Many students shared personal stories with us about how they benefited from spending some good quality time with their professors. These students continue to feel grateful to their professors for helping them when they felt like they needed it most. Many of these students sincerely feel that they would not have excelled academically in a class of 500 where they would miss out on the ongoing discussions with their fellow students and the one-on-one conversations with faculty.
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I visited [a large research university], I visited [another large research university], and I visited [my school]. I liked the personality, the smallness, of [my school] ...they made me feel like I was important and that I was going to fit there and belong there at some point or another. It almost seemed like [the large research universities] had to fill a quota, like they had to have a certain number of students, and I was just one of potentially tens of thousands that could make it. |
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Well, it just so happens that these students are on to something. Size matters when you're looking at colleges. Two hundred students and one professor versus eighteen students and one professor: you do the math. Small class size means more personal attention from your professors and more bonding time with other students. The professors will actually take the time to get to know you, so that if a problem arises they will ask you about it instead of assuming that you are just blowing off classes. Faculty advice and interest in you as a person (and not as "Student Number 1,275,432") can mean the difference between passing and failing a class or sort-of-getting-it and totally-understanding-it. And, darn it, it just makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over when a faculty member or administrator walks past you and addresses you by name (unless you've recently kidnapped and sold your rival school's mascot – in which case we don't have any advice for you).
| If I waved to everybody that I know on campus that would probably amount to 90% of the student body…[My school's] slogan should be "Where everybody knows your name." |
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Keep in mind that you are not merely exposed to different opinions and cultures at a small college; you become completely and utterly immersed in them. Just imagine an episode of MTV's "The Real World" taken to the extreme by adding the liberal arts: "This is the "true story" of you and one hundred of your dorm mates learning, living and expressing your opinions as you 'Get Real'". It's not an easy row to hoe, but as you come to understand yourself and the world around you, you inherit a priceless education that you will continue to use throughout your lifetime.
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There's no real room to hide behind closed doors on a campus this size. The smallness of this place makes it really hard to fall through the cracks. |
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Of course, size isn't the only thing that matters. Sometimes faculty on small campuses don't interact with their students at all and it's important to keep in mind that it is entirely possible for you to find student-faculty interaction on a large campus. So it's really important that you grill your prospective schools to find out if you will have easy access to your professors. Trust us on this one, it's like getting back stage passes – you get more out of the experience when you feel like part of the magic.
I made my choice based on football and I knew if I was going to play football I would have to lean towards the smaller schools…I wanted to be able to play early on and not have to wait until my junior or senior year to be successful on the field.
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No matter what size school you are looking at, you need to be sure that it holds both itself and its students to high academic expectations. You need professors who urge you to get involved, who teach you how to question the grand scheme of things, and who ask you to discuss your thoughts about something with your classmates even if they disagree with you. Ultimately, you'll get much more out of college if you find a place that challenges you.
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Because of the small living quarters and the size of campus you are sort of forced to be supportive. You walk by another student and say things like, 'Do you have a final exam today? Well, good luck,' It's just naturally supportive because you feel like part of a community.
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