Big, rah-rah schools with mostly small (<30 or 40) classes and sufficient hands-on advising to graduate in 4?

[Anonymous]

That sounds impossible. MIT with only 4K kids had classes with several hundred...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honors college at a state flagship?

This is the answer. Most honors colleges promise smaller classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know of many large rah-rah schools with less than 30-40 students in *every* class, but here are Virginia Tech's numbers:

20-49 students 46.2%
Classes with fewer than 20 students 33.3%
50 or more 20.5%

Pretty good sizes for a large school. The intro classes are generally larger, but not huge. My DC goes there and has also had a very responsive advisor who has met with her both virtually and in person since the summer before she even attended. As a freshman, they mapped out her entire four years and she is right on track to graduate on time.

+1 my son is having no trouble graduating in 4 yrs at VT. Not many huge classes. Although I'm sure it helps that his major only has about 80-100 students per year

[Anonymous]

Wake Forest. Smallest power conference school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honors college at a state flagship?

This is the answer. Most honors colleges promise smaller classes.

In my dd's experience, they don't deliver. The only benefits she got were housing (which ended up being only with honors and awful) and early scheduling, which didn't matter because the classes were hundreds of kids. And for whoever replied with "and they have recitation" - do you even understand what that means?? It means DOUBLE the class time with a TA. It's bullshit. It's the class time PLUS another class time because it's necessary to bridge the gap with a class with hundreds of kids. DD transferred to a school with small classes, taught by professors. No recitations. It's D1 and has deep traditions, but isn't a big football school (if that's what rah-rah means here).

OP - you need to look at schools that don't use TAs and don't have recitation.

We tripled our tuition payments to get her out of an honors college at a rah-rah school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Notre Dame
Duke
USC
Stanford

Definitely not Michigan. Talk to current students not moms here. They will tell you how miserable they are in these entry-level class with hundreds of kids taught by TAs.

Duke isn’t that big

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do such beasts exist? Where might they be found?

Duke
Northwestern

[Anonymous]

My kid is at UMiami and even most of his freshman classes were small. I was surprised.

[Anonymous]

OP, when you say “big, rah-rah schools” are you looking for a large school with sports or any size school with strong sports? I’m trying to confirm how you’re using the word big in your subject line because it could be read different ways. I get that you want smaller class sizes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Notre Dame
Duke
USC
Stanford

Definitely not Michigan. Talk to current students not moms here. They will tell you how miserable they are in these entry-level class with hundreds of kids taught by TAs.

Duke isn’t that big

The Rah Rah of Duke Bball and trnting and being a Cameron crazy is much more than typical for the smaller 7000 undergrad size

[Anonymous]

*tenting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honors college at a state flagship?

This is the answer. Most honors colleges promise smaller classes.

In my dd's experience, they don't deliver. The only benefits she got were housing (which ended up being only with honors and awful) and early scheduling, which didn't matter because the classes were hundreds of kids. And for whoever replied with "and they have recitation" - do you even understand what that means?? It means DOUBLE the class time with a TA. It's bullshit. It's the class time PLUS another class time because it's necessary to bridge the gap with a class with hundreds of kids. DD transferred to a school with small classes, taught by professors. No recitations. It's D1 and has deep traditions, but isn't a big football school (if that's what rah-rah means here).

OP - you need to look at schools that don't use TAs and don't have recitation.

We tripled our tuition payments to get her out of an honors college at a rah-rah school

Sorry your DD went through a bad firstbyearcand the hassle/stress of transferring, but thank you for sharing this. I feel like I’ve seen very few first-hand (and recent) accounts of state flagship honors college experiences.

I’m glad to hear your DD found a school that’s a better fit! Could you share which school she chose? “Deep traditions” with relatively smaller class sizes (or professor-taught rather than TA taught) sounds like it could be up my DC’s alley. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wake Forest. Smallest power conference school.

Yup, super small classes with tons of school spirit and Power 5 sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Notre Dame
Duke
USC
Stanford

Definitely not Michigan. Talk to current students not moms here. They will tell you how miserable they are in these entry-level class with hundreds of kids taught by TAs.

Duke isn’t that big

The Rah Rah of Duke Bball and tenting and being a Cameron crazy is much more than typical for the smaller 7000 undergrad size

+1

Duke delivers a lot of “rah-rah” for a school its size. Some of it is basketball, of course. And lately football, to a lesser degree. But it’s also that kids just love being there. There’s a lot of open pride/love for the school and community.

My sense is that Stanford and Northwestern are similar. And BC, apparently. I’d be curious to hear of others that fit OP’s criteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honors college at a state flagship?

This is the answer. Most honors colleges promise smaller classes.

In my dd's experience, they don't deliver. The only benefits she got were housing (which ended up being only with honors and awful) and early scheduling, which didn't matter because the classes were hundreds of kids. And for whoever replied with "and they have recitation" - do you even understand what that means?? It means DOUBLE the class time with a TA. It's bullshit. It's the class time PLUS another class time because it's necessary to bridge the gap with a class with hundreds of kids. DD transferred to a school with small classes, taught by professors. No recitations. It's D1 and has deep traditions, but isn't a big football school (if that's what rah-rah means here).

OP - you need to look at schools that don't use TAs and don't have recitation.

We tripled our tuition payments to get her out of an honors college at a rah-rah school

You learn something new every day - I’ve never even heard of recitations. Can you share school name?