How are SLACs easier to navigate relative to big state schools?

[Anonymous]

This is OP. Really appreciate the great feedback!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SLACs don't have graduate students, so undergrads have more opportunities to do research with faculty.

Some SLACs actually do have grad students, but yes the focus is on undergrads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has been over the president’s house more than once for receptions. Knows his dogs, etc.

For the holiday formal, the faculty serve the kids their meal.

When a class is full or you may not meet the eligibility criteria, the kid writes to the prof and usually can get in.

International students who stay on campus over breaks are invited to faculty homes for the holiday.

Etc etc

DS has this at his state school honors program too. These provide a way to navigate big state schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has been over the president’s house more than once for receptions. Knows his dogs, etc.

For the holiday formal, the faculty serve the kids their meal.

When a class is full or you may not meet the eligibility criteria, the kid writes to the prof and usually can get in.

International students who stay on campus over breaks are invited to faculty homes for the holiday.

Etc etc

Sounds lovely, what school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This no longer really applies since it’s now done online but…I remember a friend who went to Wisconsin saying she had to camp out overnight (in winter!) in order to get into the classes that she needed to take. At my SLAC that would never ever have happened, you were pretty much guaranteed to get into any class you wanted. I realize things are different now but it goes to show a big difference between the two.

My DC went to Michigan and always got exactly the classes he wanted. So that’s not universal at large universities. By contrast my DC at a SLAC had trouble because some classes he needed were only offered one semester a year and depending on prereqs it could be difficult to sequence things. So pros and cons of both.

[Anonymous]

Small classes. Profs who know your name. Often less rigid bureaucracy. More feedback on writing.

[Anonymous]

More support services and more easily accessible support services.

[Anonymous]

DS is a rising junior in a STEM major that has 8-10 majors a year. He declared 1st semester sophomore year. He talked to the department head and was matched with an advisor whose research matches. His interests. 2nd semester, he did research for academic credit. This summer, he was given a student apartment for 8 weeks and is being paid to. Research out of a federal grant. She has already asked him to continue as a paid research assistant next fall, given him a list of likely internships for post junior year (and will write him a great reference) and has helped him choose a study abroad program spring of junior year.

He will be published before he graduates, and the goal is for seniors to present at a national conference in the spring.

More than half of the kids who graduate in his major get PhDs, often at top universities in the field. He will obviously have no trouble getting great grad school references from his department.

None of this happens if grad students get first dibs on research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid has been over the president’s house more than once for receptions. Knows his dogs, etc.

For the holiday formal, the faculty serve the kids their meal.

When a class is full or you may not meet the eligibility criteria, the kid writes to the prof and usually can get in.

International students who stay on campus over breaks are invited to faculty homes for the holiday.

Etc etc

Sounds lovely, what school?

I went to a SLAC and so have 2 of our kids. I agree that getting to know faculty is a major advantage for students at SLACs, but having the profs serve the holiday dinner sounds cringe-y.

[Anonymous]

Your child can be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. At a big school like Penn State, much easier to get lost in the shuffle.

[Anonymous]

So medium size private college is the best.
Best of the both worlds.

[Anonymous]

State flag ship grad here that had a terrible experience; especially, compared to friends that went to a SLAC. I declared a major I was semi interested in and never got advising outside the initial consultation without needing to drive back to campus over the summer. I learned in last semester of my senior year that my major had different focus areas you could choose that helped put you on a track for specific careers. Once you had a major, the school seemed incentivized to simply get you to graduate while utilizing school resources as little as possible.

In addition to the above issues with my major, I tried to add a different major in the same college that was an absolute mess. Even though I added it in line with all the deadlines, I would have had to take one class in what should have been my second semester of senior year then come back for one semester to take two more classes to graduate.

Finally, it was very confusing about how to take classes at other colleges (e.g., business, journalism, engineering, comp sci schools). A lot of these classes were simply shutoff to students that weren’t in these colleges/majors and course descriptions implied that you couldn’t really take certain intro level classes. In addition, the University didn’t allocate resources amount the colleges evenly… if USNWR ranked your major/college (e.g., business school) then it got a lot more money and resources even if it didn’t bring in money to the school (looking at you journalism school). The school also limited slots to these schools to make them more competitive seemingly for the sake of making them more competitive (e.g., requiring calculus for an undergrad business major but to get an MBA you didn’t need to take specific math classes).

Dealing with the school was like the DMV on steroids.

[Anonymous]

The price to pay for "easier navigation" is less course availability/flexibility, fewer professors (meaning that students often have to have the same professor time and again for courses in their major, which isn't necessarily a good thing), and a suffocating social scene.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The price to pay for "easier navigation" is less course availability/flexibility, fewer professors (meaning that students often have to have the same professor time and again for courses in their major, which isn't necessarily a good thing), and a suffocating social scene.

Huh . . . wondering which SLACs you're familiar with. I'm a Williams grad and this was not my experience at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid has been over the president’s house more than once for receptions. Knows his dogs, etc.

For the holiday formal, the faculty serve the kids their meal.

When a class is full or you may not meet the eligibility criteria, the kid writes to the prof and usually can get in.

International students who stay on campus over breaks are invited to faculty homes for the holiday.

Etc etc

Sounds lovely, what school?

Juniata College.

They also assign each student two advisors (one must be outside their field.)

When she decided she wanted to work in a lab for credit (to gain experience, I think sophomore year), she approached three professors and got three offers. She just graduated, with multiple peer reviewed publications and having presented her research at multiple national conferences. It is a great place.