@shoeboemom: Actually, I know you got a different “vibe” when you went to other LAC’s, but it isn’t the reality. The reality is that LAC’s are known to be good at education because they have a much higher non-examination workload than at research 1 universities. In other words, by making the students actually do work in a course, they are making them engage that material at a higher level than needed by merely studying for a quiz or examination every now and then. The key to having a higher than normal workload spark intellectual curiosity is to have a “meaningful” workload and not just busy work. For example, instead of the R1 unis that are large and would perhaps often give kind of cookie cutter projects (as in they lay out exactly how they want people to adress issues for ease of grading) and exercises, an LAC will make it much more open ended and allow you design a project or approach something in a different way. I imagine some of the work at Oxford (perhaps in some of the INQ) classes have this in mind and their science curriculum has always had the exploratory type of projects in mind. Because, let us be honest, what is the point of taking courses so soft that the material and the students’ engagement only scratches the surface. A light workload sounds like it would encourage “exploration”, but often it doesn’t because students just take advantage of the situation to simply not engage the subject yet expect a solid grade (like in many low workload courses, most will not do readings even if class is discussion based because they essentially view them as optional because the one assignment does not relate directly to them).
A higher workload actually ends up signaling if you like a particular subject more because you ultimately choose if you will engage with that workload to a high degree and if you really are enjoying the subject, you can pour your heart into the assignments and do really good work that may perhaps catch the attention of the instructor. I think one has to rethink what “academic exploration” means because if I had, for example, chosen a bunch of “gut” political science, history and religion courses instead of the courses that I had chosen, which were more rigorous, I am pretty sure I would care less about these courses and would have merely viewed them as somewhat interesting “easy A’s”. Instead I got to do very close readings, legit research projects, lead discussions, participate in debates, and do things that required a high level of engagement and generally keeping up with material. Having a course that keeps you on your toes and is interesting is just completely different. As for anthropology, it would hardly be cut-throat. That is probably were the least cut-throat people go. And also, while students at selective institutions are obsessed with grades (especially when pre-prof), it doesn’t usually make them competitive to the point where they do not willingly collaborate, though I would argue that less collaboration will occur in courses graded on a curve (even one where everyone’s grades will ultimately increase), which is apparently much rarer at Oxford. And even in the case of curved courses, much collaboration still exists, it just won’t happen as often with the A students as it would otherwise (they will often work alone).