Economics/Pre-Business

Midwestmomofboys
Thu, 12 Feb 2015 04:10:59 +0000

As a parent who went to a LAC and now has one kid at a large state flagship and a high schooler looking at LACs – I agree that the real benefit of a LAC is close connection with faculty, and more attention from administration overall. The breadth of offerings – both across multiple departments and within a single department – is likely to be more comprehensive at a flagship than a LAC. For instance, even a substantial department like History, Econ or Government/Poli Sci at a LAC is smaller in number of faculty than at a flagship; that smaller number of faculty can offer a smaller number of classes, which are themselves smaller in enrollment than one would find at a flagship, means fewer choices. Maybe the choices available at a LAC are great for the specific student, they don’t care about depth in particular historical period, for instance, since they are not studying it. But if their interests evolve, and it does become important, or the one or two faculty who teach in a student’s preferred area go on sabbatical or are just people that student cannot abide to work with – there are few options left. At a big flagship, given the size of departments, there often (not always) is someone else you can take classes from if someone leaves or you don’t like their style. That comes at a price though – at a flagship, a student needs to be more of a self-starter, someone who marches into career services freshman year to start a plan, since career services is not going to coral the freshman and find ways to get them in there.

There are definite advantages to each model, and it really depends on the specific student which is a better fit.

Also, I would suggest investigating the double major options at Kenyon in more detail. We were told by admission rep at Kenyon that, with comprehensive exams in the major, that discourages students from double majoring. However, we heard from another rep that something like 20% double major – is that less than at comparable LACs? I don’t know.