> I might suggest focusing on finding out those statistics directly and getting a sense of what current student experiences are like.

And outside of liberal arts colleges, where are you going to get those statistics?

The places that openly boast these things tend to be very expensive, and hard to get admission into.

Certainly, if you have a shortlist already, you can email the department and ask for those stats directly. Most people don't have that shortlist, though.

> For class size, you can have dozens of small classes nobody takes, and have giant lectures for the core intro classes everyone takes. Then the average class size of the classes offered is quite small, but the average class size of the classes you take is quite large.

And that's why you look at the percentage of classes with under 20 students. It's certainly easy to find universities with as good a faculty/student ratio as what I posted, but with only 20% of the classes having less than 20 students.

Incidentally, if they have dozens of small classes, it's a good sign. A lot of departments will cancel a class if it has less than, say, 8 students.