<p>^^ There’s also the category of “Cognitive Psychology and Psycholinguistics”, which adds in Wellesley as a possible option. You can mess around on IPEDS looking at the different fields for degree completions…</p>
<p>Your interest seems extremely specialized. Have you already been exposed to this field (through research, mentorship, familial experience, etc.)? What do you “not like” about biology? I ask because (as discussed on another thread around here) college students do tend to change their area of interest.</p>
<p>^No formal exposure to any of the three fields except CS (at an intro level only). I’ve always been fascinated by linguistics, and have had some challenging, satisfying philosophical discussions (with a peer, but one who has pursued serious self-study of the subject).</p>
<p>In general, I’m more interested in theory than application. I’m also starting from the vantage point of longstanding interest in literature, especially literary theory, rather than from a socsci or science perspective. I’ve never taken psych, but I have zero interest in bio or any other lab science.</p>
<p>^ Franklin & Marshall has a very interesting major that you might want to take a look at. It is called Scientific and Philosophical Studies of the Mind. It blends Psych, Philosophy, and Computer Science, specifically related to artificial intelligence. F&M also offers Neuroscience and Linguisitics (not as a major). I agree with you that linguistics is a fascinating field and works well with a Psych or Neuroscience major.</p>
<p>Here are the schools I find from an IPEDS “College Navigator” search
([College</a> Navigator - Search Results](<a href=“College Navigator - Search Results”>College Navigator - Search Results))
/*************************<strong><em>/
Search Criteria:<br>
min 25th percentile M = 600, CR = 600
max undergraduate enrollment - 5000
private, 4 year
Majors: Linguistics or Cognitive Science
/</em></strong>**************************/
Barnard College
Brandeis University
Carleton College
Dartmouth College
Haverford College
Macalester College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Reed College
Rice University
Scripps College
Swarthmore College
Vassar College</p>
<p>^Still excluding Pomona, which definitely has both linguistics and cogsci (in the same department, but separate tracks.) Otherwise, I think it’s caught most of the usual suspects? Time to re-look at Vassar.</p>
<p>^Pomona shows up if I add “Cognitive Psychology and Psycholinguistics,” but not for a search on Linguistics or Cognitive Science. There must be an error in the database or else the system does not do a very good job of indexing variations on the department/major names.</p>
<p>Because you’re right, among all LACs, Pomona seems to have one of the best Linguistics programs at least in terms of the number of offered courses. Dunno how the CogSci track stacks up.</p>
<p>^ Perhaps whoever set up Pomona’s IPEDS data assigned its “Linguistics and Cognitive Science” program to the IPEDS “cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics” category, instead of mapping it to the categories of (1) Linguistics and (2) Cognitive Science. Oh well.</p>
<p>Reed College does not list a Cognitive Science program, but does offer the following courses of interest: </p>
<p>Minds, Brains, and Machines (Philosophy 206)
Philosophy of Language (Philosophy 315)
Computation for Philosophers (Philosophy 412)
Psychology of Language Acquisition (Psychology 296)
Comparative Cognition (Psychology 330)
Thinking (Psychology 344)
Computational Cognitive Science (Psych 365)
Psycholinguistics (Psychology 393)</p>
<p>In addition, Reed has a Linguistics department with a rich list of courses.</p>
<p>However, it does not have a Computer Science department. CS degrees are granted to a small number of students in partnership with U. Washington.</p>
<p>You may want to consider MIT even though it is not a LAC. It has only around 4,000 undergrads, slightly more than the larger LACs. </p>
<p>The Brain & CogSci Center at MIT is the largest in the world and the school is also a world leader in linguistics, philosophy and of course computer science. Around 50 students major in BCS every year, so the department is not too large. The student faculty ratio is around 4:1 and the classes are very small.
