SLACs---good, bad and the ugly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good compromise is the research universities that run a LAC like college. The trade off is all the ones I can think of are basically lottery schools - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UChicago, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, etc.

Harvard absolutely does not run like a college. It is a research university, full stop, with very little concern for undergrads.

http://harvardpolitics.com/harvard/harvard-undergraduates-teaching-harvard-doesnt-want-talk/

Swarthmore has undergraduate teaching assistants as well. The first time I heard of the practice was from a science professor touting the ability to be a TA as an undergraduate as one of the advantages of attending a SLAC.

Your comment is misleading. As a Swattie, I never had a TA, and neither did the vast majority of my classmates. There are tutors, research associates, and writing associates, but very, very, very few TAs. Maybe for a large (by which I mean 125 students) intro science class, but you aren't going to have TAs in the sense of research universities.

I was responding to the article PP cited which was specifically about Harvard using undergrads *AS* TAs -- a practice I think it borrowed from SLACs. It seemed bizarre to me that this was cited as an example of Harvard having very little concern for undergrads when I'd previously heard the same practice cited as an example of the high regard in which SLACs hold their undergrads. In both cases, it sounds like undergrads aren't doing much teaching.

Separate question: What do you see as the key differences between the tutors, research associates, and writing associates you encountered at Swarthmore and the grad student section leaders, preceptors, etc at research universities? Did the non-professors who were involved in teaching at Swartmore all have PhDs? Or was their use limited to certain Intro courses? Was all grading done by Profs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good compromise is the research universities that run a LAC like college. The trade off is all the ones I can think of are basically lottery schools - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UChicago, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, etc.

Harvard absolutely does not run like a college. It is a research university, full stop, with very little concern for undergrads.

http://harvardpolitics.com/harvard/harvard-undergraduates-teaching-harvard-doesnt-want-talk/

Swarthmore has undergraduate teaching assistants as well. The first time I heard of the practice was from a science professor touting the ability to be a TA as an undergraduate as one of the advantages of attending a SLAC.

Your comment is misleading. As a Swattie, I never had a TA, and neither did the vast majority of my classmates. There are tutors, research associates, and writing associates, but very, very, very few TAs. Maybe for a large (by which I mean 125 students) intro science class, but you aren't going to have TAs in the sense of research universities.

I was responding to the article PP cited which was specifically about Harvard using undergrads *AS* TAs -- a practice I think it borrowed from SLACs. It seemed bizarre to me that this was cited as an example of Harvard having very little concern for undergrads when I'd previously heard the same practice cited as an example of the high regard in which SLACs hold their undergrads. In both cases, it sounds like undergrads aren't doing much teaching.

Separate question: What do you see as the key differences between the tutors, research associates, and writing associates you encountered at Swarthmore and the grad student section leaders, preceptors, etc at research universities? Did the non-professors who were involved in teaching at Swartmore all have PhDs? Or was their use limited to certain Intro courses? Was all grading done by Profs?

The tutors, research and writing associates were all fellow undergraduates that received additional training to help other students with writing, research, etc. You went to them *voluntarily* if you wanted a fresh set of eyes to look over your work. Of course, you could also always get your prof to look over drafts, but that assumed that you wrote your draft well in advance, whereas the WAs could look at your papers the night before they were due. In foreign language classes, you sometimes had instructors (PhD students from nearby universities) for drill sections, but not for the actual class. All grading was done by professors. At a SLAC you really don't have the graduate student population for TAs. Virtually all the teaching was done by the professor of record. BTW, as a PhD student at a research university, I was the primary instructor for undergraduates and developed my own syllabi. When I would TA, I was responsible for grading undergraduate work, which was signed off by the professor of record.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD just decided to attend a SLAC next year. We did qualify for some merit and financial aid, bringing total costs to within a few thousand of state schools.

One of the most appealing thing about SLACs is their size. DD (and I) really like that most of her classes, even as a freshman, will have 25 or fewer students. All classes are taught by professors and not grad students.

