We need help or pointers in making a college decision, for Classical Studies. I hope that somebody can help this family of techies to make the right decision!!!
The results are in - the sad news is that even though the ACT was in the range (32), none of the Ivy Leagues went through. This was really =(( as a lot of work during many years was put into it, and there was some real love for Brown… U Chicago is waitlisted, fingers crossed but the certain ones are the ones mentioned in the subject (well, waiting for Michigan still). The good news is that the remaining choices are nothing to complain about.
The question is now: assuming the idea is to get as good a classics education as possible, and go on to a good grad school (Brown, Chicago, Cornell, Penn, etc), is there any clear choice to be made between the ones mentioned in the subject? Financial aid varied considerably between them, but let’s pretend that doesn’t count. I don’t have much to go on, here’s what I found so far:
Bryn Mawr seems to have a very good program, but I can't really find any students in the current list of grad students of the "big ones." Where are Bryn Mawr students going to after they finish their undergrad?
Reed seems somewhat weaker than the others, or at least that's how it looks.
Fordham does not seem to have a Greek seminar, but it is one of the only ones with a current grad student in the "big ones".
BU seems to have the strongest faculty, and the weakest campus.
Michigan seems to be the best represented one in terms of grads, with two currently in Brown, and one in Cornell. (Note: Michigan hasn't released the decision yet.) It is a gigantic place, though.
Thanks - Yes, everywhere I look I hear that Bryn Mawr has an excellent classics program. I guess my question is - where do the BMC students go for grad school when they graduate? I couldn’t find any in the current roster of Brown/Cornell/Chicago/Penn graduate students… Does anybody has recent examples of BMC classics graduates that went on to successful top-level careers in classics?
You should look at where the professors at each university received their Ph.D’s . Those schools are the ones where they are most likely to send their students. What exactly do you mean by ‘top-level careers’?
Michigan is indeed huge, but Classical Studies is an unusual major, so classes in Classical Studies will be very small.
I would not worry about BMC’s representation at top programs. Its Classical Studies department is legendary for a good reason. I think BMC is you best option unless Michigan admits you. If you are admitted into Michigan, then you cannot go wrong either way, so I would recommend going for the more affordable option…and if cost is not a factor, then go for best fit.
I would email the administrative assistant or department chair at BMC, indicate you are an admitted student interested in learning more about BMC students who have pursued graduate programs in Classics, and go from there. Find out whether BMC majors can take grad seminars as upper class students etc. As a smaller school overall, and an undergraduate department which is allied with its own Masters and Ph.D. program in Classics, BMC is likely to have deep offerings to undergrads.
Thanks all, that’s very helpful! I am definitely going to get in touch with the department chair there.
To be clearer about “top-level careers in classics,” I mean people who are currently prominent figures in the classics, whether in academia or in other places. It is somewhat easy to track down those to their PhDs, which are usually from Brown, Chicago, and such. It is very hard to track any one of those down to Bryn Mawr. The only one I could find so far was Leslie Kurke.
By the way, part of why I am asking all these questions is because I can’t seem to find any material on how good the Bryn Mawr classics program is outside of this site… Even though the curriculum looks good and all that, I keep wondering whether this is a “good classics program the world doesn’t seem to notice.” For such a great program, I keep wondering why I don’t see any Bryn Mawr graduates going for PhDs in the Ivy Leagues.
(I went through Brown/Chicago/Cornell/UPenn, looked at their graduate students, and they seem to come from everywhere - BU, Oklahoma, Santa Clara, … I counted 49 colleges, 62 grad students, and none from BMC.)
The other part, of course, is that the other schools don’t look bad on paper either. BU, for example, publishes “Arion,” and has a lot of faculty in the classics department (with PhDs from good places).
You are overthinking this. Any one of these schools is perfectly capable of offering high quality undergraduate-level instruction in Classics. An undergraduate who does well in Classics at any one of these schools will be seriously considered for admission by any graduate Classics program in the country.
I would look at the numbers of full-time faculty in the Classics Dept. (don’t count visiting or Emeritus profs) and make sure that their interests overlap with yours. Check College Navigator to see the number of students who actually get Classics degrees. For Bryn Mawr, include Haverford. Consider financial aid. Finally, consider “fit”: your academic performance will be better at a school where you are happy and comfortable, and will suffer if you are at a school where this is not the case.
If you want to learn something about Sanskrit (not just Latin and Greek), check to see if it is offered. If the Classics Dept. doesn’t have it, it might be in South Asian Studies.
Some people suspect that there has been a long-term (and ongoing) erosion of interest in humanities PhD programs among undergraduates at Ivies and top liberal arts colleges. This isn’t because today’s elite students aren’t interested in or are incapable of PhD-level scholarship. It’s because (1) they are aware of the dismal academic job market for humanities PhDs, and (2) finance and consulting also offer high-level intellectual challenges to humanities grads from top schools, but with far better compensation. I don’t know that this is the case at Bryn Mawr, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I would encourage you to pay attention to a lot more than just the classics program. Not to say you aren’t, just to reinforce.
The reason I say this is:
My middle kid loved dancing. Danced for hours every day. Applied to the schools that had the best dance programs. Got into the best one (for dance), ED.
