<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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).</p>