Chance Me: TX resident, 3.94 GPA, 1550 SAT, AFROTC full-ride scholarship winner, Linguistics Major for UVA, UMich, Notre Dame (EA) [top 5% rank]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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If what the OP wants is linguistics, (which I’m pretty sure he does), as opposed to just studying a language, then the issue is colleges that have great linguistics dep’ts, since they’re pretty rare, and many programs often have very few students and skimpy course offerings.

Those who don’t know linguistics might be surprised at these rankings, but for those who do, they seem spot on. MIT (for comp ling), UMass Amherst, Stanford, Harvard, UCB, UCLA, U Md, U Penn (NOT PENN STATE!), Ohio State, U Hawaii at Manoa, Chicago, UConn…

My point is, OP should really be considering these schools if what he wants is linguistics. We looked closely at UMass Amherst and UConn, and the difference between the two was immense, for undergrad linguistics. UT Austin is ranked 49th.

And OP, consider a state school and not selling your life away for the tuition, with the AFROTC. You can swing cheap tuition in state at UT Austin, or go to UMass Amherst for prob 40K/yr, since they’ll give you their top merit money award, and when you get out, you can get a job with a contractor earning two to three times what you’d earn in the military, doing the exact same work, but with more vacation time, fewer hours, and more freedom and flexibility.

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As the parent of 2 Notre Dame students, I’d say your chances there are excellent, assuming your supplemental essays hit the mark. UVA is always tough for out of state applicants. Best of luck to you!

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Good resource! Though I’ll note that the QS rankings are much better for comparing graduate programs than undergrad, and they ignore specialties—for theoretical linguistics MIT is right up at the top, sure, and for both the undergrad and graduate levels, but if your interests lean toward sociolinguistics or language contact or such? That gets a no, probably coupled with laughter.

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