Question of Parents of Kids at SLACs
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Anonymous
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I've had kids at SLACs and #1 is a valid point. There is not the same breadth of possible majors at a smaller college. But the teaching and opportunities to work closely with professors (since there are no grad students) allows students to pursue their chosen major in greater depth. This also helped draw out my kids, who tend to be introverted, and make them more active participants in their own education. I think if they had gone to larger schools, they would've quietly sat in the back of their classes, gotten good grades but not gotten all out of college that they could have - either socially or academically.
As for getting a job at graduation, both my kids have received a tremendous amount of guidance and help from the careers centers, professors and alumni. They both had paid jobs or internships over every summer during college, and the one who's graduated had multiple job and grad school offers at graduation. I went to a highly-regarded state university and their experience couldn't be more different than mine. |
Anonymous
Good observation. |
Anonymous
Pomona and the 5Cs have the most on campus recruiting of any LAC... |
Anonymous
Amherst and Williams are much more alike than different. Perhaps the only difference is that Amherst is much less rural than Williams being located in close proximity to UMass Amherst, Smith, Mt. Holyoke and Hampshire. |
Anonymous
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Important to differentiate among top ranked selective LACs (SLACs), LACs, private National Universities, public universities, and honors colleges/honors programs at state public flagship universities.
Classes are typically quite small at public university honors colleges and at private National Universities and always--to the best of my knowledge and experience--taught by professors. Grad student TAs are used for small break-out study sessions of any large introductory courses. Grad student TAs often act as tutors. Close relationships with professors are available at honors colleges & honors programs and at private National Universities. In order to differentiate further, specific schools and, possibly, even specific majors should be known. When I read of large class sizes and lack of close relationships with professors, I usually think of the University of California system schools which have student teacher ratios of 18:1 and 20:1 and some other large public National Universities such as Illinois, Ohio State, Texas A&M, and the University of Florida, but not at private National Universities. National Universities and LACs report the percentage of classes with under 20 students as well as the percentage of classes with 50 or more students and the results are published by US News Best Colleges. Student:Faculty ratio is also reported and published by US News Best Colleges for the Top 50 ranked National Universities and for the Top 50 ranked LACs. The lowest (best) student:faculty ratios are reported by private National Universities. (36 of the Top 54 ranked National Universities are private Nat'L Universities) MIT 3:1 CalTech 3:1 Princeton 4:1 Yale 4:1 Harvard 5:1 Stanford 5:1 Chicago 5:1 UPenn 6:1 Northwestern 6:1 Duke 6:1 Johns Hopkins 6:1 Brown 6:1 Rice 6:1 Carnegie Mellon Univ. 6:1 Columbia 6:1 Dartmouth College 7:1 WashUStL 7:1 Vanderbilt 8:1 Notre Dame 8:1 NYU 8:1 Tulane 8:1 Cornell 9:1 Emory 9:1 USC 9:1 Tufts 9:1 U Rochester 9:1 Lehigh 9:1 Boston University 10:1 Brandeis 10:1 Georgetown 11:1 Wake Forest 11:1 Boston College 11:1 Case Western Reserve 11:1 Villanova 11:1 Pepperdine 13:1 Northeastern 14:1 Among the top 53 Liberal Arts Colleges (LACs), 50 are private and 3 are Service Academies. The student:faculty ratios are (from lowest to highest): Williams College 6:1 US Air Force Academy 6:1 Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Wellesley, Smith, SOKA, & the US Military Academy are at 7:1 Bowdoin, US Naval Academy, Claremont McKenna, Carleton, Middlebury, Wash & Lee, Grinnell, Wesleyan, Vassar, URichmond, Harvey Mudd, Bryn Mawr, Whitman, Skidmore, Occidental, & DePauw are at 8:1 Hamilton, Haverford, Barnard, Davidson, Colgate, Colorado College, Berea, Kenyon, Mount Holyoke, Scripps, Pitzer, Oberlin, Bucknell, Denison, Franklin & Marshall, Furman, Hillsdale, Trinity College, Connecticut College, Dickinson, & Union are at 9:1. Colby, Bates, Macalester, Holy Cross, Lafayette, and Sewanee-Univ. of the South are at 10:1. Thomas Aquinas is at 11:1. Some Public National Universities: College of William & Mary 12:1 University of Virginia 14:1 Univ. of Michigan 14:1 UNC 15:1 UCLA 18:1 UCal-Berkeley 19:1 |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| You have to be careful when interpreting these numbers. Many national universities have a large number of faculty but, at the highest levels, many of them don't teach undergrads or, if they do, have very limited teaching responsibility. The main responsibility of the most esteemed faculty is research, writing books, giving lectures outside their school, etc. I have a kid at a top 20 National University, and I can tell you that the professors oversee teaching more so than actual teaching. |
Anonymous
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I think anyone with a kid in the UC system knows the claim of 1:18 is flat out false.
I also went to HYS and I don’t believe those numbers. I’m sorry, but they are fake. |
Anonymous
I agree. The numbers can be misleading. You also have to look at other measures as well. What percentage of classes are 20 or fewer students? And keep in mind that schools will include independent study as a class when they are calculating the overall average class size so average class size also can be misleading. What are the gen Ed requirements and how large are those classes? What percentage of classes are taught by a TA? Etc. |
Anonymous
| Some kids will thrive at SLAC and some at a larger university. Both can have good outcomes but they are more dependent on the student than the school, especially if you are comparing institutions where they will have the opportunity to receive a great education. |
Anonymous
I think that you may be misinterpreting the student: faculty ratio numbers as being directly related to class size. Is this correct ? Can you expand on your claim that the student:faculty ratio is false ? The UCs report significant percentage of classes of 50 or more students (UCLA--23%; Berkeley--21%; UC-San Diego--24%; UC-Davis--31% of classes have 50 or more students; UC-Irvine--23%; Harvard--10%; Dartmouth--6%; Northwestern--6%; UChicago--6%; Duke--7%; Rice--7%) |
Anonymous
I personally had the experience of attending a SLAC, deciding I didn't want to major in what I thought I wanted to major in, and then had to transfer out. Would have been better off at a larger university with more options. There is also the question of social cliques. My DS transferred out of a SLAC for several reasons, but among them was not fitting in with the prevailing major cliques (athletes, rich kids, frat kids) and not being able to find a friend group that wasn't from these cliques. As for the job aspect, it depends on the school. I toured a lot of SLACs with DS and specifically asked what companies come to the campus to recruit, and the person giving the usual powerpoint presentation at the beginning was never able to answer. By the same token, employers don't make a major effort to recruit at larger universities unless it's a highly regarded one (Berkeley, Michigan, etc.) |
Anonymous
The PP seems to be claiming that the faculty ratio is reflective of the relationship between faculty and students at national universities. That’s deeply misleading. There is no way anyone with a kid in the UC system believes their kids get any significant faculty exposure there, particularly in the first two years. |
Anonymous
| My kid went to an SLAC and neither she nor any of her college friends had any trouble landing good jobs. It’s only on DCUM where people think stuff like this matters. In the real world, it doesn’t. You’re just a bunch of obsessed weirdos. |
Anonymous
Yeah it’s strange how obsessed people on this board are with criticizing SLACs. |