Probably more like a school where CS is not that popular a major. Even some LACs have large introductory CS courses (e.g. Harvey Mudd’s introductory CS course has around 200 students).
@TrudiRexar Also be sure to check out the advising systems at each school in addition to the classroom experiences. One of the reasons I chose Penn over Columbia was because i didn’t like the opportunities for interaction with professors-- and that seems to be a problem that still persists today: http://columbiaspectator.com/news/2016/02/04/lack-faculty-advising-limits-student-faculty-relationships-columbia-college-and – Columbia is one of the more bureaucratic universities mentioned and those complications are compounded by a less hands-on advising system. From the article: “No academic departments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences currently offer a personalized advising system that pairs undergraduate majors with faculty advisers who work with students throughout their junior and senior years.”
True @ucbalumnus , I’m sure there are exceptions and Harvey Mudd certainly has a very high # of prospective CS majors among LACs. Maybe there are others, I don’t know. My D is in a CS Intro class this semester. It is capped at 20 kids per section and there are 2 this year (if they need more space, they add more sections - they don’t increase the section size). There are also 5 lab sections, so those have 8 people each. I think that’s ideal.
Some who wanted the class were shut out but the school has a policy of guaranteeing them the course the following semester if that happens, so everyone gets in, if a semester later than they want.
UChicago’s class size stats are better than some LACs’:
77.1% < 20, only 5.7% >= 50.
Core classes, which comprise about ~1/3 of the undergraduate program, used to be capped at 19
(though I don’t know if that still is the case).The College makes a point of recognizing undergraduate teaching. The Quantrell undergraduate teaching award recipients have included such distinguished scholars as Steven Levitt (of Freakonomics fame), former UChicago President Hanna Gray, Nobel prize-winning physicist James Cronin, Philip Kurland (a constitutional scholar who ruled on the Nixon tapes), and novelist Norman Maclean. I doubt any LAC, or many other universities (especially of its size), could expose undergraduates to so many very distinguished scholars.
UChicago does have residential colleges, a well-defined campus, and a strong undergraduate institutional identity (with instructors appointed specifically to “The College”). The location definitely is urban (no getting around that) but it’s a bit like a small medieval town within the city, with tree-lined quads and park land to the west and to the east (along with Lake Michigan, which has many miles of walking/running/biking trails along its edge).
If I were looking for other LAC-like research universities, I’d probably start with Brown and some of the other Ivies. Or public honors colleges. However, it’s expensive to make a research university feel like a LAC. So you may be focused mostly on well-endowed (and usually very selective) schools. For somewhat less selective match/target schools, maybe have a look at some Catholic universities along with the honors colleges.
@ucbalumnus sorry i missed your question earlier in the thread. If you are super desperate not to take a large intro class and a smaller section isn’t available that semester, just wait to take it in another semester or during the summer. For example, Intro to computer programming was taught this summer at Penn in a classroom that has a maximum occupancy of 40 students. A freshman could easily spend her first two semesters fulfilling the general education requirements and exploring all of the different disciplines at Penn, and then take that intro class during the summer while they enjoy Philly and perhaps take on an internship in center city or do research with a professor on campus. All that being said, I’m sure there exists a class at penn that is only offered in a large lecture context. Working with a professor I’m sure you could avoid it or find a way to take it in a smaller section or through an independent study, but let’s assume it’s just not possible. At the end of the day, these classes are few and far between. And large lectures are always accompanied by smaller recitations of about 12-20 students where the material discussed in lecture is broken down and discussed to ensure clarity and comprehension. This will be true at any research university, not just Penn. For example, at Princeton their Introduction to Programming Systems has 282 students enrolled with a max enrollment of 290-- 100 more students than the same class at Penn. And finally, keep in mind that Computer Science at Penn is taught in Penn Engineering which is not identical to the College. My comment about not having to take a large lecture was meant to be about the student experience in the College. Though I’m willing to believe it was an overstatement once I find a class that just cannot be taken in a smaller context or through an independent study
I’m curious what his conception of “urban” is (and especially “too urban”). If he wants a leafy suburban campus without a surrounding city to lure students off campus on the weekends and evenings, then yes, I could see how he would not want an urban university. But I think lots of students (and parents) from non-urban environments envision this gritty, dirty, polluted, concrete wasteland where you’ll get mugged when you step foot off campus 
Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely gritty and dirty parts of New York! But Morningside Heights is a really beautiful neighborhood and is far cleaner and brighter than most of the rest of New York. And large cities are actually a lot safer than most people envision them to be, I’d imagine.
