Anonymous wrote:I've never really paid attention to SLACs for my kid because of two concerns, but I wonder if they are justified.

1. My current junior is very undecided in terms of major or career path, and so it seems like a larger university would have more options once her direction becomes clearer. I'm certain she won't be interested in engineering, so there's no need for an engineering school. But generally speaking, it seems like larger schools would have a broader and deeper set of majors.

2. I'm wondering about the process of getting a job at graduation. I'm not questioning the quality of the schools. But large schools have tons of employers coming to campus for on-campus interviews. And it may even matter in terms of internships and that kind of thing, given that a large school with more infrastructure for career services would be beneficial. (I have an older kid (current sophomore) at a lower ivy and she has had a ton of summer internship interviews -- and I get the impressing that many of those firms have a list of schools they draw from.)

If your kid is at a SLAC, have you found the above to be challenging, or am I overthinking things?

I think your first point is a valid one. My DS knew from day one he would be going to law school. So it really was just about finding a major that interested him and getting good grades. For someone who is not at all sure what career path to go down, certainly more majors and areas of study makes sense.

The second point on its face may seem valid as well. But there is a lot of nuance here. First, many (the majority) of families at top SLACs come from a fair amount of money/connections. My son got a job after law school as a paralegal from a family friend's law firm (he could have had dozen or so other offers from other friends). It was also amazing to be able to tap into my son's friends' family network. My son played on the lacrosse team in college and his friends families were providing opportunities to him that were mind boggling. Also, at a SLAC, the professors seem to take an active interest in helping their students land plum after college jobs. There was on econ prof who seems to always get his econ students internships which lead to jobs at top finance firms. Finally, the career center at the SLACs go out of their way to make sure their grads are gainfully employed with offers preferably before graduation. I know all career centers do. But when you have a graduating senior class of 400 or so, the attention one gets is much more intense/focused.

Anyway, my 2 cents. All in all things worked out for my son. But all that said, there were certainly times I wondered whether going the SLAC v large university was the right choice.

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Anonymous wrote:My kid (who just graduated from an SLAC) had many more leadership and research opportunities then she would have at a large public. The community is so small that no one goes unnoticed (in a good way). She really emerged and shone.

Plus, because there are only undergrads to staff the labs, she had her choice of research opportunities and parlayed that into 3 or 4 peer reviewed publications as an undergrad. I doubt that would have happened at a large RO1 university.

Although I see more advantages in attending private National Universities and large public honors colleges than small, rural, isolated LACs, I do think that the above post presents a reasonable position. The post indicates that there is less competition at his or her kid's SLAC which has some advantages and benefits.

What about SLACs in urban areas?

What SLACs are in urban areas? Macalaster in a more suburban part of St Paul. Love to know about other ones.

Off the top of my head, the Claremont Colleges and others in the LA area. Are they an outlier and SLACs tend to be more small town?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid (who just graduated from an SLAC) had many more leadership and research opportunities then she would have at a large public. The community is so small that no one goes unnoticed (in a good way). She really emerged and shone.

Plus, because there are only undergrads to staff the labs, she had her choice of research opportunities and parlayed that into 3 or 4 peer reviewed publications as an undergrad. I doubt that would have happened at a large RO1 university.

Although I see more advantages in attending private National Universities and large public honors colleges than small, rural, isolated LACs, I do think that the above post presents a reasonable position. The post indicates that there is less competition at his or her kid's SLAC which has some advantages and benefits.

What about SLACs in urban areas?

What SLACs are in urban areas? Macalaster in a more suburban part of St Paul. Love to know about other ones.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid (who just graduated from an SLAC) had many more leadership and research opportunities then she would have at a large public. The community is so small that no one goes unnoticed (in a good way). She really emerged and shone.

Plus, because there are only undergrads to staff the labs, she had her choice of research opportunities and parlayed that into 3 or 4 peer reviewed publications as an undergrad. I doubt that would have happened at a large RO1 university.

Although I see more advantages in attending private National Universities and large public honors colleges than small, rural, isolated LACs, I do think that the above post presents a reasonable position. The post indicates that there is less competition at his or her kid's SLAC which has some advantages and benefits.

What about SLACs in urban areas?

Anonymous wrote:I’m another anti-SLAC poster, but not because I think they’re overrated or you can’t get a job coming out of them etc. I think they’re fine schools generally, but only if they’re top 14-20, and below that (CTCL level) they’re just not worth the extra money and attract too many underachieving students with well to do parents who somehow have convinced themselves that simply by virtue of smaller size and larger price they are better than the other option available to their kids - second tier state schools - when in fact the truly important metrics (quality of entering study body, graduation rates, and employment statistics) are equal.

NP here. What difference does it make if other students are slackers? Serious question

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Anonymous wrote:Why are the obsessed anti/SLAC posters so obsessed? It’s really sad. If you think they are inferior, why are you threatened by them? And why not be happy that those students aren’t taking up spots in the schools you covet?

Why do the handful of obsessed SLAC posters write inaccurate descriptions of National Universities and often resort to insults and name-calling rather than discussing the realities ?

If LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer of the existing LACs would be in such dire financial situations.

I am not that PP and I went to state schools and HYS so no personal experience with SLACs. I started reading this forum about a year ago. As a FYI, my kids aren’t at SLACS, except that now that I’ve been reading your obsessed posts on DCUM for awhile, I’m going to encourage my youngest to look at SLACs. Your posts are distinctive — you post ALL the time on any post even slightly related to SLACS — and over the past year or so have made me look a lot more deeply at SLACs because you sound so bizarrely jealous and unhinged. I figure there must be something really good for someone to be so bitter about not getting into one and to blanket the College forum so incessantly. Then I learned about the spectacular educational possibilities. So thanks for that education! I think my youngest will benefit!

Ditto! I attended a large state university and never considered SLACs but now think it may be the way to go for my introverted one. Thanks for shining the light

From the link above "Engineering school graduates fared worst, earning 76% more 10 years out of school."