large schools that are also very selective?

Alexandre
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:47:28 +0000

“Of the top universities with UG enrollments over 10K (USC, NYU, Berkeley, Michigan, UVA), only at NYU do (slightly) less than 10% of classes enroll 50 or more students. Is that a coincidence? Maybe it is just too hard to hire enough high-quality faculty to keep classes small in popular majors like English and biology when enrollments grow too large.”

At Princeton, which is the epitome of undergraduate-focused research universities, 11% of classes have more than 50 students. At Stanford, 12%. At MIT, 11%. And Cornell, 18%. I am not sure how that’s better than 14% at Cal, 15% at UVa or 17% at Michigan. I do not think it is accurate or fair to insinuate that any of those universities have have a lack of liberal arts focused academics, sense of community or academic quality control. It is in fact insulting to make such assumptions.

To the OP, Cal, Michigan and UVa are very selective. Their mid 50% ACT/SAT ranges are in the 28-32/1260-1460 range (Cornell has similar ranges).