Originally Posted by suevv
We are many years from college decisions so I have little to add. But here is one important point re larger schools: to avoid huge freshman/sophomore classes, look for schools that have honors and "majors only" classes.
If a large public university has thousands of students who need to take (for example) calculus for their major, how should it avoid having large calculus classes? Having multiple professors teach the same class simultaneously seems inefficient and could lead to inconsistencies in grading and material covered. As long as sections are small enough, meet for enough hours, and are lead by good teaching assistants, I don't think big classes per se are a problem.