<p>"Nobody is ranking their 500-700 student lectures top 15 in the world. Just yesterday a few posters said “the undergraduate lectures [electives] are a complete waste of time.”</p>
<p>Intro-level lectures at Michigan seldom exceed 500 students. 600 or 700 lectures are virtually unheard of. And those large, intro-level lectures are quite common at all large research universities. Do you think those classes that enroll 400 or 500 students at Michigan will magically enroll only 70 or 80 students at Columbia or Harvard? Intro level lectures at Columbia and Harvard often enroll 200 students, some enroll as many as 300 or more students. Once you have more than 100 students, you can no longer boast of having a small classes. At that point, you will invariably move to a lecture-based format. Class size and faculty attention are not going to be the forte of any research university. If one wishes to have intimate, discussed based classes and the full attention of the faculty, LACs are the only way to go. </p>
<p>That being said, large lectures (anything over 100 students qualifies as large) are only common Freshman year. Typically, intermediate and advanced classes that Sophomores and upperclassmen take usually enroll fewer than 30 students (often fewer than 20), except in very popular majors such as Econ, Political Science and Psychology, where such classes will still enroll 50-150 students, but again, that is going to be the case at most elite research universities. Bottom line, one does not go to a research university if one wants an intimate classroom experience and the devotion of the faculty. Again if those are priorities, LACs are the only way to go.</p>