I have lived in two different countries, and in eight different states. I have studied and/or worked at eight universities in two countries. My work, my volunteering, and socially (my wife works in academia as well) have connected me to a large number of additional colleges and to faculty and students at universities and colleges in another few countries and a good number of additional states. I’m a second generation academic (or was) so I was also a campus brat on another two campuses.
So while that may not include all 2,000 four year non-profit accredited institutions, it has been fairly wide, and has additionally included a good amount of research into various colleges, for a wide array of reasons.
Could you expand on what you’re saying here? 5 percent of what? I’m also not sure what you mean by “trade schools,” but if you’re saying that state professional schools (MBA, Law, Medicine, etc.) are typically larger than their elite private counterparts, I’m not sure that is the case even in absolute terms much less in proportion to their differences in size at the undergraduate level. Harvard Law School, for example, is one of the largest law schools in the country, as is Georgetown. Both are bigger than Boalt and there are other state law schools that are smaller than Boalt. University of Washington, for example, is half the size (though its undergraduate population is huge).
In my experience, the kids who don’t want to go to small schools don’t say things like “it’s a step backwards” and much more often just say they don’t want to go to a small school, and that is often based at least in part on social considerations. At 18, they have little to no idea about what constitutes “going backwards” would be anyway.
Imagine telling a graduate of Wellesley College that her education was a “step backwards” from where she was in high school. Now imagine a high school kid saying it.
I hear that, and I think it’s so strange, as if the size of the school equates to the quality of education. My D23’s college is about half the size of her high school. She loves it.
I have yet to read a thoughtful or persuasive response when anyone asks for clarification or substantiation of these thinly veiled knocks on small college education.
And yet, “small classes” may be the two most triggering words on College Confidential.
I don’t agree with this “step backward” notion but it is quite common at our huge LPS. To me, it belies a misunderstanding about what a LAC offers. It also may come from having experienced little of the kind of personal engagement a LAC offers in their high school years and not recognizing the value of that. And from GCs that direct most kids to our state flagship and other not-far publics. And from an uber-competitive sports programs, especially football, where D1 is the goal. This is the water they swim in.
My kid went to a BS and only considered LACs because that format of engaged learning “ works for me”. All of our family - siblings, kids, - are NESCAC alums, so we got it.
This. All of the schools mentioned most often in this thread were chartered during a period when it was difficult to imagine knowing more than a couple hundred people well enough to want to live with them for four years. People in the 19th century could not imagine lining up to be searched by TSA agents, waiting for hours in subterranean cities for a packed, jet-propelled tin can aimed at a faraway place. That was the stuff of Jules Verne and frankly just a tad dystopian. And yet, today, we all accept it as our baseline existence on so many levels.
I think it also belies a basic understanding of higher education. But they’re high school kids, so I get it and will get off my soapbox. I think the more egregious offense is the athletic one. We saw it and see it all the time. It is so common as to almost be the rule rather than the exception that coaches, high school and club, are “D1 or bust”. The academic piece is often lost on them, and ignorance about D3 competitiveness is quite common. When the context is football, it is almost irresponsible. Those odds are so steep and are an absolute pipe dream for all but a very few athletes. And yet I see kids today that are like, “I just want to ball, man.” Yeah, I know you do bud.
The top private law schools educate less than 5 percent of the total law student population in the US. Similarly, the elite private LACS educate a small percentage of the total college student population in the US. Both have small numbers in comparison to the state schools but this does not mean they are not as relevant.
You’re losing me. The original discussion was the limited utility of ranking LACs, elite or otherwise, with large research universities.
Law schools are law schools. They are generally up to the same things and teach the same things in mostly the same way. Some of those schools are large and some are small but it doesn’t generally change that much about the experience. Even using the two extremes of which I’m aware (UW total enrollment a little over 500; Harvard just under 2000), the two experiences are not likely that dissimilar. Harvard’s total law school enrollment is still around the size of a LAC, and most everything else about it is going to be very similar to what one would experience at other law schools.
This doesn’t come close, IMO, to the stark contrasts that are drawn when comparing a LAC with 2,000 or so students and a flagship research university with over 30,000. And that’s just size. There are many other differences that make the two experiences pretty different.
I’m not sure how aggregating the total number of students each type of school educates helps with comparability. I’m also not sure what you mean by “not as relevant.” It’s not a question of relevance. It’s a question of comparability.
The comparison was in response to comments that LACs are not relevant these days since they educate a very small percentage of the college student population.
They have never educated anything more than a small percent of the youth. When the majority of colleges in the USA were only providing an undergraduate liberal arts education, that education was only for a small percent of the youth.
However few students ≠ irrelevant.
LACs have always had an outsized impact, especially in academia itself. Around 25% of all people who received PhDs in Natural/Physical sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities did their undergraduate at a LAC. There were 15 presidents who attended LACs, 18 if you count service academies.
Having only a few students really doesn’t mean having a small “footprint”. For example, Harvard and Yale law schools only train a small fraction of the people getting law degrees in the USA, yet of the 75 Supreme Court Justices who have had graduate degrees in law, 32 trained attended these two law schools.
Are service academies “irrelevant”? There are maybe 20,000 cadets at the five service academies, and that isn’t even 0.5% of recent high school graduates.
LACs are becoming less popular among certain segments of the population, that is true, but they are not becoming irrelevant.
Moreover, what does “irrelevant” even mean? They are, and will always be, relevant to students who like this type of education, even if these are only 5% of the population.
D26 is doing a virtual info session w/Bates this evening and I really hope she likes it! She says Maine is too far away & has concerns about the cold weather, but she likes schools in MN so maybe she’ll reconsider. Bates seems very similar to the schools at the top of her list right now, so I’m hoping after the session she’ll consider applying.
FYI, keep in mind that Bates is not far from the coast, which moderates the winter climate a bit. Maine can get quite cold, of course, but nothing like Minnesota!
“Niche” is defined by Merriem-Webster as “a specialized market”. Somehow, people managed to replace it with the word “irrelevant”, which is defined by Merriem-Webster as “inapplicable” or, as an antonym to “having relevance”, therefore meaning “not having practical and especially social applicability”
I NEVER would equate “niche” with “irrelevant”, because that is ridiculous, and demonstrates lack of literacy.
There is no school that is more “niche” than small engineering/tech colleges, because the VAST majority of students pursuing engineering degrees are applying to, and attending, large research universities. Does that mean that these colleges are “irrelevant”?
Then there are, as I mentioned, service academies. These are the nichiest of niche schools. Only a very certain type of high school graduate applies to a service academies. Are they, by any understanding of our world, “irrelevant”? That is just plain silly.
My Georgia Bates student feels the cold but takes measures like soaking up sunshine whenever possible and takes advantage of winter sports. Bates also doesn’t feel remote because it is in a proper city (Lewiston), it’s really easy to get to Portland, and there are daily buses to Boston. I hope she likes the info session. Bates is the most inclusive, fun loving school that I know about.
