University Admissions departments love to brag about their schools’ small class sizes. Brown University, for instance, boasts a 7:1 student–faculty ratio (so “you’ll have a lot of face-to-face time with some of the best researchers and teachers in academia”) and that “72 percent of our undergraduate classes have fewer than 20 students.” These claims invite prospective students to daydream of cozy, intimate classrooms, and personalized learning experiences — dreams quashed (or ...
