Even though Dartmouth offered 81 classes with nine or fewer students last year if your major is in one of the social sciences, chances are you weren't in any of them.
Although the College stresses its focus on strong relationships between professors and students, the faculty-to-student ratio at Dartmouth is the second highest in the Ivy League, lower only than only Cornell's.
Dartmouth also ranks third in the percentage of classes with more than 50 students, below only Harvard and Cornell.
Not all students are equally exposed to these large classes, however. Students in the social sciences -- especially economics, government, history and psychology -- have larger classes than their peers in other disciplines.
Despite the fact that economics is the most popular major at Dartmouth, with just over 12 percent of students majoring in economics, the economics department employs only about 4 percent of the full-time faculty.
The psychology department -- which department chair Howard Hughes said graduates about 120 majors a year and annually enrolls one-third of all students in at least one its classes -- has an average class size of 46.
"This is not a number Dartmouth would want to distribute to prospective students," Hughes said.
According to Hughes, the number of students pursuing social science majors has grown substantially in the past several years, but the departments have not grown accordingly.
The seven social science departments produced almost exactly as many completed majors for the class that graduated in 2002 as the 15 humanities and seven hard science departments combined
Hughes suggested there is a lack of flexibility to change department funding based on changes in student interest because funding is "done by historical precedent."
Dartmouth Provost Barry Scherr disagreed with Hughes, saying that it was the duty of the College to support less popular majors.Scherr pointed out that the College could save money by eliminating programs that provide students with small class experiences -- such as freshman seminars -- but does not because the intellectual cost would be too high.
"We can afford to offer these small courses because of what we are," Scherr said, also noting the U.S. News and World Report's focus on class size in its rankings.
"All these departments should exist," Hughes agreed with Scherr, adding, "To be a great university you need a great physics department if there are 30 or 300 physics majors," but he said that student census should be considered more than it is currently.
According to Hughes, there is a traditional understanding that departments stay at a consistent level. Departments never shrink but only grow, he said, and in times when the budget is tight, popular departments aren't allowed to expand as they need to.
The discrepancy between class sizes in various departments leads to variations in the level of student-faculty interaction between departments, as well as a varying academic experience.
Hughes said he can't know every psychology major personally. But several professors from smaller departments said that they and all of their department faculty know every major personally, and often continued academic friendships for years after the students' graduation.
Faculty members interviewed by The Dartmouth agreed that teaching the large classes is a challenge, but usually one that they are up for.
Professor of environmental science Andy Friedland said of small and large classes that, "They are both wonderful." Friedland teaches Environmental Studies 2, which usually has about 140 students.
Linguistics Professor Lindsay Whaley agreed, saying he enjoyed teaching in a department that offered both very small and very large classes because it provides a "variety of teaching experiences."
Several of the professors felt that their subject was important enough that large classes were necessary to expose the most people possible. Earth sciences professor James Aronson said he wishes every undergraduate was exposed to his introductory class.
Both Aronson and Friedland said that one of the things they enjoyed most about teaching the large introductory classes in their department was their potential to inspire people who otherwise never would have had any interest in their subject.
Chair of the Russian department Lev Loseff -- a department that usually has less than ten majors per year -- said he was excited about the challenge presented by Russian 13, a course in Slavic fairy tales, that will have an enrollment of nearly 300 this winter.
Different professors had different techniques for dealing with the large classes. Friedland asks students not to use email to communicate with him, but instead expands his office hours so that more students can come meet with him in person in order to avoid the anonymity that large classes can breed.
For Aronson, the most frustrating part of teaching a large lecture class was the lower attendance. "In a large class where I can't know everyone really closely, students feel like they can just not come to class."
"There is a cost with large classes," Hughes concurred. "We don't get that close student/faculty interaction we are supposed to focus on."
