How big are intro class sizes at UVA vs W&M?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

You can see the size of the waitlists on the site that was already shared in the first reply.

I have clicked through A LOT of the course lists and I can’t find any class over 495. Zero. I’m guessing a school UVA’s size doesn’t even have a classroom big enough for 500.

https://louslist.org/

[Anonymous]

DD will be attending W&M in the fall so she doesn't have direct experience yet. The smaller class sizes were definitely a draw for her, but one downside neither of us thought about until registration is that it is hard to get into classes. Lots of incoming freshman are frustrated at how few classes seem to be available.

DD got her top 2 choices but none of the other classes she wants have space (and she had a long list of options as recommended). Hoping it all sorts itself out during orientation when they finish up registration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

Well I HIGHLY doubt that is true. UVA limits waitlists to 199 for one thing. If you’re curious, you can go to louslist.org where you can see the class sizes for every class being offered along with the waitlists.

I agree -this is false. There aren’t that many students at UVA. It’s a small flagship of only 16,000 so only 4,000 in entering class ergo it would be impossible to have 1/8 of an entering class of several 100 majors all in one class. My DD started UVA as an engineer. Her largest class was biology intro at 75 and calculus at 100. She switched at end of first year to Econ and politics and had very small seminars of 12 from that point on. She wound up a history major, as had been DW and myself, so we could compare, and received a far better and intimate e patience with those professors (who wrote fantastic letters if rev for her) than we did in our respective history majors in very expensive SLACs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

Well I HIGHLY doubt that is true. UVA limits waitlists to 199 for one thing. If you’re curious, you can go to louslist.org where you can see the class sizes for every class being offered along with the waitlists.

I agree -this is false. There aren’t that many students at UVA. It’s a small flagship of only 16,000 so only 4,000 in entering class ergo it would be impossible to have 1/8 of an entering class of several 100 majors all in one class. My DD started UVA as an engineer. Her largest class was biology intro at 75 and calculus at 100. She switched at end of first year to Econ and politics and had very small seminars of 12 from that point on. She wound up a history major, as had been DW and myself, so we could compare, and received a far better and intimate e patience with those professors (who wrote fantastic letters if rev for her) than we did in our respective history majors in very expensive SLACs.

I know a calculus class of 100 is probably pretty good for a state flagship, but, my God, this is something to brag about? What are our standards for education here, where a 100-person calculus class would remotely be seen as acceptable? What would us parents say if our kids’ AP calculus class in high school had 100 students?

UVA is a great in-state option if you live in Virginia. I get it. It’s cheap. If you are not a Virginia resident, a 54k oos tuition for that? Davidson’s tuition is 57k. I would say that 3k extra would be money well spent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

Well I HIGHLY doubt that is true. UVA limits waitlists to 199 for one thing. If you’re curious, you can go to louslist.org where you can see the class sizes for every class being offered along with the waitlists.

I agree -this is false. There aren’t that many students at UVA. It’s a small flagship of only 16,000 so only 4,000 in entering class ergo it would be impossible to have 1/8 of an entering class of several 100 majors all in one class. My DD started UVA as an engineer. Her largest class was biology intro at 75 and calculus at 100. She switched at end of first year to Econ and politics and had very small seminars of 12 from that point on. She wound up a history major, as had been DW and myself, so we could compare, and received a far better and intimate e patience with those professors (who wrote fantastic letters if rev for her) than we did in our respective history majors in very expensive SLACs.

I know a calculus class of 100 is probably pretty good for a state flagship, but, my God, this is something to brag about? What are our standards for education here, where a 100-person calculus class would remotely be seen as acceptable? What would us parents say if our kids’ AP calculus class in high school had 100 students?

UVA is a great in-state option if you live in Virginia. I get it. It’s cheap. If you are not a Virginia resident, a 54k oos tuition for that? Davidson’s tuition is 57k. I would say that 3k extra would be money well spent.

