T20 or T5 lacs
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Anonymous
Who looks down on top LACs? |
Anonymous
| It feels like the majority want top 20 because you are talking about a combined 150-200k kids enrolled at top 20 versus a combined 10k at top 5 LACs. |
Anonymous
NP. This is an odd take. Why would you think people who choose LACs are ignorant? I went to HYPSM, spouse went to a large top public. We very happily sent our kid to a top LAC where they are getting a much better undergrad experience than we did. So, no, I don't think we're ignorant, we know exactly what we're doing. |
Anonymous
No way athletes at Michigan are held to the same standard as athletes at Williams. |
Anonymous
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It’s ignorance and I was guilty of the same years ago.
Colby was trying to recruit URMs back when I was in HS. I’d never heard of it and the location was too remote and lacking in diversity for me. Later in life, I made friends with Colby URM grads and it’s very clear that they were catered to and provided with opportunities that were not available to me at my OOS public. They also completed their grad programs at Ivy/Ivy+ thereafter. Those SLAC endowments go a long way. |
Anonymous
It’s just getting silly at this point. There are pros and cons, like with anything. |
Anonymous
+1 The cognitive dissonance is strong in the SLAC haters. The poster who points out that the UCs have huge classes and alot of TA's gets flack. Another poster hops in and say "I was a TA and I wasn't qualified to be teaching gets ignored Still another R1 alum weighs in saying "I was there and they are correct" but everyone is lying, they "know better". You went to HYPSM and point out that your family has lived all three models and understand the differences.....you're a huckster! Others hop in to support you.....crickets or snark is the response. They are the believers of "don't believe what you are seeing I'm telling you it's not true" It's not surprising that we are where we are when so many are comfortable with their ignorance in the face of reality. |
Anonymous
Because reality is more complex than these simplistic, ignorant takes and anecdotes. You talk about TAs, but the reality in modern universities is that lecturers, instructors, and adjuncts handle a lot of the entry level teaching. These people are well-qualified and have as much incentive as a LAC professor to focus on teaching. But notice how they never get mentioned, because the people here are ignorant and didn’t have these types of teaching staff when they were in college 30 years ago. And 300 and 400 level courses (and even some 200, especially for honors versions of courses) are mostly taught by professors. Reality is that teaching is more of a focus at LACs, but plenty of professors check out after getting tenure or hang around too long and become dinosaurs. Reality is that your teaching-focused professor is less well-known and regarded in his/her field, so their recommendation will carry less weight than someone top of their field. Reality is that you can’t both talk about how great LACs are for going on and getting PhDs and how they aren’t as pre-professional and then claim that their alumni networks are as or even more valuable, or jump to the defense of their engineering and CS programs. There are pros and cons to all types of universities. It’s weird to imply that it’s all pros, or somehow objectively the best. |
Anonymous
I want to address your points because you’re omitting a lot of details. Temporary staff (adjuncts, instructors, lecturers) are not paid enough to care about your student. It’s just the truth that someone making 6k per unit and often has multiple jobs stretched across more than 1 institution is going to struggle to prioritize your child. Then, you say that professors just “check out” after getting tenure. But a majority of LAC staff and university staff in general are on tenure track. It’s not like tenured staff are a majority of any department, but also, you then say you have professors in your upper division courses at Universities, but why arent those people checked out? You have a prestige issue? REUs, and also, you get a stronger LOR from a professor who knows you well and can actually measure your aptitude than a flashy researcher (who btw is some tenured dinosaur according to you) who likely has been teaching at least 300+ students that semester alone. Don’t really get your last point. You can get a job without making it a part of your culture- that’s true of universities too. |
Anonymous
This still just demonstrates ignorance. First, instructors and lecturers are full-time paid teaching staff, for many of them it is their full-time job and they are salaried. Your description is only of adjuncts. But even then, the important thing is that they teach well, not that they “care about your student” or “prioritize your child” because they are college level teaching staff, not babysitters. I didn’t say professors all check out with regard to teaching after getting tenure, I said “plenty” of them do, and yes that applies across institutions, LACs included (and research ones too! See, it’s possible to see and admit negatives!). Regarding the flashy researcher comment, again, there is no basis for saying the professor cannot “know your kid well” if your kid is in his/her class for their major, which likely has fewer than 30 or maybe even 20 kids (not 300+ per semester, that made me lol in its absurdity, we aren’t talking about intro classes). Also, make up your mind, do the professors teach or do they not? I could go on, but I really don’t need to. |
Anonymous
DD has a full time instructor at her lac, and they’re unable to invest in the department the same as other profs, because they don’t make as much as the others- they also have fewer office hours than other profs and generally engage less. It is overall nicer to take classes with professors who can be your advisor, have labs, and can recommend you to programs/grad schools- I hope we do not disagree on this. I also don’t see why there’s so much grace to the teaching quality of instructors and so little to long-term faculty in your comment. I’m asking YOU to make up your mind- if professors are not quality teachers, your point makes more sense, but I’d like to see where you get that impression. |
Anonymous
I didn’t say professors aren’t quality teachers, I said some of them check out after getting tenure. This isn’t some revelation. Instructors and lecturers aren’t all great teachers, but they generally are fairly good as it is what they are evaluated on. Just as plenty of LAC professors are, especially those trying to get tenure. The (original) point is that the “your kids will all be taught by unqualified TAs” at a university demonstrates ignorance of universities. Your kids are actually likely to be taught by very qualified full-time teaching staff or PhD/professionally-experienced adjuncts and then by professors as they move into higher level classes. And at a T20, which is relevant to this thread, you get the professors even sooner and teaching tends to be more prioritized than at some lower ranked schools. That’s why it’s not people saying “don’t believe what you are seeing” which you indicated earlier. It’s that the LAC boosters have never even seen it, at least not in the last 20 years, and are mostly making it up. |
Anonymous
| I don't have a dog in this fight, but, good lord, you're insufferable. If you want a meaningful discussion, stop trying to "win" whatever this is. No one ever wins. But there are many losers. |
Anonymous
Congrats to your daughter on Amherst. She has made an amazing decision. |
Anonymous
You forgot to add: And has better medical and law school placement. |