Graduate quality vs. undergraduate quality

tk21769
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 00:08:30 +0000

^ Of course it is to be expected that Berkeley will offer many more classes than Oberlin does. Berkeley has nearly 9x as many undergraduates, so it better. According to Berkeley’s 2012-13 CDS, it had 2,457 class sections with less than 20 students that year. Oberlin had 663 in 2012. So Berkeley had almost 4x as many “small” classes as Oberlin. It also had nearly 27x as many large classes (>= 50 students) as Oberlin (561 at Berkeley v. 21 at Oberlin.)

What do these numbers mean for the typical classroom experience in the pre-med track or in popular majors? In Fall 2013, Berkeley’s General Biology 1A Lecture enrolled 626 students. The Organic Chemistry 112A lecture enrolled 165. The Introduction to Economics lecture enrolled 711. TA-led discussion classes associated with big lectures typically enroll less than 50 students (sometimes less than 20).

At Oberlin in Fall 2013, the lowest level biology class (Organismal Biology) had an enrollment limit of 40 students. Principles of Organic Chemistry had an enrollment limit of 24. For Principles of Economics, the largest section had an enrollment limit of 55.

About 15 LACs have an even smaller percentage of large classes than Oberlin does. Some have no classes with 50 or more students. Apparently only 1 public university (UNC-CH) has a smaller percentage of large classes than Berkeley does.

One way to look at this is that Berkeley does offer many more opportunities for small class experiences than a LAC like Oberlin does. If you can place out of many intro and intermediate courses, if you are in a less popular major, or if you are aggressive in the course registration process, then you might wind up with a LAC-like number of small classes at Berkeley. However, if you are a pre-med student or, say, an econ major, there probably is no way you can muscle your way past some very large lecture classes at most big state universities. The associated TA-led discussion sections may or may not make that unimportant to you.