I recently discovered Cool Colleges by Donald Asher, an extremely well researched handbook on schools for “the hyper-intelligent, self-directed, late blooming and just plain different." A long-time career consultant, Mr. Asher makes no apologies for having very well defined and specific opinions on colleges and the college-going experience. For example, one of Asher’s firmly-held beliefs is that large universities are not good places for students as undergraduates:
“…in large universities students are more likely to report being lonely and isolated, more likely to drop out, more likely to be taught by a graduate assistant than a professor, more likely to cheat, more likely to be unable to name even one friend from college ten years after graduation, less likely to go to graduate school, more likely to be unable to get needed classes, more likely to work more than ten hours a week, and more likely to go through all four or five years of their education without really being changed….”(p. 7)
OK, I’ll buy some of that. But to be fair, there are kids who really thrive in the large school atmosphere, and it’s important to go the extra mile to see if those kinds of matches will work for the individual student. As a service to his readers, Asher includes a list of the largest colleges/universities, but it’s a little out of date. Thanks to the eager research arm of Wikipedia and the US Department of Education, however, I am able to provide more current information:
Largest | |||
Ranking | University | Location | Enrollment |
1 | The | 53,715 | |
2 | 52,734 | ||
3 | 51,413 | ||
4 | Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN | 51,141 | |
5 | 50,254 | ||
6 | 50,006 | ||
7 | 48,029 | ||
8 | 46,648 | ||
9 | 46,174 | ||
10 | 44,406 | ||
11 | 42,113 | ||
12 | University of Wisconsin-Madison | 42,041 | |
13 | 42,025 | ||
14 | 41,028 | ||
15 | 40,485 |
Largest Private University Campuses as of Fall 2008* | |||
Ranking | University | Location | Enrollment |
1 | 38,391 | ||
2 | 34,126 | ||
3 | 33,500 | ||
4 | 32,735 | ||
5 | 32,222 | ||
6 | Nova Southeastern University | 28,796 | |
7 | 25,495 | ||
8 | Northeastern University | 24,752 | |
9 | 24,352 | ||
10 | 24,170 | ||
11 | 24,107 | ||
12 | 22,710 | ||
13 | 22,558 | ||
14 | 20,883 | ||
15 | 19,366 |
*Note these lists include single 4-year university campuses with a single physical location. Thus the
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