Is the University of Michigan or WashU better for small classes?

The biggest practical tradeoff is scale: Michigan offers the resources and energy of a very large public university, while WashU is built around a smaller private-school classroom experience. If small, discussion-based classes are one of your top priorities overall, WashU has the clearer edge. You are more likely to find smaller classes earlier, easier access to professors, and a campus culture where close interaction with faculty is a more routine part of the undergraduate experience.

At Michigan, class size depends a lot on the department and the stage you are at. Intro courses, especially in popular majors like economics, psychology, biology, and computer science, can be quite large, often with discussion or lab sections attached. As you move into upper-level courses, seminars and smaller classes become more common, but the large-university structure is still noticeable.

WashU tends to feel more intimate across the board. Even when there are lecture courses, the overall student body is much smaller, and students often report that office hours, class discussion, and faculty relationships are easier to build from the start. That does not mean every class is tiny, but the baseline experience is usually closer to what students mean when they say they want small classes.

One thing worth noting is that Michigan can still work well for students who are proactive. Honors programs, smaller departmental communities, and upper-level seminars can make the experience feel much more personal than the university’s size suggests. But if you want the smaller-class environment to be the default rather than something you have to seek out, WashU is the better answer here.