I’ve seen conflicting rankings for undergraduate linguistics programs. For context, I’m very interested in ethnolinguistics and would like to pursue a PhD in the field. Are there any undergraduate programs that are known as “feeders”/their students are likely to get picked up by top PhD programs? Many thanks in advance for any insight!
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http://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-colleges-where-phds-get-their-start/
You can also look for more updated info, but you will have to download the tables and do a bit of calculating yourself, since they do not provide the number of undergraduates at the college. Moreover, they do not go to the level of detail of subfield, so all you have is “other social sciences” (meaning not psychology): https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/ids/sed
This is a good resources as well: http://linguisticanthropology.org/resources/programs/
Simply check out the programs, and see where the graduates students and the younger faculty got their undergraduate degrees.
A word of warning: social sciences, like the humanities, are prestige-obsessed, and your chances of getting a faculty job are directly correlated to the prestige of your PhD program, and your acceptance to a PhD program is directly correlated to the prestige of your undergraduate school.
Another warning: “Prestige” means “prestige within the field”, not “prestige among the general population”.
However, really good LoRs and good independent work as an undergrad count more than prestige (well, so long as the undergrad school is at least “respectable”). So choose a LAC over a research university, even if it is less prestigious. So Macalaster is a better path than Duke to a prestigious graduate program.
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@MWolf Thank you so much for the detailed response! I’ll be sure to look into the resources you have provided 
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For your interests and goals, particularly if you would look forward to experiential learning through immersion, you may want to consider an anthropology major with a linguistics minor. With this background, you would be prepared for graduate study in ethnolinguistics.
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That’s also a great idea.
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Sociolinguistics PhD (and current linguistics professor) chiming in.
If you really do want a linguistics PhD—and I’d think long and hard about it, because the job market for linguistics held out longer than many of the humanities and social sciences, but it has cratered along with the rest of them, with no likely recovery for a long, long time—then where you go for your undergrad doesn’t make as much difference as what you study.
(This is also the case for a master’s in linguistics—which is honestly a more marketable degree at the moment—except that students are more likely to get your master’s from the same place you got your baccalaureate degree from.)
Anyway, a few things about getting into graduate programs in linguistics:
[ul][]At some level, it doesn’t matter what your undergrad major is. This is less the case now than it was when I came through, but linguistics is still a small enough field that we don’t expect our grad students to necessarily have even been able to major in the field. (I have good friends in the field who majored in music—which really is just applied phonetics—and math as undergrads.)
[]That said, you do need to develop a bit of a background in the basics of the field. Take as many linguistics courses as you can as an undergrad. If you don’t major in the field, minor in it if it you can. Either way, you need some sort of linguistics coursework, though it doesn’t necessarily need to be in linguistics as linguistics—lots of linguistics courses in many anthropology and languages (including English) departments, f’rex.
[]If you don’t take undergrad syntax (and maybe phonology), though, you’ll have some make-up coursework to do.
[]And it’s not necessary everywhere, but at least two semesters of a non-Indo-European language wouldn’t hurt.
[li]And finally, if you want to be employable within linguistics, computational linguistics is really where the jobs and money are these days. That’s not to say that you need to do computational linguistics specifically or do something like minor in computer science, but a couple courses in programming languages, or at least knowing your way really well around a Linux command line? Yeah, that wouldn’t hurt.[/ul][/li]As for specific colleges? Hard to say. “Ethnolinguistics” is honestly a kind of amorphous term. Without anything more specific, I’ll say that one of the epicenters of linguistic anthropology is UT Austin, and other excellent places that I would think of off the top of my head are Michigan State, any of Arizona/Arizona State/Northern Arizona, Chicago, CUNY…Though honestly, anyplace with a truly four-field anthropology program would probably fit your wants.
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You’re likely to find the strongest programs at large/selective state universities or at “elite” private universities . So, depending on your stats and budget, you may find it challenging to get into one you can afford. You might want to look first at what your state flagship offers.
Here’s one list of strong graduate-level programs:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124741
I’ll say that @tk21769 is correct about graduate programs. Undergrad programs, though, less so—a solid number of regional comprehensives have good linguistics minors, usually housed in English departments, less frequently in anthropology.
It might be worth looking for such universities that might not even have an undergrad linguistics major, but do have linguistics or TESOL graduate programs (e.g., George Mason).
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@dfbdfb @tk21769 Thank you both so much for your responses. Currently, my top three choices are UMichigan (accepted), UToronto (accepted), and UChicago (waiting for decision). If cost is not an issue (due to generous scholarships) at any of these institutions, which would you recommend? Specifically for someone who would maybe want to go into government work as a career? (And isn’t 100% sure about which subfield to specialize in…)
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Even if cost were a consideration, you should strongly consider the University of Chicago (if admitted).
@ling2020, wow, those are all solid choices, and they all have different things to offer you:
[ul][]Toronto has the widest range in their linguistics program of these three, so you’d get a really broad-based view of the field. Also, their sociolinguists are doing some amazing work on the effects of ethnicity in the Golden Horseshoe region. (Some report that it’s overall a hypercompetitive place, and there’s little to no grade inflation there. Graduate programs, at least in linguistics, recognize and understand this, though.)
[]Chicago’s linguistics program is very theoretically oriented, but double-majored with, say, anthropology or philosophy or psychology would certainly give you a crazy-solid foundation in something broad-based that takes issues beyond linguistics into consideration, perhaps slightly more than the others.
[li]Michigan has easily the most flexible linguistics program of the three, and a seriously massive (by the standards of linguistics programs) undergraduate cohort to develop connections with.[/ul][/li]As for government work…If you mean the Canadian government (at any level), then go to Toronto, no question. If you mean something in the US, then you’ll probably need a master’s from a US institution (especially if you go to Toronto, since Toronto doesn’t have US regional accreditation, though it’s widely recognized as equal to the best of what’s in the US), and any of those should work.
But yeah, they’re all good options. Beyond good, honestly.
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This thread has been interesting. Those who answered OP, what if interested in psycholinguistics? DS also interested in maybe forensic linguistics/law. He definitely is interested in linguistics in and of itself but hasn’t really narrowed down but seems to lean towards psycholinguistics. What about Chapel Hill’s program or Georgia?
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Which program would offer the most opportunities to explore different subfields? (overall/well-rounded program)
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If you would like to consider your potential choices by number of linguistics majors, note that Michigan recently registered 23, while Chicago registered 19. When normalized for the size of these schools, Chicago would be much more “linguistics dense,” however.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=University+of+Michigan&s=all&id=170976#programs
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=University+of+Chicago&s=all&id=144050#programs
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It seems you were offered an opinion on this in an earlier reply:
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@merc81 You’re right. I’m sorry for asking again
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@ling2020: That’s OK! I’d thought our interpretations of that response might have differed.
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This really was great to see! I applied to all 3 of those California listed schools & so far heard back from CSULB with an acceptance, but I see so many people look down on CSULB as an “easy to get into” school, that’s technically impacted, but probably because it’s in LA and not UCLA/USC
I have no idea what LoR or LAC means
I applied to these schools, would anyone be able to rank and/or describe their “prestige” & preparedness for work/grad
UC: LA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Riverside, Irvine (Language Science major or Linguistics minor)
CSU: San Diego, Long Beach, Northridge, Fullerton
Note: Obviously UCLA is the #1 program in this list, but aside from that…
LoR = Letter of Recommendation
LAC = Liberal Arts College
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