In a thread about fit, @blossom wrote, “There are big colleges which offer a lot of support, and small colleges which do a terrible job of supporting kids who need it”.
This was in response to the popular belief that small colleges provide strong student support but at big colleges you are on your own. Does anyone have thoughts or experiences that contradict this belief? Please specific colleges and departments if you can. And have a great weekend!
I don’t have examples (in our experience, this has proven to be fairly true). But for someone looking for both benefits (small college attention with bigger college course selection and social pool), the Claremont Consortium is an excellent option.
Very interested in reading the responses. Curious as to what kind of support you are referring to. Asking because Son 19 has ADHD and we starting our search for the right fit. Small class size and support is what I think he needs.
I can tell you from my experiences of having attended Admit Day and met Deans, Residence Directors and Career Center staff, Stanford is very supportive. Its campus is largest although its student body is not that large.
Check the size of the classes. I went to a college with a total enrollment under 1000 my freshman year. My psych 100 and 101classes were over 100 people because this was a required course for everyone.
I transferred to a public university with 25,000 students and had only ONE class in three years that was over 100…and that was my history of Ohio class…again…required by a lot of majors for graduation.
Classes in my major…which was mostly what I took at the public large u were seldom over 20 people.
I think there are probably supportive colleges that are big and some that are small, although the ones that I saw listed on information that our college counselor gave us were usually small colleges. It also depends on the needs of the student. Some need more accommodations than others. My son is looking at smaller schools because they typically have smaller class sizes (confirmed by US News & World Report stats), and that’s an important factor for him. He is good at advocating for himself and only needs slight accommodations so a smaller college where he can get individualized attention from his professors is a huge benefit. I went to a large university, and I can’t imagine someone with attentional issues or other learning disabilities ever being able to do well in that atmosphere without some major support.
What kind of support are you thinking?
^^^ Any type for discussion, but what I was referring to with the OP was the type every student can benefit from that I often hear about when talking to people who attend great LACs:
…and so on…
Many engineering departments publish 8 semester schedule templates. If a student takes each specified course on time as listed in the template or earlier, and takes full schedules otherwise (including free electives), then s/he will graduate in time.
Between myself, my siblings, my spouse and all the in-law siblings AND all the nieces and nephews- we’ve probably attended around 25 different undergraduate colleges in sizes ranging from Brandeis to HUGE state flagships.
Not a single one of us had professors who didn’t know our names, were not accessible, took a personal interest- i.e. dinners at home, informal meet-ups, etc. All had either upperclassman led tutoring OR TA/Grad students (what college does not? That’s why PhD candidates get stipends- to teach, to lead sections and review sessions). And all had excellent and pro-active guidance-- the only person in the bunch who did not graduate in 8 consecutive semesters took a medical leave but went back, on track, a semester later.
Honestly, you aren’t talking about size. A kid who claims that professors who don’t know their names is not trying very hard, especially if the kid needs recommendations for grad school. A kid who can’t find a TA leading review sessions is pretty much not going to class, since after most lectures, the TA’s hang out to see who wants to schedule a review. On the guidance- frankly, that’s kid related as well. I am trying to help a kid who has just graduated find a job-- took the leisurely route to graduation, three different majors, every time she switched she lost ground because she didn’t take her faculty advisor’s advice.
This isn’t size related- this was at a CTCL college renowned for its “handholding”. But you can lead a horse to water…
I think you are heading down the wrong path here. And my sibling who graduated from a huge state flagship had tiny seminars by junior year- just a function of the major. I’m sure if she’d majored in CS or chemistry she’d have had big classes for all four years. But some majors? All the classes are small.
I was a Classics major- one class had 14 students and two professors. Yikes. Nowhere to hide.
LAC’s are terrific. But don’t assume that’s the only way to get personal attention.
“LAC’s are terrific. But don’t assume that’s the only way to get personal attention.”
I didn’t assume that, in fact I was interested in the opposite of that conventional thinking, and that is what you are providing.
I have more than 100 students in the class I am currently teaching, and based on previous years’ experience, I expect to know everyone’s name well ahead of the final.
My university requests reports on any students who are projected to earn less than a B- in a class, and offers support services for them. There is a lot of academic assistance.
I believe that the counseling services are somewhat overloaded, though.
You can find many small classes at my university, even though the total enrollment quite high (multiple tens of thousands). There are advanced math and science classes with 5 or 6 students in them. Advanced foreign language classes may have a dozen students. Some philosophy and economics classes have 25-40 students. Science lab classes tend to be capped at 16 per section, for safety reasons. Math teaches the introductory courses in several different modes, some large lecture, and some sections of about 25 (with a professor).
