<p>Forgive in advance my cross-posts on this subject. It doesn’t seem to fit perfectly into any category.</p>
<p>My daughter is currently a freshman in college and wants to attend an archaeological field school this summer, one that provides training (college credit is nice, but not essential) not just an opportunity to volunteer grunt labor. Her college has been less than useful (only told her that the longer the better) so I thought if I cast my net widely enough I might find someone with some knowledge.</p>
<p>She has already found a rather comprehensive list of field schools worldwide and links to how those schools describe themselves. What she hasn’t found is --</p>
<li><p>Anyone comparing different schools. The costs vary widely. Is there any reason to pay twice as much for the Harvard school as the Stanford one, for instance? If the training is more extensive, we are willing to pay more.</p></li>
<li><p>Any sense of the admission percentages generally or at different programs. If she applies to a place will she probably get in (she is at an Ivy and has good first semester grades)? Should she apply to 2-3 to be sure, or is 7-8 a better idea? The applications need to be made right now – she wants to do enough, but not to waste time and money being paranoid.</p></li>
<li><p>Any advice on making her application competitive. Her school doesn’t offer the intro archaeology course until spring, so she won’t get a recommendation there or the second archaeology course she is taking beginning today. What source of recommendations would be the most useful? Her first semester classes were two languages, an ancient lit class, and geology, with the highest grades being one language and the lit. I don’t know if this shows aptitude for field work. They always stress how physically demanding it is – should she have her fencing coach certify she can handle it?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So any feedback on any of these questions or about particular programs would be appreciated. Her preference would be to dig in Egypt (she is an Egyptology major) but what few programs are there are too short and her school advises she would do better to go somewhere longer to get a better grounding in archaeology generally. So she is open to digs anywhere, with a preference for older sites. But a strong academic program will trump age.</p>
<p>I think she should wait a year or so to do a field camp. A great idea for this summer would be to have her ask around the anthropology department (I'm assuming they are the department at her school where archaeology is located) and see if any of the graduate students (if a graduate-level department) or professors are in need of field assistants for the summer. I would think that most projects will have funding for a field assistant as well, which would make the cost minimal to her/you. </p>
<p>This way, she can develop her interests while getting hands-on experience to be able to make a more educated decision on where she would like (and where is the best) to attend field school in the coming summers. </p>
<p>Another option would be if she already has an idea of what she wants to focus on, and there is a faculty member who does such research, ask if they have a undergraduate reserach project that she can start over the summer (it's never too early to start research!). </p>
<p>As for the competitiveness of her application...</p>
<p>It all depends on whether they have pre-requisites and whether she has fufilled them or not. Additionally, I glanced at Harvard's page and they don't directly offer a field camp, what program is she looking at? That will definately have an impact as well...</p>
<p>For recommendations:</p>
<p>If she does decide to do a field camp now, I'd recommend the geology professor (if she had a good relationship with him/her) and the ancient lit professor since those are the fields most closely related to archeaology that she has already completed.</p>
<p>Edit:</p>
<p>I just realized she was interested in Egyptology, since there is a specialty at her school, I'd talk to some professors and try to get in either as a field assistant or on an undergraduate project (they both may go hand-in-hand).</p>
<p>I think waiting is a good idea. Personally, I've only taken lower-level science courses so far, so I'm waiting until next year to do some research. I sent in an application to work at Duke TIP this summer instead, which should be fun.</p>
<p>I would also try talking to specific professors at her school. I talked to the chair of the religion department here a while back, and she said she could get me a travel grant to work on the Duke dig in Israel next summer. I assume her school could do the same if she shows a lot of promise and is willing to work hard.</p>
<p>Thanks for the ideas. My daughter has already talked to a number of professors at her school already, who haven't proved useful, but she has more she can try. All she's been told so far is to go for length and comprehensiveness of program, not where it's located, and to not worry about it until February, when apparently the anth department will open up its file of field work opportunities. But since many places have deadlines of March 1 and she is going to be busy that month with fencing competitions, she was trying to get a jump on it. She isn't quite sure what are in these "files." Could be nothing more than the information she's already seen on the web ...</p>
<p>She hasn't happened upon anyone at the school with an interesting dig going on, but I'll tell her to ask that specifically. It is a good idea.</p>
<p>A complicating factor is her desire to spend junior year in Cairo. She may be able to arrange to work on a dig there (her life's ambition!) in the summer either before or after that year, particularly if she has experience. She also needs to fit in a reading French course and it is only offered in the summer for some reason. She just took reading German and wanted to practice that for a bit before jumping into French. So it seemed best to try for a field school this summer.</p>
<p>But if it doesn't work, she'll figure out a different plan. There is nothing in the field school descriptions that disqualifies her -- many places require nothing and have a minimum age of 18, which certainly doesn't look like they want a certain amount of coursework first. </p>
<p>I hadn't heard of REUs before. I'll have to check it out. I have a son who is a junior and needs something to do this summer, too! </p>
<p>Oops, I just noticed the deadline for applying was Dec. 20, but it might still be worth a call to see if they have any openings (it does say they will consider late applicants if openings are available).</p>
<p>Yeah, we had. These were the Egypt field schools my daughter was considering before her professors told her that they were too short. (I guess she could have tried to apply to two back-to-back, but the archaeology education would probably be duplicative. Also while shorter, these schools are among the most expensive out there. Going to two would be about $10,000, plus transportation! Gasp ...) The deadline for admission passed some time ago also, I think.</p>
<p>But thanks for volunteering the information. There is no way you could know what we knew!</p>
<p>Her school finally opened up the files on field schools (don't know why they had been closed) and all they had were brochures from last year. Since a number of schools have deadlines of March 1, 2006, it seems like by the time they get the stuff for this year it would be too late.</p>
<p>Thank goodness for the internet and the ability to find things that way.</p>
<p>She is finishing up her applications now. I think she is applying to more than she has to, but she is the one doing all the work. She found a clear favorite, but I don't want to jinx things by saying where it is ... We never could find a review of different schools, so she just read up on how they describe their educational programs, the extent to which she is interested in what is being dug up, and coolness of location (not talking temperature here -- it looks like everywhere she considered will be hot).</p>