1) no one is bragging. Just correcting someone's false claims that UVA has entry-level classes of 500. UVA doesn't even have a classroom that large
2) calculus, as you should know, is an entry-level course for almost all hard science and tech majors. Ergo all those first-year students have to take it unless they tested out. But testing out is difficult. https://math.virginia.edu/content/math-placement/.
3) There are breakout sessions, labs and tutors to assist
4) it was well taught. Kid got an A. Much better taught than the calculus she had had at her private school (AB/BC, yes, had to retake, most Universities require it because they want to make sure all students start on equal footing in calculus).
5) Instate tuition for us was $6K a term. DD moved off campus ASAP to inexpensive group house and did her own cooking. No car. And we carried her on our own insurance plan so didn't have to pay UVA's health care plan. Total was probably $15K a year, because DD was frugal and smart. Davidson (weird pick) is more than $74,000 a year, not including airfaire and travel. Which meant we could pocket away the $60K difference, let it compound and now . . . .
6) pay for her grad work at Oxford, where she is beginning her second year in Oct. (UVA is the top producer of all publics of Rhodes Scholars and no 8 in the US after the private Ivies).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

You can see the size of the waitlists on the site that was already shared in the first reply.

I have clicked through A LOT of the course lists and I can’t find any class over 495. Zero. I’m guessing a school UVA’s size doesn’t even have a classroom big enough for 500.

https://louslist.org/

There are no 500+ classrooms at UVA. https://classrooms.its.virginia.edu/list. And certainly not in the history department. The Data Science undergrad program is not even developed enough to have a major (It was the result of an enormous Data Science Grant of $40M a few years back but still in its infancy). It has grad programs and a single minor in data science but is not yet equipped to offer a major. Nor does it have a 500 student classrom for its grad students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

Well I HIGHLY doubt that is true. UVA limits waitlists to 199 for one thing. If you’re curious, you can go to louslist.org where you can see the class sizes for every class being offered along with the waitlists.

I agree -this is false. There aren’t that many students at UVA. It’s a small flagship of only 16,000 so only 4,000 in entering class ergo it would be impossible to have 1/8 of an entering class of several 100 majors all in one class. My DD started UVA as an engineer. Her largest class was biology intro at 75 and calculus at 100. She switched at end of first year to Econ and politics and had very small seminars of 12 from that point on. She wound up a history major, as had been DW and myself, so we could compare, and received a far better and intimate e patience with those professors (who wrote fantastic letters if rev for her) than we did in our respective history majors in very expensive SLACs.

Perhaps your DD tested out, but first-year engineering students at UVA are required to take chemistry, where lectures range in size from 200-400 students. At least the calc classes for engineering students are kept under 50 people this year, which is good.

There's certainly some wonky stuff happening at UVA when you look at Lou's List. Intro bio, for example, shows two lecture sections with the same professor, one with capacity for 476 and one with capacity for 435, that have class simultaneously one day a week (but not on other days).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS's largest freshman class at W&M was around 40.

+1 I graduated W&M a few years ago and my biggest class (Intro Econ) was about 50 students. I personally really liked that size because it provided some balance from my small discussion group type classes where I had to be on it every week. Also, it was a great way to make friends early on since it wasn't 200+ students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

Well I HIGHLY doubt that is true. UVA limits waitlists to 199 for one thing. If you’re curious, you can go to louslist.org where you can see the class sizes for every class being offered along with the waitlists.

I agree -this is false. There aren’t that many students at UVA. It’s a small flagship of only 16,000 so only 4,000 in entering class ergo it would be impossible to have 1/8 of an entering class of several 100 majors all in one class. My DD started UVA as an engineer. Her largest class was biology intro at 75 and calculus at 100. She switched at end of first year to Econ and politics and had very small seminars of 12 from that point on. She wound up a history major, as had been DW and myself, so we could compare, and received a far better and intimate e patience with those professors (who wrote fantastic letters if rev for her) than we did in our respective history majors in very expensive SLACs.

I know a calculus class of 100 is probably pretty good for a state flagship, but, my God, this is something to brag about? What are our standards for education here, where a 100-person calculus class would remotely be seen as acceptable? What would us parents say if our kids’ AP calculus class in high school had 100 students?

UVA is a great in-state option if you live in Virginia. I get it. It’s cheap. If you are not a Virginia resident, a 54k oos tuition for that? Davidson’s tuition is 57k. I would say that 3k extra would be money well spent.

This is why it's important to cull thru the CDS for each school your kid is considering, if class size matters (and IMO it should). With my first, I was able to determine only 4.5% of classes are 100+ from the CDS. Then if found the school's more detailed data about class sizes over the last 5+ years for each department. So I knew that Bio101/102, Chem 101/102, A&P, PHY101/102 and some Econ classes would be over 100+. The big science courses always have discussion sections capped at 24. But I also knew that they were capped at 150-200 students, which IMO is very different than a large school where it's can be 500+ for those popular courses. I also could figure out that for my kid after those intro courses, most would be less than 50.

