<p>Syracuse
Swarthmore
NYU
UNC
University of Pennsylvania
Villanova
UCLA
Northwestern
Amherst
UCSD
York College Pennsylvania
Wesleyan
Middlebury
Brown
Wake Forest</p>
<p>Obviously it's gonna be a bit expensive applying to each and every one of those. So if you could help me pick out the best ones from that list. Or if you have a good addition to make let me know! Thanks</p>
<p>That’s a very diverse list of schools, ranging from small highly selective liberal arts colleges to large state universities. My recommendation is that you should carefully consider what school is the best fit for you (large/small, location, cost/financial aid, chances of admission, general ed requirements, the “personality” of the school, etc.). Choose the schools that are the best balance between their overall quality and their “fit” for you. Don’t choose a school just based on a single department. You only will take 1/4 to 1/3 of your courses in your major department. You also may change majors at some point. A wide range of schools will have solid English departments. </p>
<p>Once you have a list of best fit schools, then you can consider which of them have the “best” English department. Assuming that you choose schools whose overall quality is good, the “best” English department is going to be the one with the best “fit” for your needs. What do you want to do? Teach high school English? Become a writer? Teach English to speakers of other languages? Go to law school? Work in publishing? Be a critic? Get a PhD in English or Comparative Literature? Become a journalist? Write screenplays? Some departments will be a better ft than others depending on your interests and future plans. What electives, cognate courses, and other resources are available at a particular school. Do you want a major that is flexible so you can possibly double major, or pursue other interests, or do you want to take as many English courses that the department will allow? Does the department offer small seminars to junior and seniors? Are there internships? Are there extracurricular opportunities focused on “literary” activities, e.g., a literary magazine, a writing center, visiting authors, etc. The structure of requirements for an English major will be somewhat similar across school: usually an intro course focused on literary types and close reading, possibly emphasizing poetics; possibly a broad survey of literary history; a literary criticism course; courses distributed across major literary periods; courses distributed across both British and American literature; possibly a major author course, e.g. Shakespeare; a sub-concentration in a period or genre or a thematic/topical focus, e.g., linguistics; etc. The major requirements will differ in their flexibility across departments, however. Some departments are most traditional than others. So, for example, a department with a more traditional focus might require that its majors don’t graduate without having taken a course on Shakespeare. A less traditional department may have many majors that never take a Shakespeare course, but have taken courses in a variety of postmodern, postcolonial, feminist, or queer literary theories. Again, it all depends what are your interests and what you might want to do with your English major.</p>
<p>well it’s a very diverse list because I feel comfortable anywhere. I’ve moved around a lot so I adapt fine. The problem is that I don’t really know what I want to do exactly. Just not teaching. Working in publishing is probably the most attracting thing but they’re all pretty much on the same level. And that queer literature and feminist literature thing is definitely not what I’m interested in. </p>
<p>By the way: crossed UCLA and UCSD off the list. I don’t know they just don’t attract me that much anymore as they did 6 months ago.</p>
<p>I’m at UPenn right now and its amazing! I’m taking an english class this semester that I love! The professor is wonderful and the workload is very rigorous. Also, I think Penn’s english department is ranked either 3rd or 4th in the nation by US News. I’m not an english major, but I know some people who are and they rave about the program here.</p>
<p>anybody else have any more input?</p>