Aspects to Consider

You should consider the following 16 parameters when determining
which colleges fit your needs and wants.
School Size
Students at small schools have the opportunity to become better acquainted
with their instructors, professors, and classmates. This is especially true
during the first year, when some lecture classes at many large schools contain
hundreds of students and may be taught by graduate students rather
than professors. On the other hand, larger schools generally offer more
areas of study. Another difference is that the larger the school, the more extracurricular
activities and intramural offerings there are to choose from.
But then, the smaller the school, the more opportunity there is to participate
in the activities and offerings.

❏ If you are in a small high school, what attracts you about attending a
large college? And if you are in a large high school, what’s attractive about
a small college?
❏ Do I usually thrive on change or suffer through it?

Going from a Large High School to a Small College
My high school has 2,200 students and about 450 in my graduating class.
[Harvey Mudd has 680.] I wanted a good college; size was secondary. I
considered Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, and Harvey Mudd and was
accepted at UCLA, Berkeley, and Harvey Mudd.
I’d taken classes at UCLA and everything was anonymous, which I like. But my
mom is going for her second Ph.D. at UCLA and I didn’t want to go there
because of that. She was a teacher at my high school as well, so I’d had
enough of that. I visited Berkeley because I actually wanted a bigger school,
but it was physically dirty and people were, in general, too liberal for my
taste.
Harvey Mudd was stressful at first. They have student mug shots so all the
professors know who you are before you even go to class. I was used to not
having anyone know who I was, and I liked it that way. I always liked to have my
own group of friends and kept a certain degree of separation from people I
wouldn’t normally associate with.
A small school helped me become more accepting. Growing up in L.A. puts you
in a superficial environment, but that’s not the case at a small college. Here,
you know everyone simply by being in the same environment. Now, I like people I
normally wouldn’t associate with—just by getting to know them, talking to
them, and finding commonalities. I saw intellectual similarities and have come
to appreciate and even like other students who, in high school, I would have
considered social undesirables.