Middlebury just joined QuestBridge, so could list as one of your choices there.
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Not to mention that MIT’s linguistics program is really narrowly focused on the cognitive science and theoretical side of the house (and when MIT says cog sci, it’s way narrower and more theoretically-oriented than at a place like, say, UCSD). They offer an elective or two in things like field methods, but otherwise it’s all theory all the time.
Not saying it isn’t a good program, by any means! But MIT Linguistics was founded by Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle through a merger with philosophy, and that heritage carries through to the present. The OP has expressed an interest in sociolinguistics and language acquisition, and you’re not going to get any of that there. Like I said upthread, one’s undergraduate program isn’t determinative of future trajectory in linguistics, but MIT is known for churning out specifically theoreticians for good reason.
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Nope, he’s the usual type of linguistics-obsessed high schooler, studying multiple languages at once. Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, plus English is not his native language, as he’s a Nigerian immigrant. MIT is not the right match for him. Hopefully, he will come to realize this. There are a number of schools that would be a better match for him, including his in-state flagship, U Md.
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The official language of Nigeria is English. Many Nigerians speak other languages, as well, but they all likely speak English.
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I just took a look at the flagship program, and the schools listed for the specific languages are not necessarily currently the best schools at which to study those languages. It’s essentially a funding program that schools can apply for. In order to qualify for the funding, they need to provide certain things, but that doesn’t mean that they’re doing a good job with foreign language instruction. Many of the best colleges for learning specific languages don’t appear on this list, and some of the ones that do are not highly ranked schools. I wouldn’t necessarily use this as a starting point.
True, but this person reported that Igbo was their native language, and that they only began learning English in the US. The student didn’t come from a stable family home, needed to go into foster care early in high school, now has been adopted.
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I stand corrected, then. I didn’t catch that above.
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I think some clarifications might be helpful?
I was born in the US, I have always lived here. However, do to my biological mother’s mental health conditions (still not treated) she would constantly move and claimed me to be “home-schooled” (thus successfully avoiding foster care intervention with no contacts and changing states from Texas to Connecticut to Maryland and more). Only when my older half-brother intervened and said she needs to come to Maryland so he can help pay for an apartment with her—since we were homeless again for the uptenth-time and she was begging her family for money— did he convince her to put me in school.
Many Nigerians are bilingual between a dialect and English, that bilingualism can varying depending on various geographical, cultural and generational influences.
Igbo is my first language by a long shot, just wanted to clearify that my English wasn’t even a typical Nigerian, I really had to start from 0.
She grew up on, from what I understood as a 9 year old, an isolated village where the amount of English to Igbo would be abysmal. She avoided using any english near me if capable—I do not know why but I have heard she was often bullied in high school whenever she spoke with an accent. Consequently I am first generation American.
Foster care system eventually were notified and intervened the situation. Timeline is as follows:
Extended family
Foster care homes
extended family
group housing because of my “troubled-ness”
and then finally adopted (with no more of this “troubled-ness” business)!
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You need your school counselor to tell this story in her letter! In your essay, you focus on your hopes and dreams, your goals, maybe a tiny bit of how you value education so much because you were denied it, how you value language and linguistics because that is the means of human communication, which you were denied. Or whatever else you want.
This story illustrates what I absolutely HATE about homeschooling in the US. In many instances, it is simply a means of denying a child his/her legally mandated right to a free education. I have had elementary school aged children in my office whose mother says, “Oh, Imogene is home schooled”, and Imogene pipes up, “I’m NOT home schooled! You just pulled me out of school when they started sending home notes about how often I was late or absent! We haven’t done any schoolwork in over a year!” And then, as a mandated reporter, I make a call to child protection services, which does … NOTHING.
No oversight. No testing. No checks on the “homeschooled” child to see if they’re okay. It’s all considered too intrusive, interfering with the rights of the parents to in some cases control what the child can know, and in some cases, completely deny the child their right to an education.
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Thank you so much! I will definitely try to help insure h can get that part of my background in his LOR! And I really do agree, it honestly enrages me how many kids are completely ignored while in the most awful human conditions. Hopefully I can help fix that in the near future!!
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