<p>Like BrownParent, I recommend you do a search of the forums. I have written about this topic extensively, as have other classics students over the years.
I would be cautious using the NRC rankings. Several of us on CC have agreed that the rankings for our respective fields look quite odd. Perhaps this is because the new ranking includes so many extraneous factors; of the ~20 factors, only 4 are directly related to faculty quality and undergraduate education. </p>
<p>More importantly, the ranking is already out of date. With departments as small as your typical classics department, the loss or gain or even 2-3 notable faculty can have a massive impact on the prestige and quality of the program. The NRC data is from 2005 – some departments (e.g. NYU and Brown) have gained quite a few good scholars, while others have had a net loss (e.g. Harvard and Columbia). Admittedly, no top program has completely collapsed since then, and relatively few departments have improved significantly.</p>
<p>
Perhaps the most pertinent question is what you plan to do with your degree. It is far more important to focus on department quality if you’re interested in a PhD in classics (which, like lud, I really would not recommend). If you are interested in something else, like law school, focus on the same factors we tell everyone else to consider:
[ul][<em>]Size
[</em>]Location (urban/rural? which region of the country?)
[<em>]Affordability
[</em>]Selectivity
[<em>]“Feel”/atmosphere
[</em>]Other requests (e.g. LD support, LGBT friendly, etc.)[/ul]</p>
<p>My rule of thumb for a strong classics program:
[ul][<em>]Beginning Greek and Latin offered every year
[</em>]Intermediate Greek and Latin offered every year
[<em>]At least one advanced seminar in Greek and Latin every semester
[</em>]Decent civilization courses[/ul]
Other things like a good classics library, collections of papyri, squeezes, and/or numismatics, and a good classical art collection are nice to have but definitely not essential for undergraduates.</p>
<p>If you are interested in late Latin, I highly recommend looking for colleges with Medieval Studies departments and courses in Late Antiquity. </p>
<p>Liberal Arts Colleges
Very few liberal arts colleges (LACs) have sufficient faculty to have diverse offerings in classics. If you have an extensive Latin background, you may be bored at a typical LAC.
[ul][<em>]If you’re female, Barnard is a good option - in addition to a decent classics program of its own, cross-enrollment with Columbia makes its classics offerings superb.
[</em>]As bclintonk mentioned, Bryn Mawr (and by proxy Haverford) is another excellent option. In addition to the strong program at Bryn Mawr, both offer cross-registration with Penn and Swarthmore. Swarthmore is less conveniently located than Haverford in terms of the consortium arrangement, but it would also be a good choice for classics.
[<em>]Oberlin has a fairly strong program and, unlike many LACs, also a strong tradition in archaeology.
[</em>]Reed has a small but strong classics program and a humanities sequence the freshman year that might appeal to you.[/ul]
Other good programs: Wellesley, Davidson, Franklin & Marshall, Wesleyan, Holy Cross. Decent programs include Colgate, Grinnell, Carleton, Skidmore, Kenyon, Middlebury, and a few others. </p>
<p>The following LACs had more than 5 graduating classics majors in 2010. This is a hit or miss measurement most of the time and varies from year to year, but it includes most of the pretty good LAC programs I’m familiar with.</p>
<p>19 Davidson
12 Reed
11 Oberlin
9 Bryn Mawr / Franklin & Marshall / Macalester / Wesleyan
8 Bucknell / Holy Cross
7 Union
6 Kenyon / Middlebury / Skidmore / Smith / UNC Asheville / Washington & Lee / Williams</p>
<p>Private Universities
Ranking university programs is very difficult and arguably pointless, as it changes a lot depending on your interests. For example, Cornell is one of the best for archaeology and top 2-3 for Indo-European linguistics, but it’s weaker in classical philology. Harvard and Chicago, on the other hand, are excellent for ancient history and classical philology but embarrassingly weak in classical art & archaeology. </p>
<p>That said, I’d sort them into tiers as follows. Of course, all of the following colleges are sufficient for an undergraduate’s needs.</p>
<p>TIER 1
Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, Penn, Stanford, Yale</p>
<p>TIER 2
Boston U, Emory, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Tufts, Tulane, USC, Vanderbilt, WUStL</p>
<p>TIER 3
Dartmouth, Georgetown, Rice. There are probably others that could go here, such as BC or Fordham, but I don’t know enough about them to be able to say. </p>
<p>Public Universities
Given that you have such a good in-state option in Wisconsin, I don’t think it’s worth paying extra for an out-of-state public university, especially since so few offer good financial aid. </p>
<p>For the sake of being relatively comprehensive, however, Berkeley, UT Austin, UNC Chapel Hill, UCLA, and Michigan are the top 5. There are many other strong programs, however, including Cincinnati, Penn State, Ohio State, Illinois, Washington, UVA, Minnesota, and Arizona. Even some of the less selective flagships like CU Boulder, UGA, and Kansas have quite good classics programs.</p>
<p>If you decide you want to apply to OOS publics, both of the public universities that meet the financial need of all US students (UNC and UVA) have good classics programs, particularly UNC.</p>