Same for 2nd kid. That kid's school has much smaller courses overall. But for the intro premen/eng courses and calc 1 it can be 200 students. However, those courses have recitations of 8-10 students each week so extremely small, 1-1 opportunities available.

Basically, if class size matters (and it really should), then you can figure out exactly what they are typically for your kid's path. No way would my kid attend a school with classes regularly over 100 beyond those few intro, and certainly not if those intros were 400-500 kids.

[Anonymous]

This is a typical DCUM parent weirdo post. You go to a state flagship, you're going to have a couple of very large intro classes. WTF cares? Certainly not the first year students. Not every student wants or needs silly professor contact in every single class. We get it, you want to justify sending your kid to some no-name CTCL school because your kid can't get into UVA. Fine. You're just jealous.

[Anonymous]

I had a few very large classes in college - econ 101, art history - and I didn’t mind them. They were not the norm for me, and so it felt like a break. I could just disappear and listen instead of participate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

Well I HIGHLY doubt that is true. UVA limits waitlists to 199 for one thing. If you’re curious, you can go to louslist.org where you can see the class sizes for every class being offered along with the waitlists.

I agree -this is false. There aren’t that many students at UVA. It’s a small flagship of only 16,000 so only 4,000 in entering class ergo it would be impossible to have 1/8 of an entering class of several 100 majors all in one class. My DD started UVA as an engineer. Her largest class was biology intro at 75 and calculus at 100. She switched at end of first year to Econ and politics and had very small seminars of 12 from that point on. She wound up a history major, as had been DW and myself, so we could compare, and received a far better and intimate e patience with those professors (who wrote fantastic letters if rev for her) than we did in our respective history majors in very expensive SLACs.

I know a calculus class of 100 is probably pretty good for a state flagship, but, my God, this is something to brag about? What are our standards for education here, where a 100-person calculus class would remotely be seen as acceptable? What would us parents say if our kids’ AP calculus class in high school had 100 students?

UVA is a great in-state option if you live in Virginia. I get it. It’s cheap. If you are not a Virginia resident, a 54k oos tuition for that? Davidson’s tuition is 57k. I would say that 3k extra would be money well spent.

This is why it's important to cull thru the CDS for each school your kid is considering, if class size matters (and IMO it should). With my first, I was able to determine only 4.5% of classes are 100+ from the CDS. Then if found the school's more detailed data about class sizes over the last 5+ years for each department. So I knew that Bio101/102, Chem 101/102, A&P, PHY101/102 and some Econ classes would be over 100+. The big science courses always have discussion sections capped at 24. But I also knew that they were capped at 150-200 students, which IMO is very different than a large school where it's can be 500+ for those popular courses. I also could figure out that for my kid after those intro courses, most would be less than 50.

Same for 2nd kid. That kid's school has much smaller courses overall. But for the intro premen/eng courses and calc 1 it can be 200 students. However, those courses have recitations of 8-10 students each week so extremely small, 1-1 opportunities available.

Basically, if class size matters (and it really should), then you can figure out exactly what they are typically for your kid's path. No way would my kid attend a school with classes regularly over 100 beyond those few intro, and certainly not if those intros were 400-500 kids.

NP. What is CDS? I'd like to look into this more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

Well I HIGHLY doubt that is true. UVA limits waitlists to 199 for one thing. If you’re curious, you can go to louslist.org where you can see the class sizes for every class being offered along with the waitlists.

I agree -this is false. There aren’t that many students at UVA. It’s a small flagship of only 16,000 so only 4,000 in entering class ergo it would be impossible to have 1/8 of an entering class of several 100 majors all in one class. My DD started UVA as an engineer. Her largest class was biology intro at 75 and calculus at 100. She switched at end of first year to Econ and politics and had very small seminars of 12 from that point on. She wound up a history major, as had been DW and myself, so we could compare, and received a far better and intimate e patience with those professors (who wrote fantastic letters if rev for her) than we did in our respective history majors in very expensive SLACs.

I know a calculus class of 100 is probably pretty good for a state flagship, but, my God, this is something to brag about? What are our standards for education here, where a 100-person calculus class would remotely be seen as acceptable? What would us parents say if our kids’ AP calculus class in high school had 100 students?