Still, it’s not the same as going to - say - Dartmouth, or Cornell, or even Yale, with sprawling campuses and grassy quads and expansive dorms. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t suggest Columbia; I was only using it as a starting point to talk about how cities don’t necessarily mean no running opportunities. But I think a better compromise for him might be smaller or more spread out cities (like Rochester or Houston or Richmond or Winston-Salem, all of which have colleges that have been suggested here)
Crime is down considerably since the early-1990s peak of the crime wave. However, people generally believe that crime is rising. See http://www.gallup.com/poll/186308/americans-say-crime-rising.aspx . So that may affect students’ and parents’ beliefs that urban areas are “too dangerous” or more dangerous than they actually are.
Some of the risks that college students take are more associated with colleges than their locations. Examples include drunken antics resulting in injury or death, or sexual assault.
WUSTL would definitely fit into this category. Tier 1 Research, member of AAU, etc. Forest Park is a superb resource – our student runs there almost every day – literally right across the street. Plus the Zoo, Art and History Museum, etc… In fact, the “Loufest” concert is this weekend. Students get free passes for St. Louis public transportation – two light rail stops on edge of campus – minutes to downtown, airport. Significant research opportunities, particularly in the life sciences but elsewhere as well. We have been amazed by the accessibility of advisors, including the faculty member overseeing their research. Super peer mentoring, especially for First Years. Our sophomore student is leaning towards a STEM major and a Great Books/Latin minor. Most of student’s minor classes have had less then 10 students – absolutely loves them. Also involved in an off campus interscholastic club sport that the school pays most of the costs for. Tutoring, volunteering in hospital, and other opportunities.
As an ND alum (who truly loves my alma mater), my wife and I think Wash U has been perfect for our student. I hope you get a chance to take a first hand look at both.
Best of luck!
Forgot to add – 7200 undergrads, 14,000 total.
Rice is a small undergrad focused school, not that different in many ways from an LAC, but yet it also a top R1: Research University. As others have said it is an obvious choice.
@Parche - if you don’t mind my asking, what department are you referring to when you mention a “great books” minor? Is that what they refer to as transitions and texts?
@LoveTheBard – yes! “Text and Traditions”. Our student really enjoys it – has had some great teachers and loves the small seminar style. A fair amount of writing and reading but seems very happy. Nice counterpoint to the STEM classes.
@CP2020 - I checked it for myself. The press release was issued in April, which means it was based on the “admitted class” rather than the “enrolled class”, which is not a particularly useful number - especially with a school that offers merit based scholarships, such as Notre Dame.
Also, most people refer to the upper boundary of the “middle 50%” as the top 25%.
The upper 25% ACT (or SAT) boundary is reflective of a subset of the class. In the case of Notre Dame, the ACT number is quite a bit higher than the SAT number, so it can not be viewed as representative of the entire class - especially in a school that offers merit based scholarships. Ideally one would want to see the shape of the entire distribution across both ACT and SAT before making any judgments about the attributes of a particular class.
Of course, the whole notion of measuring people by their ability to color inside the lines, (i.e. by their ability to quickly fill in circles on a standardized test) is somewhat dubious and tends to run counter to the notion of holistic admissions employed by most LACs.
For the record, I do not know of any LAC that has an “Associate Vice President of Undergraduate Enrollment”. LACs tend to have a “Dean of Admissions” - it tends to sound more scholarly and less businesslike.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks is Alaska’s main land-grant and research university and has all kinds of fascinating research going on, but since it’s only got about 4000 students, classes are very small. (The school claims about 10,000, but most of those are spread across multiple branch campuses around the state.) The largest class I had was about 60 people, and the professors know you by name. Except for a few labs for intro science classes, professors rather than graduate assistants do the teaching.
Due to the weather and isolation, it’s a unique place to go to school. You either love it or hate it. I loved it. Others left after one semester.
I am thinking Alaska would be too cold, and my son would have trouble running in the dark and snow in the winter. That said, I have visited the Fairbanks campus (in the summer and long ago) and was struck by two things: 1. Giant cabbages growing on campus in August and the plugs available for engine block heaters in the parking lots. I understand the giant cabbages are due to the long hours of sunlight in the summer.
Rather than running in the winter, everyone goes cross country skiing on the trails behind the campus.
Does this mean that the dining halls will have a seemingly infinite supply of sauerkraut and kimchi (and other similar preserved or pickled cabbage) for the school year?
Aside from those previously mentioned:
Brandeis, Dartmouth, Tufts, Rice, Princeton
For some Michigan students, the University can offer a liberal-arts-college type experience for much of the time. The Residential College describes itself as a liberal arts college within a university. The honors program also offers some very small classes and one-on-one student-professor relationships, especially for students who complete the honors offerings in their majors. Michigan undergraduates often work on research with professors.
Of course, for other Michigan students, the whole experience is overwhelming and impersonal. There’s not a lot of hand holding there.