Before she even got to campus, her interest in dance had waned. By first semester she was no longer interested in dance at all. At that point, she looked around, and said “Whoa, there are like no boys here. And there is like no campus. There is no place to hang out. Which means we wind up going out constantly, and everything here costs a fortune when we go out. And this is not exactly an idyllic campus environment to spend for my unique four years of college, I got woken up this morning by a garbage truck going down Broadway, and I just nearly got side-swiped by a cab.”
Etc.
She wound up transferring. And majoring in something altogether different.
During the first two years of college, a student often will be exposed to whole new areas. One or more of these may well interest someone more than their prior interests from high school.
So look at the school as a whole, not just one particular program.
It seems that you are stuck on the question of whether a BMC classics major can get into a strong Ph.D. program. Contact the department and find out its placement record. For what it’s worth, BMC has long been known for its classics program, and although it is an undergraduate school, it offers a select number of Ph.D. programs which are co-ed, including Classics, and the Classics Ph.D. program includes regular colloquia with scholars from around the world and a classics journal. So an undergrad has the opportunity to surround herself with an intellectually rich community, and BMC grads have never had a problem getting into top grad programs.
I would focus on other factors, such as the type of overall university/college environment etc. that you are looking for, because a Classics major at BMC can go onto to do anything, including go to a top Ph.D. program.
Thanks for all the replies so far. Regarding the school as a whole, that’s one of the worries with Bryn Mawr: it may be just too small and bubble-like. Also, my daughter has been on all-girls schools (her choice) since middle school, and the whole thing may be getting a little too old. On the other hand, my daughter visited BU and the campus and environment were nothing to write home about.
In all honesty, Reed may be out due to being, at least according to statistics, “out there” on crime and drugs. Fordham really does not look like a Classical Studies school in earnest, but we haven’t been there so it is a bit hard to judge.
It looks like a trip is warranted. We’re in California, so we won’t be able to go to both Reed and the others. Going there to feel the atmosphere may be the only way to decide this.
For what it’s worth, BMC is special among the women’s colleges in that it is 1 mile from Haverford College, a peer in size and quality of student, and the two schools’ curricula are completely integrated, with students taking classes and majoring at both campuses, as well as eating (and living, though there are limited spots for that) at both campuses.
I don’t mean to gloss over differences in the Classics departments of these schools if they’re important to you-- it’s delightful to witness your diligence. I would just say that these schools would all serve you well in your thirst for knowledge in that major, and that where you end up in grad school will largely rely on you – your performance/GPA, any grad test scores, and where you choose to apply. A 3.5+ will look good coming from any of these schools.
You will want to save some money for grad school – and even if your parents will be paying for that, it would be nice to save them some money – so you might think about making cost one of your variables.
Also consider the location/environment and social vibe of each of the schools – they are very different places.
Finally, I wouldn’t sell Reed short: it probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea sociopolitically, but its academic chops are seriously top-notch – it’s known as one of the most intellectually serious schools in the US (right up there with UChicago and Swat).
Concerns were expressed about “crime and drugs” at Reed. I don’t see where the “crime” concern comes from. Reed is located within Portland city limits, but in an affluent residential neighborhood, not near any bad parts of town. It’s true that Reed historically had a reputation for drug use, but my impression is that drug use has decreased substantially, due to (1) Reed’s increasing selectivity, and (2) the attitude of the current college president – who is a former Marine, federal prosecutor, and State Attorney General.
Reed requires all freshman to take a rigorous one-year course in Greek and Roman classics (in translation), and apparently many of them go on to become classics majors. They used to send all accepted students a copy of the Iliad.
On Reed: all I have to go on are the published statistics. Between the colleges I mentioned, the statistics for rape and drugs in Reed were the worse by far (as in, five times more reports per 1000 students than the others). I was actually not looking for these figures, but in one of the comparisons they just jumped out too much and I went to look for more information.
Yes, we got a copy of the Iliad. It was quite nice… The acceptance letter had handwritten notes mentioning some topics of the essay. That says good things about the school and the selection process. It was, together with Bryn Mawr, the most personal reply. Coming from a highly impersonal college admission experience (we’re from another country), it makes it hard to say “no”!
We’re planning the East coast trip for the Spring break, after Easter. If neither Bryn Mawr nor BU “clicks,” we may have to scramble on a trip to Portland to check Reed out for real.
Reed always struck me as an uber intellectual school with a natural flow to PhD programs. I’m surprised that you don’t think it’s attractive for classics. People always grouped Reed with Chicago, Swarthmore and Pomona as among the most intellectual, learning for it’s own sake schools.
@warblersrule seems to be the CC resident expert on Classics programs. You might want to look up some of his/her old comments. For example, see post #7 in the following thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18793099#Comment_18793099
S/he gives high marks to UChicago (“Tier1” private), Michigan (“top 5” public), Bryn Mawr, and Reed (“small but strong”).
As for PhDs, it shouldn’t be surprising if you cannot easily find good outcome data. According to the National Science Foundation’s webcaspar site (https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/webcaspar/), for the decade 2006-15, Bryn Mawr alumni earned 78 PhDs in the entire Humanities category. The site doesn’t directly track Classics PhDs in particular, but there must not be more than a couple per year spread out across many doctoral programs.
Which either means that (1) Reed has much higher rates of sexual assault and drug use than other colleges – or that (2) the Reed environment promotes more much openness and candor about reporting such problems.
At many schools (the story cites University of Oregon has an example) the number of officially reported sexual assaults is very low – but the number appears to be much higher when students are asked about their experiences in anonymous surveys. That’s not better.