Harvard vs Bucknell for small classes: which actually has smaller class sizes?

The main tradeoff is that Bucknell is built around a smaller undergraduate environment, while Harvard gives you access to a huge university where small classes exist but large introductory lectures are more common. Bucknell has far fewer students overall, so the day-to-day feel is usually more intimate. Harvard absolutely offers discussion sections, seminars, and close faculty access, but the classroom experience in the first year or two can include more big lecture courses, especially in popular intro subjects.

If your question is strictly which school actually has smaller classes more often, Bucknell is the clearer answer. At a school of Bucknell’s size, a larger share of courses tend to be small or mid-sized, and undergraduates are the center of the institution. That usually means fewer situations where you are one of hundreds in a lecture hall.

At Harvard, class size depends a lot on what you study and when. Intro courses in economics, government, computer science, biology, and similar high-demand areas can be quite large, even though they are often paired with smaller discussion or lab sections. As students move into upper-level courses, the classes usually get much smaller, and professor access can be excellent.

So if your priority is avoiding huge lectures as much as possible from the start, Bucknell is more likely to deliver that consistently. Harvard can still provide plenty of small-class experiences, but it is less uniform, and you are more likely to encounter big intro classes along the way.