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Small By Choice Home

Small colleges provide students with significant opportunities to become involved in activities that foster individual maturation.

Many studies have shown that students who prosper best in college are those who participate substantially in extracurricular activities. Important learning opportunities exist outside the classroom. Colleges that are small provide more kinds of experiences that stimulate intellectual and social growth and development.

This manifests itself in many ways.

• The geographic compactness of a small college campus increases opportunities for students to meet and interact with fellow students. It enhances important interaction with faculty. When it is possible to assemble every student and every faculty member in one place, the resulting sense of community - a sense of sharing for the common good - is subtle and intangible, yet very real.
• Student enrolled at small colleges have proportionately more opportunities to engage in extracurricular activities than students at large institutions. At most small colleges, it is not uncommon to find 75 percent of all students participating in extracurricular activities. Unquestionably, a greater proportion of students can sit in leadership chairs. This exercise of leadership creates mature and effective graduates.
• In pursuing extracurricular activities, there is a place in small colleges for the amateur - the generalist. In a small college, a young man who does not lift weights and does not aspire to a National Football League career can play varsity football. Equally, a young woman without designs on a career as a physicist can nevertheless jointly write with her professor a journal article for the American Institute of Physics.

Learn more about the advantageous teaching environment offered at small colleges ...

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