College · Family Resources

Find the size and place
that fit you

Two thousand students and thirty thousand feel nothing alike, and neither does a city block against a campus an hour from the nearest airport. Rate each college on what size and setting mean for you, add the undergraduate count and the student-to-faculty ratio, and see where each one lands.

Start a comparisonWhat you get

Comparisons

The worked example is made up: a small college, a medium university and a large state university for a student who cares most about class size and finding friends. Use initials or a code.

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What you get

College · Family ResourcesFree

What you finish with
A saved comparison per decision: how much overall size, class sizes, setting, the campus and finding your people matter; each college rated 1 to 5 with its undergraduate count and students per faculty; seven questions such as who teaches first-year courses marked answered or still to ask; and a next step. The flags rank the colleges, place each in the Carnegie size bands (very small under 1,000, small under 3,000, medium under 10,000, large above), call out ratios of 18 or more and flag a must-have rated 2 or lower. A side-by-side table prints.
Who it is for
High school students building a college list, and the families visiting campuses with them.
Format
Browser tool with a saved record per decision. Prints a side-by-side table with the scores, the full record, every comparison in a table or a blank form; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); exports and imports a file.
Access
Free. No account, no sign-in and nothing to install. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Family Resources space in Caveat College.
Support
Questions about access, an order or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Visit or tour different sizes first.
  2. Add each college's undergraduate count.
  3. Weigh classes, setting and people.
  4. Rate each college.
  5. Print the side-by-side table.

Start a comparison

Size and setting, in standard terms

Size bands for four-year collegesStudentsOften feels likeVery smallUnder 1,000Everyone knows youSmall1,000 to 2,999Familiar faces dailyMedium3,000 to 9,999Room to choose groupsLarge10,000 or moreA town of its ownSize bands for four-year collegesVery smallStudents: Under 1,000Often feels like: Everyone knows youSmallStudents: 1,000 to 2,999Often feels like: Familiar faces dailyMediumStudents: 3,000 to 9,999Often feels like: Room to choose groupsLargeStudents: 10,000 or moreOften feels like: A town of its own
The bands follow the Carnegie Classification size groups, which count full-time-equivalent degree-seeking students; the feel is a general impression, not a rule.

Ratios are only a start

The student-to-faculty ratio divides students by instructional staff across the whole college. It does not say how big your first-year chemistry lecture will be. The Common Data Set, section I-3, lists how many class sections had under 20 students, 20 to 29, and so on up to 100 or more.

Four kinds of setting

The National Center for Education Statistics sorts every campus into city, suburb, town or rural, each with sub-types by population and distance. It is a quick way to see what is around a campus before you visit, and to compare places you have not been.

Sources

  1. Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Size and Setting classification (carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu).
  2. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Locale classifications: city, suburb, town and rural (nces.ed.gov/programs/edge).
  3. Common Data Set Initiative. Common Data Set, sections I-2 (student to faculty ratio) and I-3 (undergraduate class size) (commondataset.org).
  4. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. College Navigator: enrollment and campus setting (nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator).

The worked example and its colleges are made up. The size bands use headcount here as a quick stand-in for the full-time-equivalent counts Carnegie uses. Nothing you type is sent to Caveat. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.