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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We are all in on small liberal arts schools.  Except for engineering. I would not send a kid to an actual SLAC for engineering.  
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Most have some amorphous notion of Liberal Arts as literally liberal and arts. It is cross disciplinary between Humanities , Social Sciences and Natural Sciences. Many don't realize that LACs have always produced a lot of really good STEM graduates. Engineering is the "E" in STEM. At Swarthmore for instance 62.5% of the credits required to graduate in engineering must be in Eng+Math+Science as compared to 66% at Cornell. This is not really very different. The balance credits are available for use  across the humanities and sciences. The main difference lies in the undergraduate only teaching focus, small classes, access to undergrad research opportunities and access to high quality undergrad humanities and social science courses for balance distribution/interests.

A high percent of LAC STEM (including Eng) graduates are double majors.[/quote]

I am well aware of what liberal arts means. My SLAC kid had a STEM major, humanities minor.  I’m well aware many kids double major. My W&M kid is one. She has no classes that overlapin the majors and it’s a she going to do it by the skin of her teeth.  And maybe Swarthmore is a unicorn that has some super amazing funding and infrastructure and curriculum. I did not look at that school in particular.  But USNWR ranks them 30th for engineering *without a doctorate* (separate scale than VT, Michigan’s, JHU, MIT— schools that offer doctorates.  They are ranked behind JMU (23rd) and some very tier 2/3 colleges/ outside the T100 colleges for engineering. If a kid is talented enough and driven enough to get into Swarthmore, and you are able to pay for Swarthmore, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t send them to a medium sized private like Tufts, Rice, JHU, CMU, Case, etc, where they will still get great undergrad focus and small classes and kids from lots of majors if that’s what you want.  Or a more specialize Olin, Rose Humlan, Cooper Union if small is important.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-overall?_sort=rank&_sortDirection=asc

But I will stand by the fact that, in general, a college with a class of 400 or 500 can’t maintain the infrastructure for excellent engineering— especially in specialized vs general engineering (very expensive!!), and other STEM (also expensive!), and business and humanities.  A school smaller than my DD’s NOVA public HS can’t do everything well. Plus, they have recruit great engineering faculty, manage the necessary grants for engineering to give the kids research opportunities.   And  that a strong LAC curriculum is going to require cutting corners in engineering. Or doing engineering is going to cut corners in liberal arts.  Because a strong engineering program is specialized and has more requirements and less freedom than a liberal arts major— even one in another STEM field. This is why good small school choose one: traditional LAC OR engineering (Olin, Rose Human, Cooper Union). And manyLACs just pay lip service with 3+2 and 2+2 programs.  And I have yet to see anyone say these programs make much sense.

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