My school has about 3000 people and is one of the biggest ones where I live. I choice to go to a larger school, because I wanted to make connections would benefit me later in life.

I definitely agree. Partly because I'm coming from a small high school (290 students), I like the feeling of community in a smaller school. I like to be able to know most of the people there, including the teachers/profs.

There are definitely advantages to bigger schools though, like more course options and sports/extracurricular activities.

Whatever is more important to you, I guess

I applied to a pretty even mix of small, medium and big schools (Laurier, Waterloo, McMaster, Brock, Nipissing, Laurentian & Lakehead). At first i was leaning more towards the bigger schools because i thought that degree would look better on a resume, but now i'm seriously considering Nipissing. It seems like a great school with a small community like where i am from. Plus some of my closest friends want to go to Nipissing and we're hoping to live together in rez so that'll make the transition to university so much easier. I haven't seen the campus yet but we're going up next week so i hope i still like it once i actually see it cause the other factor influencing my decision is the large scholarship offer.

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Math/Business Double Degree '13
Lets go Golden Hawks

I attend a school that's smaller than a lot of high schools, at around 1300 students. I honestly can say that I prefer this environment because it means that my profs are more accessible for questions -- and I have a lot of questions! But if you don't have that particular learning style, then it's probably not for you.

As for diversity of courses, I agree that a big school is better. My university has the benefit of being extremely small, but it's affiliated with Dalhousie (which isn't huge, but is certainly bigger than King's!), so King's students have access to courses at the larger school. The benefit is that we King's students can be part of a small community regardless of what degree we may be taking -- so I get to hang out with a very tight-knit group of people who all have similar interests -- but can have access to lots of classes and can just blend into the background if we want to, at Dal.

I don't particularly like big classes; my biggest class this year had about 60 people in it and was a half-year course. My smallest class had about 10, and was my favourite course this year.

Plus, King's campus is gorgeous, with old buildings and a grassy quad, build Oxford-style. It feels unique and has a lot of character.

Name one.

What about a big school and a small department like Chemical Engineering at McGill?

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McGill Engineering 2010

If you're entering a program where your course selection is flexible [or has a lot of electives], a medium or large university can be better, because you'll probably have a greater selection of courses to choose from. I have friends at Guelph-Humber who have very little selection when it comes to their electives. However at University of Waterloo, the departments with subjects I'm interested in are large. It also gives a lot of options for different specializations, diplomas, etc. and I like that.

Also, a bigger university can sometimes create a university town/area, which I find really nice.

That has more to do with the size of the university relative to the size of the town.

Wolfville NS is totally a university town. The number of students at Acadia is roughly the same as the full time population of the town. The same sorts of things apply to most of the other old, small unviersities in small towns - St. FX, Mount Allison, Bishop's... the university is basically the purpose of existance of these towns.

Ontario doesn't really have any towns that revolve around the university - maybe Kingston and Waterloo? Or Guelph?

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one for all and all for one.

I chose a big school, but it's smaller campus. I *loved* being at Glendon, both for the short walks across (our gorgeous) campus and for the more intimate size. I was active in clubs, but I think you really do meet more people in the smaller setting. It's just a few degrees of seperation, at most, from everyone else. It was also nice to be able to get to know the professors and enjoy smaller classes (I think the smallest class I ever took wound up at nine students, after all of the drops.) The biggest classroom only holds about a hundred and twenty five.

I'm a student with special needs, so choosing a smaller campus was really important to me. I thought it would allow me to form better relationships with my teachers and the staff. The line-ups to use various student services were also considerably shorter than if I had been at Keele, which saves on spoons!

I enjoyed the classes I took at York Main, but there was something a little bit isolating about it.