LACs are overrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that this will convince the crazed LAC-haters, but here's an interesting perspective from last Sunday's NYT interview with Andi Owen, the CEO of Herman Miller, who majored in art history at William & Mary:

Did getting a liberal arts degree have an impact on your career?

It's helped me in a lot of ways. I learned a lot about people. I learned a lot about history. I learned a lot about observation. I've always approached any job I've ever had as a generalist and an observer of human nature.

Some people would say I'm not good at any one thing. I'm sort of OK at a lot of things. And that's OK. I've surrounded myself with people that are a lot smarter than me. But I have a little bit of a broader point of view, and an experience that doesn't necessarily pigeonhole me into thinking one thing or another.

William and Mary is not an LAC.

Of course it is.

Where is the dividing line? Size? Curriculum? Graduate schools? If you attended UVA's College of Arts & Sciences, did you attend the Liberal Arts college within the university? If not that, what is UVA's College of Arts and Sciences? What is the difference vs. Amherst other than size? (I recognize someone will say cost, but put that aside for now.)

Size is a huge difference. Other than a couple of freshman year survey courses, I don't think DC at Amherst had a class with more than 20 students, and some only had around 10 students. Classwork and papers were meticulously graded, edited and rewritten. DC was a science/math major who became a really good writer (Amherst has an open curriculum and DC chose to take history and lit classes that interested her - other STEM students might not make the same choice). DC also formed close relationships with some profs - working on research with them, having meals with them, etc.

Students also are more closely involved in what happens academically at the school. DC helped interview potential new professors, worked with a professor to create a new class, and TA'd in classes (for pay) from sophomore year on.

As PP said on another thread, the school treated the students like they were lucky to have them there.

OK, so Amherst is smaller than UVA College of Arts & Sciences and has smaller class sizes. If you look at the majors offered by the two schools, they are largely the same. Why do people distinguish between Amherst and UVA College of Arts & Sciences when they are making the claim "LACs are overrated"? It doesn't seem like this dismissal is based on areas of study or curriculum. Is it just list price?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that this will convince the crazed LAC-haters, but here's an interesting perspective from last Sunday's NYT interview with Andi Owen, the CEO of Herman Miller, who majored in art history at William & Mary:

Did getting a liberal arts degree have an impact on your career?

It's helped me in a lot of ways. I learned a lot about people. I learned a lot about history. I learned a lot about observation. I've always approached any job I've ever had as a generalist and an observer of human nature.

Some people would say I'm not good at any one thing. I'm sort of OK at a lot of things. And that's OK. I've surrounded myself with people that are a lot smarter than me. But I have a little bit of a broader point of view, and an experience that doesn't necessarily pigeonhole me into thinking one thing or another.

William and Mary is not an LAC.

Of course it is.

Where is the dividing line? Size? Curriculum? Graduate schools? If you attended UVA's College of Arts & Sciences, did you attend the Liberal Arts college within the university? If not that, what is UVA's College of Arts and Sciences? What is the difference vs. Amherst other than size? (I recognize someone will say cost, but put that aside for now.)

Size is a huge difference. Other than a couple of freshman year survey courses, I don't think DC at Amherst had a class with more than 20 students, and some only had around 10 students. Classwork and papers were meticulously graded, edited and rewritten. DC was a science/math major who became a really good writer (Amherst has an open curriculum and DC chose to take history and lit classes that interested her - other STEM students might not make the same choice). DC also formed close relationships with some profs - working on research with them, having meals with them, etc.

Students also are more closely involved in what happens academically at the school. DC helped interview potential new professors, worked with a professor to create a new class, and TA'd in classes (for pay) from sophomore year on.

As PP said on another thread, the school treated the students like they were lucky to have them there.

OK, so Amherst is smaller than UVA College of Arts & Sciences and has smaller class sizes. If you look at the majors offered by the two schools, they are largely the same. Why do people distinguish between Amherst and UVA College of Arts & Sciences when they are making the claim "LACs are overrated"? It doesn't seem like this dismissal is based on areas of study or curriculum. Is it just list price?

I think the difference is that Amherst/Williams/Swarthmore boosters and alumni will unironically claim their schools are HYP level while preaching that grads from other schools are lesser.

[Anonymous]

Smaller classes, more contact with professors, and no competition with grad students is better. On the other hand, broader course offerings and access to some grad resources are also better.

[Anonymous]

Feels relevant with the insane boosting currently.

[Anonymous]

I just think people on DCUM obsess over these schools way too much. DD got into Uchicago, Williams, and Penn for economics. We didn’t even look at Williams, because it cannot offer anything at the level of Chicago or Penn. It’s a fine school and has good outcomes, but the top universities have small classes, great research opportunities, and much better funding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Smaller classes, more contact with professors, and no competition with grad students is better. On the other hand, broader course offerings and access to some grad resources are also better.

This. Pros and cons either way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Proportion of students they send to law and med schools are also closely matched, if not more favorable to Duke and NU. So, it looks like the LAC boosters are wrong there, too.

https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-medical-school
https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-law-school

Now do graduate school.

So LACs send more of their students to PhD programs. It means only one out of your many assertions was correct. Terribly low success rate for a supposed LAC genius, no?
Not to mention that feed rates into PhD programs is a dismal metric for intelligence or smarts, especially considering the increasingly low return on investment of pursuing a PhD.

PhDs are a great investment if in stem and going into industry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just think people on DCUM obsess over these schools way too much. DD got into Uchicago, Williams, and Penn for economics. We didn’t even look at Williams, because it cannot offer anything at the level of Chicago or Penn. It’s a fine school and has good outcomes, but the top universities have small classes, great research opportunities, and much better funding.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just think people on DCUM obsess over these schools way too much. DD got into Uchicago, Williams, and Penn for economics. We didn’t even look at Williams, because it cannot offer anything at the level of Chicago or Penn. It’s a fine school and has good outcomes, but the top universities have small classes, great research opportunities, and much better funding.

