“Darron Collins, president of the private College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, advises families on the best way to decide on a college” …
Terrific suggestions. Our son wants to really be engaged with his teachers in college so I’ve been thinking he would have to stick to LACs. He’s only a sophomore and we’re not sure what he will think of such small schools when we start visiting. He’s been to camp at University of Wisconsin and loved it. I’ve told him, though, that when we start looking more closely at schools, such a big school might not be his cup of tea. This article suggests that a big school can be just as engaging depending on the professors. We will definitely be using the tips in the article to figure out if some of the bigger schools on his radar can still offer him what he wants in terms of access to his teachers.
This is a guy from a college that has 350 students, so not thinking this perspective can be broadly applied to many. Reminds me of the commercials that say “ask your doctor” when in reality many people don’t have said doctor to ask. Meet with three faculty, really? Have your kids reading course syllabus? ok. Analyze the dining hall for professors eating with students? ya, right. While I understand the importance of the college decision, it would take a lot of helicopter parenting to get these things done. Some of it seems creepy. Most 17-18 year old aren’t going to want to do all this. Emphasize overall fit and getting the most out of college, if you dissect it to death with your kids, you just confuse and overwhelm them, sucking the life out of the whole process. When parents are over involved with the college visits it’s too much and little junior needs to think more on their own. Making it way to stressful imo.
Only on CC do people actually believe that a college has to small or tiny for students to engage with professors.
Believe it or not- professors at big universities ALSO eat lunch. Frequently with their students. Believe it or not- professors at big universities BEG students to attend office hours, see them after class, etc.
Kids get jobs editing books and fact-checking articles for professors at big U’s. Those professors will take an unusually proprietary interest in those students. Professors at big U’s write incredibly personal recommendations for jobs, grad school, fellowships, etc. for their students- personal because they KNOW those students.
Don’t believe everything you read on CC.
@blossom, Hm. I went to a mid-sized highly selective university and I would say, for the first two years, I was taught by TAs or grad students. I know kids were not having dinner at the professor’s houses like they might at a LAC.
Also, some big research universities don’t prioritize undergrads. I have many friends with kids in college now and the kids at the LACs are having very different experiences (maybe not better, but different). There’s more discussion in the small classes and the relationships with their professors are far more personal. How can a professor with 150-200 kids in a lecture class know his students? Many of them have office hours, I’m sure, but I doubt the majority of them are going to take personal interest in a freshman or a sophomore.
I went to a large public university back in the Stone Age. One of my kids went to a large private university graduating in 2007. Both of us had dinner at mentor professors houses.
I don’t think that is the hallmark of college selection, however.
Not sure the purpose of this article.
“Not sure the purpose of this article.”
To promote College of the Atlantic and its peers.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner- between myself, spouse and our kids we’ve got about 10 different large, research universities for both grad and undergrad. All of us forged close relationships with undergrad professors- between editing a book, working in a lab being closely supervised by the professor, writing a senior thesis with a LOT of the professor’s help, or just randomly wandering in to office hours to discuss something that was mentioned during class- we had ample opportunity to cultivate close relationships plus the aforementioned meals.
My kid who attended a university with a reputation for “Nobel prize winning professors don’t take an interest in undergrads” used to get papers and problem sets back with a three page commentary from the professor (plus the edits made by the TA) which usually ended with “If you want to learn more about X please stop by my office and I can lend you a couple of interesting books”. We were flabbergasted.
When I was in grad school, professors would regularly cancel meetings with us because “My undergrads come first. You guys can figure it out on your own”.
I would not write off a big college because the president of a tiny college thinks his product is better.
My undergrad had about 40k undergrads and another 10k or so grads. I was close to several professors and still talk to some 4 years out of undergrad.
I’m painfully shy to boot.
Now I’m a grad student in another big u and professors have their doors open but undergrads don’t come. That’s not the prof’s fault if students don’t come to office hours or reach out.
I never understand why everyone thinks small classes are so wonderful. Did everyone seek out high schools with only 20 students per class for their kids? At the high schools (three different ones) my kids attended, there were limits on the class size for the ‘regular’ sections (usually 25 by state law or school policy) but those limits didn’t apply to fine arts or honors or AP classes, and they often had 35-40 in those (more in drama, band, orchestra, etc). Most of the honors or AP classes had more than 30 students in them. Most of my college classes at a big flagship had 30-40 students in them and we had no problem discussing books, movies, essays. Law school classes have 70-85 students in each section and discussions happen, people participate, they meet with their professors.
Not everyone thrives in the same environment, and there are always pros and cons.
We visited large and small schools, often on back to backs days of the college tours, with each of our kids.
While I lived the charming small campus and close knit community of the small colleges, there was definitely a lack of courses and professors in each department. In your major, you may have the same prof in many courses if the entire department has only 3-4 profs. To some this is a very good thing, to others not so much (also depends on the 3-4 profs). But what is hard to argue, after fresh/soph year, there are slim choices as to upper level electives at tiny colleges. Not all that matters, but your main purpose in college is to take classes, and they have less to offer in that regard. To me the ideal is a small college for freshmen/soph years and then transfer to a large univ for junior year.
Have close personal attention in intro courses, then move on to a big school that has advanced courses. Socially not a desirable option, but academically the way to go. Since most don’t want to do this, one must pick whether to cherish your fresh/soph years or your junior/senior years.
Personally a mid size college that has a nice blend of options to explore yet not too large and impersonal is the balance to seek, IMO.
@blevine It seems many large public universities’ honors colleges and first year seminars do a pretty good job of providing the best of both worlds.
