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?

I have one kid at a huge public U and one a senior only applying to LACs. I've noticed a lot of emphasis at the LACs on career services with some requiring a career planning class in the 1st semester to get the kids into the career center as soon as possible. At another, one of DD's current favorites, students told her they had professors personally making connections to jobs for them and that was reiterated when she met with the head of the dept she wants to major in. He shared the different companies/agencies they do projects with and that every student was in grad school or a job, often with the companies they connect them with through class projects. There seemed to be a lot more hands on mentoring both academically and in career connections than my older child is getting at a huge university. Yes, his school has name recognition and a lot of alumni and he will do fine but nobody is going to come looking for him and be concerned with making sure he's getting an internship or research opportunity lined up for next summer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The < 20 kids/class number at the national universities is significantly skewed by upper division students who get work as undergrad lab assistants, which counts as a 1:1 professor class for them.

I have never come across this other than at Williams College tutorials and Ohio University.

Many of the posters obsessed with LACs seem to have little understanding of private National Universities and large public flagship honors colleges / programs.

Professors send their kids to SLACs because they have an understanding of universities.

LOL! no, because they get free tuition. But, if one plans to attend graduate school in the humanities and can deal with a small, isolated environment, then attending an SLAC is fine. It is an easier transition to an LAC from high school then it is to a large university. However, large universities offer a wider variety of classes, majors, and activities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The < 20 kids/class number at the national universities is significantly skewed by upper division students who get work as undergrad lab assistants, which counts as a 1:1 professor class for them.

I have never come across this other than at Williams College tutorials and Ohio University.

Many of the posters obsessed with LACs seem to have little understanding of private National Universities and large public flagship honors colleges / programs.

Professors send their kids to SLACs because they have an understanding of universities.

If they do internships during the summer before senior year and junior year their chance of getting a job offer really goes up. From any school! I think your focus should Be on the quality of the education your child will be receiving during this four years of college rather than laser focused on their first job. That will happen, if they make the effort and to internships in the field if interest. If they were only concerned about being employed immediately after graduation they could do a apprenticeship instead of going to a four-year college.

Anonymous wrote:The < 20 kids/class number at the national universities is significantly skewed by upper division students who get work as undergrad lab assistants, which counts as a 1:1 professor class for them.

I have never come across this other than at Williams College tutorials and Ohio University.

Many of the posters obsessed with LACs seem to have little understanding of private National Universities and large public flagship honors colleges / programs.

If your child is uncertain about their major, I'd also consider how hard it is to get into the classes they need at a bigger school. It's been a long time since I was in school, and my kids aren't there yet, so maybe things have changed. But Back In The Day, my friends who went to big state schools found it almost impossible to graduate in four years if they didn't know their major going in, even if they technically didn't have to declare until the end of sophomore year. It could be hard to get into the big intro classes, and those were prerequisites for the higher level classes.

I went to an Ivy not a SLAC but when I worked in consulting after college, Williams definitely seemed to be over-represented. So clearly McKinsey and Bain were travelling up there to recruit. And I am sure their alumni network is super strong. One thing to keep in mind at some of those schools is that a larger share of students are recruited athletes than at a large university, which may be good or bad depending on your POV (and can also make it harder to get in as a non-athlete).

Rather than cite the percentage of classes of various sizes, it's more useful to look at the average number of classmates a student has in their classes. At a school like Michigan, most kids are majoring in things that are taught in large lectures. The faculty: student ratio is really misleading there. And while there may be hundreds of courses with 10 or fewer students there, the engineers sure aren't taking more than one or two of them over the course of their four years on campus. Very few Michigan students will have small discussion classes with full faculty. I'm not talking about a section within a class of 400 students that is led by a PhD student. I'm talking about sitting across the table from a tenured faculty with at most 9 other students in the room.

My kid’s SLAC seems to have a strong alumni network. Also, my kid is kind of a slacker in terms of applying for internships, and he’s currently doing a research assistanceship because a prof liked one of his papers and very strongly encouraged him to apply to work with her. So, for kids like mine, a SLAC seems to be the best fit.

My DS did not know what he wanted to do going into college (but it was clear he did not want to pursue STEM). He just graduated from a SLAC with an open curriculum so was able to explore lots of interests, and developed many close relationships with professors - like going out for coffee together-type relationships (definitely more than my Ivy kid). He also had an internship after his sophomore and junior years with a permanent job offer for after graduation, and this was definitely a result of the career center and alumni networking.

The < 20 kids/class number at the national universities is significantly skewed by upper division students who get work as undergrad lab assistants, which counts as a 1:1 professor class for them.

In response to an inquiry above:

Private National Universities percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students:

Columbia--83%
UChicago--79%
URochester--79%
Princeton--78%
Northwestern--78%
Yale--77%

Harvard--76%
Duke--75%
Johns Hopkins--74%
MIT--70%
UPenn--70%
Brown--70%

Stanford--69%
Rice--69%
WashUStL--67%
CalTech--67%
Carnegie Mellon--67%
Tufts--66%

Boston College--65%
Pepperdine--65%
Dartmouth College--63%
Cornell--63%
NYU--63%
USC--63%
Case Western Reserve--63%

N'eastern--62%
Georgetown--60%
Notre Dame--59%
Vanderbilt--57%
Emory--57%
Michigan--57%
Tulane--57%

Boston University--56%
Brandeis--55%
Wake Forest--50%
Lehigh--47%

LACs percentage of classes under 20 students:

Thomas Aquinas--100%
SOKA--96%
USMA at West Point--96%
Williams College--84%
Berea--83%
Claremont McKenna--82%
Oberlin--82%
Pitzer--81%
Furman--81%
DePauw--81%
Amherst--80%
USNA at Annapolis--80%

Dickinson--79%
US Air Force Academy--79%
Kenyon--79%
Wash&Lee--78%
Pomona--78%
Bowdoin--78%
Scripps--78%
Hillsdale--77%
Haverford--77%
Swarthmore--76%
Whitman--76%
Hamilton--76%
Mount Holyoke--76%
Bryn Mawr--75%

Colorado Coll--75%
Barnard--74%
Wesleyan--74%
Conn Coll--74%
URichmond--73%
Davidson--72%
Skidmore--72%
Denison--72%
Trinity College--71%
Wellesley--71%
Union--69%
Occidental--69%
Macalester--69%

Colby--68%
Smith--68%
Vassar--68%
Lafayette--68%
Colgate--67%
Carleton--66%
Grinnell--65%
Bates--65%
Middlebury--64%
Harvey Mudd--63%
Franklin & Marshall--63%
Sewanee-The Univ. of the South--59%
Holy Cross--52%

Bucknell--49%

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yeah it’s strange how obsessed people on this board are with criticizing SLACs.

I didn’t attend a SLAC and my kids don’t, but I agree the obsession with criticizing the SLACs on DCUM is very, very weird. I have to think it is a few obsessed and unwell posters.

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.

Same here except it was me.
I went to a second or third tier SLAC. I have a great job, and own a lovely house in upper NW DC. My college friends all live similar lives.
None of us came from money or had family connections.