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 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.
Small colleges offer curricula and a teaching environment with important advantages.
Classes are small, affording students more opportunity for personal participation and more interaction with professors. It is difficult to hide in a class of but twelve. There is immediate, real-time feedback from professor to student. Students are taught by full-time senior professors, not graduate assistants. Demanding writing assignments are common.