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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To state the obvious, small liberal arts schools are easier to navigate than large schools because the smaller schools offer a lot less choices in majors and classes.  At my kid's SLAC, there are 34 majors and another 30 minors, and half of those are basically unavailable due to lack of classes/demand.  By the time he finished area requirements, my kid was picking from 5-8 possible classes per semester to advance toward graduation. [/quote]

DP. By "area requirements" I'm guessing you mean what some universities call "core curriculum" requirements? A set of classes all students have to take, usually done in their freshman and sophomore years?

If that's what you mean: To the OP and those looking at SLACS--Look for ones where the college has an "open curriculum" instead. This means the college does not require a set of specified core classes, or has only a very few such classes, and students get to tailor their course selections much earlier. DC looked at one SLAC that had 10 core classes everyone had to do---there were variations and flexibility within that, but you had to have these 10 or so in some form -- and DC also looked at another college with an open curriculum. The one with open curriculum only required one approved quantitative class (many fields counted as quantitative, from econ to astronomy to social science with stats), one writing-focused course (made easier by the many freshman writing seminars on offer) and a language course or language proficiency. That's it. DC chose the open curriculum SLAC and was rapidly doing courses toward both DC's major and minor starting in freshman year.

PP is absolutely right that a smaller college is going to offer fewer majors. Most truly undecided students DC knew went to larger universities so they would have more options for majors once they found their groove, and that's one reason there's such a wide spectrum of college/university sizes and options--something for everyone.[/quote]

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