Small size is also an advantage for fostering community. And you can't beat rolling out of bed and having a five-minute or less walk to your first class in the morning.

Last week, I was able to two campus offices and speak to someone who could answer all my questions immediately. No bureaucracy.

Conversely, at a small school there will be less opportunity for other majors should she change her mind. And she's a little worried that a student body of just 2,500 means things will become too insular and she'll get cabin fever.

Where are you getting your 25 or fewer statistic? I ask only because my SLAC boasted an average class size of under 20 when I went there, but most of the classes were more than that because they included in "classes" thesis students, independent studies, music lessons for credit, etc., which meant there were dozens of classes of one each year to pull down the average. It was still a great experience, but I was surprised by this when I arrived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD just decided to attend a SLAC next year. We did qualify for some merit and financial aid, bringing total costs to within a few thousand of state schools.

One of the most appealing thing about SLACs is their size. DD (and I) really like that most of her classes, even as a freshman, will have 25 or fewer students. All classes are taught by professors and not grad students.

Small size is also an advantage for fostering community. And you can't beat rolling out of bed and having a five-minute or less walk to your first class in the morning.

Last week, I was able to two campus offices and speak to someone who could answer all my questions immediately. No bureaucracy.

Conversely, at a small school there will be less opportunity for other majors should she change her mind. And she's a little worried that a student body of just 2,500 means things will become too insular and she'll get cabin fever.

Where are you getting your 25 or fewer statistic? I ask only because my SLAC boasted an average class size of under 20 when I went there, but most of the classes were more than that because they included in "classes" thesis students, independent studies, music lessons for credit, etc., which meant there were dozens of classes of one each year to pull down the average. It was still a great experience, but I was surprised by this when I arrived.

You cn check out a schools common data set and see the average class information. It provides a wealth of information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard is not a small liberal arts college.

Neither is Cal State Fullerton.

But it is a state school and the PP who mentioned it and Harvard was comparing SLACs and state schools.

Which makes no sense at all because the title of the thread is "SLACS - good, bad and the ugly". Harvard University and Cal State Fullerton are both large universities, so PPs comments make no sense in this thread at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard is not a small liberal arts college.

Neither is Cal State Fullerton.

But it is a state school and the PP who mentioned it and Harvard was comparing SLACs and state schools.

Which makes no sense at all because the title of the thread is "SLACS - good, bad and the ugly". Harvard University and Cal State Fullerton are both large universities, so PPs comments make no sense in this thread at all.

OP's question was a comparison based on cost rather than size -- i.e. Is it worth paying for a SLAC when you could go to a state school? so CSUF made sense; Harvard didn't. Swarthmore would have sense (replacing Harvard) since the point the respondent was making is that there's no categorical answer -- it depends on the comparative quality of the specific state school and the specific SLAC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD just decided to attend a SLAC next year. We did qualify for some merit and financial aid, bringing total costs to within a few thousand of state schools.

One of the most appealing thing about SLACs is their size. DD (and I) really like that most of her classes, even as a freshman, will have 25 or fewer students. All classes are taught by professors and not grad students.

Small size is also an advantage for fostering community. And you can't beat rolling out of bed and having a five-minute or less walk to your first class in the morning.

Last week, I was able to two campus offices and speak to someone who could answer all my questions immediately. No bureaucracy.

Conversely, at a small school there will be less opportunity for other majors should she change her mind. And she's a little worried that a student body of just 2,500 means things will become too insular and she'll get cabin fever.

Where are you getting your 25 or fewer statistic? I ask only because my SLAC boasted an average class size of under 20 when I went there, but most of the classes were more than that because they included in "classes" thesis students, independent studies, music lessons for credit, etc., which meant there were dozens of classes of one each year to pull down the average. It was still a great experience, but I was surprised by this when I arrived.

Agree. I went to a SLAC with 1800 students and a low average class size. Yet most of my freshman year intro classes were 100+ (intro to psych, intro to poli Sci, etc.). By contrast my DC goes to a big state school and passed out of those intro classes with AP credits so took upper level psych and gov classes as a freshman that were much smaller than mine.