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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It is much more rigorous than at big flagships, I agree - I think people making those statements don’t have any experience at SLACs? [/quote]
I did undergrad at a SLAC, grad (and taught) at an Ivy, teach at an R1 state school now… and the thing is in terms of rigor and access the offerings at the state school for the absolute top students are on par with the Ivy, especially since SLACs just don’t have much in the way of serious research going (yes they have undergrad research opportunities, they’re very cute, and it is a leg up in grad school but it’s rarely hitting journals that would count for my tenure).

The problem is you can only offer those things to so many kids- about as many as go to a SLAC. If you’re not in the top 50 or so in a major or school you’ll be locked out (and heaven forbid you don’t know you need to apply into a lab the day you get on campus, otherwise you’ll be locked out)- I can only hire a couple RAs. Honors colleges have done a good job of raising the floor for the kids that qualify, but it’s not on the same level of attention for kids who are strong but not the absolute elite. Those kids get challenged and a lot of focus at SLACs.

I do think anything outside of the top 20 or so for SLACs is a waste of money. I feel that way about large private schools too- it boggles my mind anyone goes to GW or BC- and state schools dominate those on basically every axis. But a top SLAC is “worth it” for the rigor and resources spent on smart but not, like, IMO level kids. [/quote]

You must be in the sciences though. I think the calculus is different for other fields. [/quote]

PP here- yes I agree. Anything with pretty low overhead (like math) a small set of SLACs have faculty on par with any school in the country (Amherst math is incredibly strong, same with their economics, but they just can’t pay for “real” data collection or compute so even there there is a bias towards what they are good at)[/quote]

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