes where 20-30. His Calc 2 class had 20 kids total. Most of his classes had anywhere from 20 - 60 students in the entire class (they have multiple sessions for each class).
So this illusion of 500 students in every class is just not accurate.
My daughters classes can be anywhere from 15-25 students. Hers are all discussion based for Cultural Anthropology with Poly Sci minor with speciality in South East Asia. Most of her tests are writings.
Papers that are very indepth. 10 pages would be the minimum but I can find out. She’s working on her senior thesis now. Everything she does is reading, deep discussion and writing and it’s the perfect environment for her.
Both get amazing support from professors, the college and alumni. Both have applied and gotten different types of grants for projects. Both schools have been extremely supportive of each kids different ideas with starting organizations and events etc. Both went abroad. Both have been given the opportunity to speak on campus. My son actually put on a major tech conference with amazing support. He was just hired by Michigan to help with a 3 year multimillion dollar initiative (almost doubled his current student job pay ??)
She went to her number 2 school on merit since her number 1 was too expensive without better merit package. He is thrilled at Michigan. Not sure if he had a true number 1.
I think it’s the students that make or break their experience at any school. If the student is going to stay in their dorm and not get involved it really doesn’t make a difference where they go to school in my opinion.
My kid goes to Wisconsin and he chose it because he got a lot of personal attention from a particular department that chose to throw a large scholarship at him. He got great feedback and access in his large and small classes and regularly used office hours and set up a couple individual meet ups. The last paper he wrote this semester had a full page of handwritten notes and feedback. That teacher had extra paper read throughs and donut hours as the end of the semester approached and made individual appointments. With freshman. His CS teacher brought candy to lecture and knew most his lecture hall by name. I think MANY kid don’t jump in and take advantage of the opportunities in front of them and I think that can be true at schools of all sizes. I also think faculty can vary at schools of all sizes too. Not every teacher at an LAC is warm and welcoming which we definitely learned on our college visit circuit.
I also had the opportunity to talk with a recent Harvard grad this summer who was really ho hum on his undergrad Harvard experience, didn’t click with anyone in faculty in his chosen major and was looking at off beat grad school options combing through the faculty members with a fine tooth comb. I think as with many things in life, students can have amazing opportunities if they are willing to really engage in their environment.
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or not. Ivy/T20 parents are tremendously overrepresented on CC forums compared to the general population, almost to a ridiculous degree. You’ll find a greater concentration of Ivy/T20 parents and posters favoring Ivy/T20 colleges on CC than almost any other large forum.
Comparing a LAC to a large public flagship is comparing apples to bananas.
Again, for some kids, LACs are the absolutely best place. I know, because my kid is one of them. For other kids, other types of colleges are better. I know a large number of people like that, as well. I taught or TAed at two Flagships (and am teaching at a third), as well as anon-flagship research university. Those are the right places for amny students.
Based on what one reads on CC, attending any college but an “elite” condemns a person to a miserable college experience, and a miserable career afterwards.
What can I say? Thoreau must of been thinking about people who didn’t attend an “elite” private college when he wrote “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
I think how writing is taught differs significantly by high school. Our HS has a compulsory “Senior Thesis” which is a 20-30 page research paper that all students have to do and is a major focus of the (required) senior year English and Gov/Econ classes, with multiple rounds of notes, drafts, etc all reviewed by the teachers over the entire year. There’s not so much class time spent on how to write a memoir, but I think knowing how to write a proper research paper is far more useful in college.