Reply to What's a good enrollment size for an ideal college experience?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "What's a good enrollment size for an ideal college experience?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Both my kid and I chose the 5-10K size and liked it, while my dh had a great experience at a huge state school. We live in a small town and a LOT of kids end up going to small liberal arts colleges. Anecdotally what I hear from parents is the transition is much easier for those kids and maybe they are happier in the first year or two than the ones who land in larger campuses, but by junior/senior year those schools (especially the remote ones) can feel very small and stifling. But again as everybody has said, it really depends on the kid.[/quote]

Key for many is selecting a 5-10K that is in a city, not remote area.  Both my kids have done that.  One in a city over 500K (largest in the state and 90 mins from one of 5 largest cities in USA) the other in a city of ~300K so plenty nearby to do that it won't seem isolating. But for my kids, both did not want the 1-3K, as their HS has over 2500 kids and they wanted slightly bigger.  Similarly, they both realized that they are not type A extroverts, so would personally do much better with smaller classes and smaller campus and all that a 5-10K college typically offers.  My 2nd looked at a few slightly larger and quickly realized that they would need to be more driven, self motivated to seek help at those than at a smaller school.  For example the smaller school has RAs, "social RA equivalent" and "academic RA equivalents" living in the freshman and sophomore dorms.  So 3 separate upperclassmen assigned to your freshman who live in their dorm on their floor, who are there to help with transitions and the college experience---each one with a different purpose.  The RA:student ratio is 30:1 or less typically.   That doesn't happen at most large state universities.   
Also the opportunities to do research starting freshman year tend to be greater at a smaller university, or at least one where your kid is in a smaller program/honors program. At my kid's university it's common for freshman to do research, not so much at our state flagship, not really that common during all of undergrad.

So while my kid could easily function at a 40K university, they recognize they will be a better fit and likely achieve more in a smaller environment.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics