If you're attracted to the small classes and personal attention found at a liberal arts college, but you like the sticker price of giant public universities, a public liberal arts college might be a great choice. Tuition is often less than half of what you'll find at private liberal arts colleges, but the schools are small with a focus on undergraduate teaching. Some are selective honors colleges within state systems, while others have an admissions bar that isn't much different from large public universities. Ten schools made my list of the top public liberal arts colleges. To get a partial idea of what it takes to get in, check out these comparison charts of SAT scores and ACT scores for matriculated students.

College of Charleston
lhilyer libr / Flickr

One footnote: if you qualify for financial aid, you may find that a $50,000 private liberal arts college costs no more than a $15,000 public liberal arts college. In fact, some of the more prestigious private colleges are in a better position than public institutions to meet all of a student's financial need. Many state budgets are still in crisis, and funding for public education is often getting cut.

Best wishes to the thousands of prospective college students who are taking the SAT on Saturday, January 28th. Scores for the exam will be available online on Thursday, February 16th. If you aren't happy with your performance on the exam, keep in mind that all of the country's most selective colleges and universities have holistic admissions. In other words, they look at the whole applicant, not just numerical data. You can partially compensate for less-than-ideal SAT scores with a strong academic record, a winning essay, good letters of recommendation and interesting extracurricular involvement.

Also remember that more and more colleges are going test-optional -- there are now about 850 4-year colleges and universities that do not require SAT or ACT scores. The test-optional schools include some excellent choices: Bowdoin, DePaul, Holy Cross, Mount Holyoke, Pitzer, Wake Forest, and many others.

More SAT Information

• What's a Good SAT Score?
• SAT Scores for the Ivy League
• SAT Scores for Top Liberal Arts Colleges
• SAT scores for top colleges in: California | Florida | Georgia | Illinois | Indiana | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Missouri | New Jersey | New York | North Carolina | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Tennessee | Texas | Virginia | Washington | More States
• SAT Scores for Top Engineering Schools

The Harvard Gazette announced today that Harvard saw its number of applicants stabilize for the first time in many years. The prestigious Ivy League school received 34,285 applications for the class of 2016, down slightly from the 34,950 applications Harvard received in the last admissions cycle. You can read more in the Harvard Gazette article here.

Harvard University
David Paul Ohmer / Flickr

Realize that this slight decrease in applications won't change Harvard's position at the top of lists of the country's most selective colleges. The acceptance rate will still be well down into the single digits.

Articles Featuring Harvard University:

For the first time in a while, we're seeing application numbers at some of the country's top colleges and universities level off and, in some cases, even decrease. The University of Pennsylvania saw a slight downturn in their application numbers this admissions cycle.

This prestigious Ivy League university received 31,127 applications for the class of 2016. That's down about 2% from the 31,663 applications the school received for the class of 2015. To learn more about this year's application numbers, check out the article in the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Articles Featuring Penn:

• Penn Admissions Profile
• GPA, SAT and ACT Graph for Penn
• Top National Universities
• Top Middle Atlantic Colleges and Universities
• Top Pennsylvania Colleges and Universities
• Top Undergraduate Business Schools
• Phi Beta Kappa
• Association of American Universities