Reply to Higher ranked SLAC most people haven’t heard of VS. lower ranked big public everyone has heard of?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not sure why but kids at SLACS seem much more likely to take a semester abroad than students at big state schools, if that is of interest.  Was an incredible experience for my son and many of his high school friends from other SLACS were scattered across Europe first semester of Junior year, even those who played D3 spring sports.  [/quote]

Blah blah blah.  You can study abroad from any school.  Easily.  One of my kids did it from a SLAC.  Two others did it from State U.  I did it from a Catholic U way back in the day.

My hunch is that a higher proportion of SLAC kids study abroad only because they feel like they’re suffocating in their small environments and feel the need to get away. [/quote]

No---SLAC attract kids who have interest in learning about the world.  Many require everyone to take 2 years of foreign language.  They attract students who are interested in studying abroad by the nature of the curriculum. So when 50-60% of kids tend to study abroad junior year, even those who were no planning to often explore the options and decide to attend.  
[/quote]
The most likely reason that students at SLACs study abroad at a higher proportion is because they are much wealthier on average than the average public university student.

Compare W&M's median parental income with Virginia Tech's or even Berkeley's, despite being a public LAC.

The second reason is because the[b] liberal arts majors are less demanding and one can take a light course load studying abroad for a semester[/b], as opposed to engineering which is more demanding schedule-wise. Then add in-semester internships and co-ops for engineering. Most SLACs don't have engineering while most top publics are geared towards engineering.[/quote]

I'm with you except on BOLD.  It's not that they are less demanding, it's that it's far easier to find study abroad programs that will align with a liberal arts major.  It is harder to align [b]science[/b]/engineering curricula across different universities because skills are taught and meant to build on one another in a different way than skills learned in humanities. [/quote]

I have no idea if LAC students are more or less likely to study abroad but do need to clarify -- science IS a liberal art. LACs do not=humanities. Many LAC students are studying biology, chemistry, physics, math, etc. [/quote]

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