Hi guys, I was somehow lucky enough to be admitted to both Brown and Yale, and now I need to make a decision.
I plan on majoring in Classics (Latin and Greek), so for anyone familiar with either department, which could you recommend for undergraduate study and why?
My other question is about prestige; I know it is somewhat pretentious and superficial, but it is honestly a concern of mine, so I’d appreciate if you’d answer truthfully. Okay so I know Yale has a slight edge, but what I’m wondering, how significant is this disparity in prestige? I know when you tell people you go to Yale, their reaction will indicate how impressed they are. Do you also get his for Brown? to an equal or to a lesser extent? Will people respect my going to Brown as much as they would to Yale?
Some of you may be inclined to answer about personal fit; while Brown has the definite edge, and I think I’d be happier there, I’d prefer if you’d answer just these two questions above.
@oDikaiopolis Both in terms of quality in your field and overall prestige and quality Yale has the clear edge. The disparity obviously is not huge since both school are excellent but it definitely exists and it is definitely not negligible. In circles not affiliated with elite academics there is a high chance that people will know what Yale is (not as high as Harvard obv but still high) whereas often they will not have heard of Brown. Now in circles knowledgeable about the elite schools, Yale carries much greater weight and people will definitely be more impressed. While Brown is an excellent school, very very few people choose Brown over Yale simply because it is not stronger in any areas that Yale is relatively lacking, Yale overall has stronger departments in most fields, and the Yale name is definitely superior for prestige/name recognition purposes.
Well brown is stronger than Yale in its undergrad focus because Yale has larger graduate programs.
If you’re actually planning a career in classical studies worry not. Brown is a top tier institution. I have a good friend from Brown is currently in consideration for an assistant professor job at a top 30 university and if he gets it will finish his PhD at Harvard a year early so he can start his climb up the tenure track (and have a younger friend doing his PhD at penn). Another classics concentrator friend did a fullbright and now works in DC. Another one just finished his MBA and runs an NGO. I’m about to wrap up the PhD portion of my MD/PhD training.
Prestige/caliber is a wash. What you should be using instead are the course offerings of the two departments. As someone who was a “classics” concentrator instead of a foreign language track in the department, i sort of ran out of classes in the department to take - that wouldn’t have been the case if I had done more than the bare minimum in Latin or continued with Greek. Does one school have more classes of interest than the other (eg do you already have an idea of what you want to focus on and is one school better suited to that subspecialty?) What about outside of your classics degree? How do you feel about the residential college system? How do you feel about the general campus environments at each school? How do you feel about New Haven vs. Providence? Those things will actually have a much greater impact on your performance and thus career than an overstated difference in the prestige and quality of the programs.
Don’t forget to check out departments like Egyptology (my PhD friend above learned hieroglyphics to accompany his Greek and Latin-and he did Sanskrit too) or the Archaeology and Ancient World
Unless of course if penn95 is actually someone who studied classics and works in the field. Maybe then you should put more weight into what he/she is saying. Especially also if 95 is their class year and not their birth year.
This is the thread of all threads. The thread that I have been waiting for. You literally have the problem I dream of having as a total classics nerd. I’m struggling to restrain myself from making a bunch of Athenaze references.
OK TIME TO GET REAL:
Realistically, if you’re majoring in classics, you’ll probably either go into teaching or go to grad school for a relatively unrelated degree. In either case, your undergrad reputation will not be significantly different between either of these schools (even if you’re going to be a professor your contributions to the field will matter more but hey that’s grad school stuff). The American Classical League published an article the other day about how qualified Latin teachers are in short supply right now because of the lack of people graduating with classics degrees. In this case, schools hiring you will basically see your resume and be like “wow ivy league!” and not really give much of an edge to the specific school name.
You’re a classics major; you’re probably not going to be in any position where you’re put up against another person with a degree from Yale vs a degree from Brown. The Ivy League name will be enough in terms of prestige. Literally the only place where this MIGHT matter is if you’re applying for a job in Boston which has probably the greatest concentration of secondary schools offering classics subjects.
Realistically though, post #2 covered it pretty well with the breadth of classes Brown offers for classics majors. You can’t really go wrong with either school, but if you want to focus exclusively on classics and basically ignore every other subject you think is boring (like my Latin teacher did at Brown lol) just pick Brown. Both have awesome departments to the point where it really just boils down to which set-up do you like better. Don’t listen to post #1 though; classics is a whole different ball game when it comes to prestige. You can’t really compare them based on the rankings of the schools.