The introductory lecture sessions of physics, chemistry, economics, and psychology, and physiology will all be large, though, so a student needs to be able to cope with those (with academic support), to get to the smaller classes.
Not every faculty member will know all of the students’ names, but a student here who is serious about the major will have a lot of opportunities to work in research labs and to discuss course-related material with a lot of faculty members.
May I please add without this being deleted as off topic: Hey, thumper1, post #4–re the history of Ohio! We could trade names of obscure, yet semi-consequential Ohioans back and forth: Harmon Blennerhasset!
You mentioned “big colleges” and “small colleges” but don’t forget those mid-sized universities. My S attended a mid-sized (Jesuit) university and had a great deal of support as you define it above – almost all smaller (30 or so) classes where professors knew him by name, close relationships with a few professors (who he was comfortable talking about grad school and career options with), and a dean who served as his academic advisor. I remember that there was a writing center, a math center and probably there were some other supports that he did not use so I never heard about.
I think you can get support from any size college…but you have to ask for it, esp in larger universities.
If you go to office hours regularly, most profs will know you. My advisor also contacts me to check in and let me know about different opportunities and i can make an appointment with him whenever I want. He has been very helpful. I also have an independent study with a prof as a freshman and he has asked me to do research with him over the summer. I got another research offer from a grad student just a couple days ago. My biggest class so far had about 100 students and smallest about 7. It varies A LOT by subject. My school is about 8,000 undergrad and 8,000 grad, so not huge, but definitely not like a LAC.
I have a nephew at U Michigan.
I really cannot believe the quality of the advising he’s gotten (due to graduate). Because of his major he had trouble figuring out a study abroad program, his adviser (and then the Dean) found a summer program which he’d get credits for but wouldn’t disturb the rhythm of the classes he’d need to graduate on time.
He’s gotten a lot of hand-holding BTW. Didn’t need LD support or anything like that, but just showed up undecided, could have become one of those kids who floundered around forever. But his Freshman adviser kept him on the straight and narrow, and now that he’s found his path, his professors and everyone else have been incredible about everything else.
Yes, you have to be receptive to advice. But that holds for a college of 1200 students or 30,000 students.
Wake Forest. S is a freshmen. Largest class has had 30 kids. Many of them discussion based requiring lots of prep but he has learned to like the format. Two anecdotes that you will appreciate:
Pretty cool.
@ucbalumnus Many engineering departments publish 8 semester schedule templates. If a student takes each specified course on time as listed in the template or earlier, and takes full schedules otherwise (including free electives), then s/he will graduate in time.
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Honestly that isn’t “excellent pro-active guidance” in my book. An example of great guidance would be the engineering student not being able to get a necessary class and the adviser intervening on that student’s behalf, or knowing about a summer program where the student can get back on track after dropping one necessary class, pointing out how a major change will affect the schedule or even better, how classes taken for one major can roll into a one but not another with on-time graduation still, things of that nature.
My D wanted to change a class after the registration period, into a very popular one that was full. Before she could even go beg the prof to let her in, her adviser saw someone drop it and emailed her immediately so she could slide into the spot before anyone else saw it, which she did. Same adviser hooked her up with research with a professor at her study abroad university, in the months before classes there started. Then he pointed her to 2 different programs at her school that offered funding so she could pay living expenses during that time. IMO that kind of stuff is excellent pro-active guidance.
Posting a schedule of classes required to graduate is not. My S’ college did that but the advising was nonexistent. (small regional private university, for the record).
“An example of great guidance would be the engineering student not being able to get a necessary class and the adviser intervening on that student’s behalf”
This reminds me of the conversation I had with my weinberg college advisor last week. I told him that one research grant seemed more doable because the other one had a quickly approaching deadline and I had no research proposal idea. And he said “don’t worry too much about the deadline. I know some people…”
My D attends a large university ( 10,000 + undergrads) and her school is very supportive… for her needs.
Freshman year her professor checked in with her daily because she knew D was having some issues adjusting.
D’s professsors know her name, invite her to lunch and dinner, spend time chatting with her… etc. She has gone to their homes for meals, she has shopped for them ( helping with research), and has tutored their own kids. When looking for research positions etc… they have all been welcoming and attentive.
Some classes are big (150) and some are small (30). I suspect moving forward her classes will be smaller rather than larger. Fewer lecture halls now.
I think all schools… large and small… can be supportive. It depends on the school… and the student.