UVA is a great in-state option if you live in Virginia. I get it. It’s cheap. If you are not a Virginia resident, a 54k oos tuition for that? Davidson’s tuition is 57k. I would say that 3k extra would be money well spent.

This is why it's important to cull thru the CDS for each school your kid is considering, if class size matters (and IMO it should). With my first, I was able to determine only 4.5% of classes are 100+ from the CDS. Then if found the school's more detailed data about class sizes over the last 5+ years for each department. So I knew that Bio101/102, Chem 101/102, A&P, PHY101/102 and some Econ classes would be over 100+. The big science courses always have discussion sections capped at 24. But I also knew that they were capped at 150-200 students, which IMO is very different than a large school where it's can be 500+ for those popular courses. I also could figure out that for my kid after those intro courses, most would be less than 50.

Same for 2nd kid. That kid's school has much smaller courses overall. But for the intro premen/eng courses and calc 1 it can be 200 students. However, those courses have recitations of 8-10 students each week so extremely small, 1-1 opportunities available.

Basically, if class size matters (and it really should), then you can figure out exactly what they are typically for your kid's path. No way would my kid attend a school with classes regularly over 100 beyond those few intro, and certainly not if those intros were 400-500 kids.

NP. What is CDS? I'd like to look into this more.

Common Data set

It's an easy way to compare a ton of data from different schools, as the CDS is standardized

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we went to the admitted students day at UVA 2 professors spoke who had classes with 500 plus people (one was a data science class and another was in the history dept I think). One of these classes had a waitlist of over 800 people. I'm not sure this is something to brag about. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to take this class and likely never get to interact with the superstar professor in a meaningful way. If the professor is a great lecturer, why not have them do a ted talk.

Well I HIGHLY doubt that is true. UVA limits waitlists to 199 for one thing. If you’re curious, you can go to louslist.org where you can see the class sizes for every class being offered along with the waitlists.

I agree -this is false. There aren’t that many students at UVA. It’s a small flagship of only 16,000 so only 4,000 in entering class ergo it would be impossible to have 1/8 of an entering class of several 100 majors all in one class. My DD started UVA as an engineer. Her largest class was biology intro at 75 and calculus at 100. She switched at end of first year to Econ and politics and had very small seminars of 12 from that point on. She wound up a history major, as had been DW and myself, so we could compare, and received a far better and intimate e patience with those professors (who wrote fantastic letters if rev for her) than we did in our respective history majors in very expensive SLACs.

I know a calculus class of 100 is probably pretty good for a state flagship, but, my God, this is something to brag about? What are our standards for education here, where a 100-person calculus class would remotely be seen as acceptable? What would us parents say if our kids’ AP calculus class in high school had 100 students?

UVA is a great in-state option if you live in Virginia. I get it. It’s cheap. If you are not a Virginia resident, a 54k oos tuition for that? Davidson’s tuition is 57k. I would say that 3k extra would be money well spent.

This is why it's important to cull thru the CDS for each school your kid is considering, if class size matters (and IMO it should). With my first, I was able to determine only 4.5% of classes are 100+ from the CDS. Then if found the school's more detailed data about class sizes over the last 5+ years for each department. So I knew that Bio101/102, Chem 101/102, A&P, PHY101/102 and some Econ classes would be over 100+. The big science courses always have discussion sections capped at 24. But I also knew that they were capped at 150-200 students, which IMO is very different than a large school where it's can be 500+ for those popular courses. I also could figure out that for my kid after those intro courses, most would be less than 50.

Same for 2nd kid. That kid's school has much smaller courses overall. But for the intro premen/eng courses and calc 1 it can be 200 students. However, those courses have recitations of 8-10 students each week so extremely small, 1-1 opportunities available.

Basically, if class size matters (and it really should), then you can figure out exactly what they are typically for your kid's path. No way would my kid attend a school with classes regularly over 100 beyond those few intro, and certainly not if those intros were 400-500 kids.

NP. What is CDS? I'd like to look into this more.

Common Data set

It's an easy way to compare a ton of data from different schools, as the CDS is standardized

UVA: https://ira.virginia.edu/cds-2021-22

W&M: https://www.wm.edu/offices/it/services/ir/university_data/cds/index.php

[Anonymous]

W&M also has plenty of introductory classes with 200-400 students, and classes with 100+ students at higher levels as well. This is again true particularly for STEM.