Yes, in fact, we did.
Small classes do allow profs to do some things that those with huge classes cannot. One of my kids had a writing intensive course with a prof who went over her drafts with her, making comments and suggestions before she turned them in for credit. I can’t see that being possible in a class of 100+ kids, even if only some of them wanted that kind of help.
As the article points out, smaller student load allows a prof to assign more papers and projects and things that take a lot of time to grade.
None of that means small colleges are right for everyone, there are small classes at big Us also, and ways to make the large feel small. But it’s kind of expected at the smaller colleges. IME.
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“I never understand why everyone thinks small classes are so wonderful. Did everyone seek out high schools with only 20 students per class for their kids?”
Generally speaking, yes. We spend all of our children’s primary and secondary years hearing proponents of this or that school district argue/beg/plead/demand for more money for smaller class sizes. I have never, not once, not by any person ever, heard anyone say they didn’t care how big their kid’s class sizes are. Certainly at the primary level, it’s a given that smaller is better. And at the secondary level, it’s one of the reasons wealthy people send their kids to private school. Then, all of a sudden, they turn 18 and move away from home, and it no longer matters that their freshman year econ class is taught by the professor every day in a class of 18 to 25 students, rather than, say, in Kane Hall at UW overflowing with 800+, with many more watching on a monitor in the hall way? Really? Come on.
I assume this isn’t part of some liberal or conservative conspiracy - you never can tell these days. But, setting that cartoon aside, I have always assumed the prevailing view of ‘smaller is generally better’ came from somewhere. Studies or what not. I’m not an expert. Oh, there’s the article that has floated around here - some review, study or poll of Vanderbilt faculty and the 80+% of them (I think it was) who chose a LAC for their own children’s undergraduate years. I saw a lot of that myself at Stanford and then at Penn, though my impression was entirely anecdotal and by no means a purposeful observation, much less any kind of study.
We are talking about many factors here folks, many of which are subtle and hard to discern in the antiseptic environment of an internet message board. There are things in life we can’t precisely measure or prove with quick little responses or explanations. That’s why it’s so hard to discuss politics these days … most of my views have been developed over time, and most of the reasons why I think what I think are not reducible to a Tomi Lahren sound bite, which is what Americans now value so much.
To be on a campus that is experienced on a human scale; to be taught by someone who actually knows who you are and remembers you from day to day, semester to semester. To be some place where all of the institutional resources are organized and directed with YOU, the undergraduate, in mind, and not some research behemoth that has 50,000 other departments and grad schools and programs to worry about. To be some place where you attend school with students who were vetted through a very careful admissions process that involved actually reading your application. These, among others, are the things that a top liberal arts college offer.
Are they offered exclusively at LACs? Of course not. Overall, will there be more of what most of us would agree is the “good stuff” for undergrads at such places? I think so. It’s a safer bet anyway. But that’s just one man’s opinion.
You can acquire a great education anywhere.
Smaller classes are always better IMO. Our son’s high school English Honors class is 25 kids this year versus only 18 last year and he’s already complaining that 25 is too big. LOL. Maybe as he gets older in the next couple years, it won’t prove to be such a priority for him. Only time will tell.
Regarding the honors college option at large flagship … ask yourself why they’re even there in the first place. What are they trying to offer that is unique to the honors college? Why bother with the double application (as we did)? If I were at the large flagship, but not in the honors college, I would certainly wonder what the special kids are getting that isn’t generally available to me.
It’s a marketing response to a demand. Of course you can meet a prof. at Ohio State who will have lunch with you and take a personal interest in your development. Of course, that can happen.
Is it routine? Is it really the same level of dialogue in an 850 seat auditorium as it is in a 15 student seminar? To borrow another CC poster’s line, anyone who tries to take on that argument is working way too hard to make a point.
As a law school graduate, and a man who spent 3 years in the lovely give and take of the socratic method, I can tell you from personal experience that kind of thing works much better in small rather than bigger … and it doesn’t work at all in mega big.
@MiddleburyDad2 Thanks for your posts. You’ve been able to verbalize what I’ve been thinking for a while now. I went to Northwestern for undergrad and only had one class with less than 100 kids for the first year and a half. Maybe I just wasn’t the type of 18 year old to approach my professor at office hours, but I know I wasn’t the only one. It’s certainly more intimidating when you go to see a professor who won’t even recognize you. It got better as I was focusing on my major and classes got smaller, some as small as 12. Our neighbors sent their kids to Bowdoin and Carleton and they had nothing but good things to say…and one of my friend’s sons is at Midd and loving it!
I can’t wait to see if you S19 will take to a smaller environment when we start visiting schools. So far, he’s only been to NU, U of C, and Madison (for XC camp). He has no idea what a Carleton or Bowdoin would look like! His GC thinks LAC is the way to go for him. We just have to find the right one.
I do not pretend that colleges are one-size-fits-all but there is a trope on CC that at large unis, you become “just a number.” It’s just not universally true and it’s insulting to those of us who work hard at these unis to forge relationships with our students.
@romanigypsyeyes Of course there are profs who work hard to have relationships with their students at all schools. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. For some kids, though, they wouldn’t thrive at such a big school. I think our S19 is one of them. Our younger daughter could quite possibly be the opposite and I would hope she would find plenty of involved teachers at a big school if she prefers to go that route.
@homerdog I wasn’t responding to you or anyone in particular really. The closest I was responding to was: “Not everyone thrives in the same environment, and there are always pros and cons.” from blevine.