+1

Nice try resurrecting an old thread because you are getting whacked around on a different one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just think people on DCUM obsess over these schools way too much. DD got into Uchicago, Williams, and Penn for economics. We didn’t even look at Williams, because it cannot offer anything at the level of Chicago or Penn. It’s a fine school and has good outcomes, but the top universities have small classes, great research opportunities, and much better funding.

+1

Nice try resurrecting an old thread because you are getting whacked around on a different one.

It’s weird seeing people think they’re more important than they really are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just think people on DCUM obsess over these schools way too much. DD got into Uchicago, Williams, and Penn for economics. We didn’t even look at Williams, because it cannot offer anything at the level of Chicago or Penn. It’s a fine school and has good outcomes, but the top universities have small classes, great research opportunities, and much better funding.

+1

Nice try resurrecting an old thread because you are getting whacked around on a different one.

It’s weird seeing people think they’re more important than they really are.

I agree. The classes are smaller and there is less competition for professors' attention but the reality is that the professors are not as impressive or renowned as they are at larger universities. For example, the professors at Pomona are not as impressive in terms of what they have accomplished compared to even the less highly ranked UCs - Merced or Riverside. UC Riverside is just 20 mins away from Pomona in terms of location but is able to hire professor who are top in their field, more so than Pomona or other LACs can hire. NYU has much more impressive profs than Hamilton. USC has more famous profs than either claremont mckenna or occidental. Tufts has more renowned experts who are profs than Amherst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just think people on DCUM obsess over these schools way too much. DD got into Uchicago, Williams, and Penn for economics. We didn’t even look at Williams, because it cannot offer anything at the level of Chicago or Penn. It’s a fine school and has good outcomes, but the top universities have small classes, great research opportunities, and much better funding.

+1

Nice try resurrecting an old thread because you are getting whacked around on a different one.

It’s weird seeing people think they’re more important than they really are.

I agree. The classes are smaller and there is less competition for professors' attention but the reality is that the professors are not as impressive or renowned as they are at larger universities. For example, the professors at Pomona are not as impressive in terms of what they have accomplished compared to even the less highly ranked UCs - Merced or Riverside. UC Riverside is just 20 mins away from Pomona in terms of location but is able to hire professor who are top in their field, more so than Pomona or other LACs can hire. NYU has much more impressive profs than Hamilton. USC has more famous profs than either claremont mckenna or occidental. Tufts has more renowned experts who are profs than Amherst.

Why do you think this to be true? You just are loud and wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just think people on DCUM obsess over these schools way too much. DD got into Uchicago, Williams, and Penn for economics. We didn’t even look at Williams, because it cannot offer anything at the level of Chicago or Penn. It’s a fine school and has good outcomes, but the top universities have small classes, great research opportunities, and much better funding.

+1

Nice try resurrecting an old thread because you are getting whacked around on a different one.

It’s weird seeing people think they’re more important than they really are.

I agree. The classes are smaller and there is less competition for professors' attention but the reality is that the professors are not as impressive or renowned as they are at larger universities. For example, the professors at Pomona are not as impressive in terms of what they have accomplished compared to even the less highly ranked UCs - Merced or Riverside. UC Riverside is just 20 mins away from Pomona in terms of location but is able to hire professor who are top in their field, more so than Pomona or other LACs can hire. NYU has much more impressive profs than Hamilton. USC has more famous profs than either claremont mckenna or occidental. Tufts has more renowned experts who are profs than Amherst.

Pomona has Jonathan Lethem on faculty. No one at UC riverside or Merced is anywhere near accomplished. Other established faculty include Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Susan McWilliams Barndt, Mietek Boduszyński, Sara Sadhwani, Edray Goins, Tahir Andrabi, and many more. Amherst’s scholars in their Law Jurisprudence and Social Thought department eclipse the political science offerings at Tufts (William Taubman, Lawrence Douglas, Austin Sarat, Adam Sitze). It also has wonderful faculty in English and various other fields including Judith Frank, current writer in residence Min Jin Lee, Ilan Stavans, and Alexander George. I don’t know anyone comparing NYU and Hamilton or CMC and USC nor why they would. Even then, CMC has leading government scholars- a few of which are heavily instrumental to our current administration, one advising the US on international policy with china, the leading scholar on Frederick Douglass, and a leading scholar in conservative thought. CMC also has Henri Cole, another internationally famous writer, critic Leland De La Durantaye, well known holocaust scholar Wendy Lower, and World Bank Advisor William Ascher.

The idea that liberal arts faculty are poor quality or worse is just…wrong.

[Anonymous]

Why did someone revive a years-old old thread? How do people even find these old threads? They search on a college name and scroll through 20 pages?

Doesn’t seem healthy tbh

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They sit in that odd in-between where they're lesser-known by the general populace, but are incredibly overhyped by those in the know.

No one cares about your Williams or Amherst or Swarthmore, and they're slowly but surely becoming increasingly irrelevant in today's higher ed landscape.

I used to think that until my friend’s kid went to Smith. She breezed through with a 4.0, professors made personal contacts with professors at other institutions and she got into a ton of Ivy league grad programs. His son went to UIUC for CS; he’s busting his butt to get a 3.4. Both of these kids had similar grades/SAT scores from the same HS. The amount of personal attention and connections you can get at a good SLAC really seem to make a difference. Obviously just anecdotal, but something to think about.