Does class size matter at the college level?
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Anonymous
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I notice that many college rankings consider class size.
As an adult, why do you need to be sitting in a tiny classroom to learn? |
Anonymous
| If it's a large classroom the teacher just drones on and on and there's zero class participation. You have to go to office hours to ask questions. Less interaction with other students during (no) class discussions so a little harder to make friends. |
Anonymous
| A lecture vs a seminar are completely different experiences. My child wanted schools where she could access discussion based classes as much as possible. But I agree with you that a 50 person lecture is not that different from a 200 person lecture. |
Anonymous
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10 vs 30 vs 50 feels different.
50 vs 100 vs 300 doesn’t make much difference. |
Anonymous
| Try to get as many seminar classes as possible. They're more valuable. |
Anonymous
| Luckily, most schools have a variety of class sizes so you're not always stuck in a tiny class with the same people. It's good to have some small/med/large classes. |
Anonymous
| A 500 person class is basically YouTube. |
Anonymous
DC goes to an lac and recently his college had a pretty big class for the first time in a while: 280 students, across 2 sections to not overwhelm profs who are used to teaching 10-20 person classes. This was with a professor who has a perfect rate my professor and is seen as ubiquitously the best lecturer in his department. The class went horribly. In smaller classes, profs tend to push way past the expected curriculum, because there’s more time and expectations can be heightened as students progress through more difficult loads. This massive class failed as students felt the course pace was too slow, but the actual work/exams were at the expectation of a small class where you get more feedback. An example of this is that in DS’s real analysis class, they were able to blow through real analysis 1 (the course) and move through most of real analysis 2, since the course only had 8 students (it was a last minute section opening- usually there’s about 30-50) and the students were grasping content at an advanced level. In a typical real analysis course, they’d just do exceptionally well but would learn less content. |
Anonymous
What school has a 500 person class? |
Anonymous
| As someone with ADHD it was really hard to stay focused in the large lecture hall classes at my big state university, especially in the early gen ed classes that I wasn’t interested in. I always did better when I had the opportunity to take smaller classes. |
Anonymous
| My freshman kid is at a SLAC and one reason they chose it is for the small class sizes. In my opinion (and personal experience), there is a significant difference between a 40-50 person class and a class of 100-300. My kid had one class with around 40 students this year - that was their largest class, but the professor still knew them all, called on them by name, had lots of class participation, and was able to give very detailed feedback to them. No TAs ran labs or study sessions or did any grading. When grades were posted, the prof wrote each of the students an email about their performance in the class and her thoughts about other courses they might like in the department, and for some of them, that she hoped they considering majoring in the department. She also suggested research and summer opportunities to some of them. As for other classes, my kid's smallest class was 12 students - next semester they will have an even smaller class. And it's not just the relationships with the professors, your interaction with peers is also very different when there are 12 of you, or even 40 of you, versus 300 of you. It's personal preference of course but obviously there is a big difference. |
Anonymous
False. The large lectures give you access to the famous and gifted lecturers son the faculty. My DS had Ken Elzinga for Micro amd macro econ his first year at UVA. Elzinga became a mentor and wrote LORs long after DS went into politics seminars. I. sharp contrast, the faculty at my SLAC were unknowns in their fields outside of my SLAC and my LORs hurt me as a result. |
Anonymous
Haha. Lots of schools! I was in a class my first year at Harvard with about 900. |
Anonymous
Everything you just described has been my kid's experience at a large state school. She's on a first-name basis with most of her professors, several of whom have written deeply personal recommendation letters for her. She's also never had a TA in the classroom at all, and certainly no classes larger than an intro of about 150. Since then, her classes average around 30 people, more or less. |
Anonymous
Pretty sure my intro astronomy class at GW had that many. It was known as an easy science class so a lot of freshman and sophomore humanities majors took it. |