Anonymous wrote:My kid went to an SLAC and neither she nor any of her college friends had any trouble landing good jobs. It’s only on DCUM where people think stuff like this matters. In the real world, it doesn’t. You’re just a bunch of obsessed weirdos.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think anyone with a kid in the UC system knows the claim of 1:18 is flat out false.

I also went to HYS and I don’t believe those numbers. I’m sorry, but they are fake.

I think that you may be misinterpreting the student: faculty ratio numbers as being directly related to class size. Is this correct ? Can you expand on your claim that the student:faculty ratio is false ?

The UCs report significant percentage of classes of 50 or more students (UCLA--23%; Berkeley--21%; UC-San Diego--24%; UC-Davis--31% of classes have 50 or more students; UC-Irvine--23%; Harvard--10%; Dartmouth--6%; Northwestern--6%; UChicago--6%; Duke--7%; Rice--7%)

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?

Anonymous wrote:I think anyone with a kid in the UC system knows the claim of 1:18 is flat out false.

I also went to HYS and I don’t believe those numbers. I’m sorry, but they are fake.

Anonymous wrote:You have to be careful when interpreting these numbers. Many national universities have a large number of faculty but, at the highest levels, many of them don't teach undergrads or, if they do, have very limited teaching responsibility. The main responsibility of the most esteemed faculty is research, writing books, giving lectures outside their school, etc. I have a kid at a top 20 National University, and I can tell you that the professors oversee teaching more so than actual teaching.

Anonymous wrote:Important to differentiate among top ranked selective LACs (SLACs), LACs, private National Universities, public universities, and honors colleges/honors programs at state public flagship universities.

Classes are typically quite small at public university honors colleges and at private National Universities and always--to the best of my knowledge and experience--taught by professors. Grad student TAs are used for small break-out study sessions of any large introductory courses. Grad student TAs often act as tutors. Close relationships with professors are available at honors colleges & honors programs and at private National Universities.

In order to differentiate further, specific schools and, possibly, even specific majors should be known.

When I read of large class sizes and lack of close relationships with professors, I usually think of the University of California system schools which have student teacher ratios of 18:1 and 20:1 and some other large public National Universities such as Illinois, Ohio State, Texas A&M, and the University of Florida, but not at private National Universities.

National Universities and LACs report the percentage of classes with under 20 students as well as the percentage of classes with 50 or more students and the results are published by US News Best Colleges. Student:Faculty ratio is also reported and published by US News Best Colleges for the Top 50 ranked National Universities and for the Top 50 ranked LACs.

The lowest (best) student:faculty ratios are reported by private National Universities. (36 of the Top 54 ranked National Universities are private Nat'L Universities)

MIT 3:1
CalTech 3:1

Princeton 4:1
Yale 4:1

Harvard 5:1
Stanford 5:1
Chicago 5:1

UPenn 6:1
Northwestern 6:1
Duke 6:1
Johns Hopkins 6:1
Brown 6:1
Rice 6:1
Carnegie Mellon Univ. 6:1
Columbia 6:1

Dartmouth College 7:1
WashUStL 7:1

Vanderbilt 8:1
Notre Dame 8:1
NYU 8:1
Tulane 8:1

Cornell 9:1
Emory 9:1
USC 9:1
Tufts 9:1
U Rochester 9:1
Lehigh 9:1

Boston University 10:1
Brandeis 10:1

Georgetown 11:1
Wake Forest 11:1
Boston College 11:1
Case Western Reserve 11:1
Villanova 11:1

Pepperdine 13:1

Northeastern 14:1

Among the top 53 Liberal Arts Colleges (LACs), 50 are private and 3 are Service Academies. The student:faculty ratios are (from lowest to highest):

Williams College 6:1
US Air Force Academy 6:1

Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Wellesley, Smith, SOKA, & the US Military Academy are at 7:1

Bowdoin, US Naval Academy, Claremont McKenna, Carleton, Middlebury, Wash & Lee, Grinnell, Wesleyan, Vassar, URichmond, Harvey Mudd, Bryn Mawr, Whitman, Skidmore, Occidental, & DePauw are at 8:1

Hamilton, Haverford, Barnard, Davidson, Colgate, Colorado College, Berea, Kenyon, Mount Holyoke, Scripps, Pitzer, Oberlin, Bucknell, Denison, Franklin & Marshall, Furman, Hillsdale, Trinity College, Connecticut College, Dickinson, & Union are at 9:1.

Colby, Bates, Macalester, Holy Cross, Lafayette, and Sewanee-Univ. of the South are at 10:1.

Thomas Aquinas is at 11:1.

Some Public National Universities:

College of William & Mary 12:1

University of Virginia 14:1
Univ. of Michigan 14:1

UNC 15:1

UCLA 18:1

UCal-Berkeley 19:1

You have to be careful when interpreting these numbers. Many national universities have a large number of faculty but, at the highest levels, many of them don't teach undergrads or, if they do, have very limited teaching responsibility. The main responsibility of the most esteemed faculty is research, writing books, giving lectures outside their school, etc. I have a kid at a top 20 National University, and I can tell you that the professors oversee teaching more so than actual teaching.

Anonymous wrote:I understand why you’d draw a distinction between schools like Williams and Amherst (both about 2,000 students and rural) and schools like NYU and UCLA (30,000 students, in major cities). But in that taxonomy, I can’t figure out why you’re grouping Dartmouth (5,000 students, rural) with UCLA.

Anonymous wrote:The "preppier" LACs like Williams, Amherst, Colgate, Colby, etc. tend to have good career outcomes right out of undergrad.

The "crunchier" ones like Grinnell, Carleton, Pomona, Oberlin, etc. have very little on-campus recruiting -- the vast majority of students go to grad school (often a PhD, which have questionable ROI).

Anonymous wrote:The "preppier" LACs like Williams, Amherst, Colgate, Colby, etc. tend to have good career outcomes right out of undergrad.

The "crunchier" ones like Grinnell, Carleton, Pomona, Oberlin, etc. have very little on-campus recruiting -- the vast majority of students go to grad school (often a PhD, which have questionable ROI).