[MIT</a> : Brain and Cognitive Sciences](<a href=“http://bcs.mit.edu%5DMIT”>http://bcs.mit.edu)
The BCS department offers three main tracks to undergrads:
-Cognitive science (strong linguistics focus)
-Cognitive neuroscience
-Neuroscience</p>
<p>Only the last track is biology intensive. My D is currently a Junior in the BCS department in the Cognitive Neuroscience track and loves it. She is doing research on autism and the department has its own fMRI system for clinical experiments on patients. She just took a class with Dr. Suzanne Corkin, the well known scientist who did a lifelong study of H.M. the world’s most famous amnesic and subject of an upcoming movie. Next semester she is taking a seminar taught by Tonegawa, Nobel winner and father of the research on plasticity of the brain. The class is limited to 12 students. </p>
<p>As long as you feel you can handle the science GIRs freshman year, it is the place to be if you want to be involved in the very leading edge of what is going on in cognitive science. </p>
<p>If what you’re after is a LAC or small university that allows you to put together the described program of study (Linguistics + CogSci/SymSys + CS ~= “Computational Linguistics”), and pursue it all with a minimum of off-campus work, then I’d suggest the following 7 schools (ranked from more to less selective):</p>
<ul>
<li>Reed does not have a Computer Science major (but if you’re going to do without one sub-field, this may be the easiest one to supplement elsewhere)
** Hampshire supports an on-campus Linguistics concentration, but to get the most out of your program, you’d probably want to take a significant number of courses at UMass</li>
</ul>
<p>Dartmouth seems to provide the required programs of study, but is a little larger than any of these 7. The cold, rural location and “animal house” reputation may be a turn-off, too. The University of Rochester is another, less selective option of similar size (~4K undergrads). Then (as cellardweller suggests) there’s MIT, which is along with Stanford about the most illustrious place in America (at least) to study this stuff (but maybe not the ideal atmosphere if you’re an artsy/humanities person). </p>
<p>A few other schools would allow you to cobble together such a program, but perhaps not within the context of a Linguistics or Cognitive Science major, or only with a significant amount of off-campus work. Barnard College, for example, offers all the considerable resources of Columbia University, but you might wind up taking so many classes at Columbia that you’d begin to lose some of the LAC experience.</p>
<p>If you are willing to consider mid-sized universities with more-or-less LAC-like intimacy, then the reachy end of the short list maybe should include Chicago and Yale (Chicago being significantly less reachy than Yale or Stanford). Or again, MIT (smaller than any of these other unis).</p>
<p>tk - Thank you for the analysis! I was very attracted to Reed for a long time, but the lack of CS is a problem because CS is the most “employable” subfield. Hampshire may be too self-directed for me, I think. Cold+rural is fine, but I did a little research into Dartmouth’s Greek system and I’d really prefer not to search for my social niche there. I would see Carleton as equal to Mac in terms of “putting together” a comp-ling major (you’re right, that’s kind of what I’m aiming at, with a good dash of English/phil on the side). IIRC, Carnegie Mellon isn’t much fond of interdisciplinary programs across schools (SCS being its own school). </p>
<p>MIT has a lovely linguistics program… but I would NOT survive the science core. I’m at a math/science HS right now and unhappy with the academic focus, though the overall rigor is great.</p>
<p>Thoughts on this revised list?</p>
<p>Reaches
Yale, Stanford
Pomona, Swarthmore
Rice? (no cogsci), Reed? (no CS)
Matches
Carleton, Macalester, Scripps (I’ve visited, Claremont consortium is walkable)
Brandeis? (no cogsci)
Safeties
Rochester (cogsci is psych/neuro-heavy, but strong CS and ling)</p>
<p>+Oberlin, Grinnell, Middlebury (from list formed before I discovered cogsci; all three have major academic drawbacks)</p>
<p>That looks like an excellent list to me, notwithstanding the ones that don’t fit the LAC ideal.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>That’s an excellent reason not to choose it. Rochester is a good swap if you are o.k. with the somewhat larger size. Though it’s not exactly anybody’s “safety”, unless your qualifications are really phenomenal or money is not a consideration at all. “Low match”?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Carleton is a skosh more selective. Mac has the advantages of the Twin Cities (if you’re an urban person that is) and proximity to UMn. I lived for a year or so in Northfield, Mn. A nice enough town, but rather rural. Not as rural/remote as Middlebury VT, though, and sunnier I think. Both places get COLD (which you should not underestimate if you’re not a winter person).</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It may be the most employable for an entry-level position. Taking the long view of your prospects mid-career and beyond, a liberal arts eduction is a good foundation for leadership positions. I’d be very surprised if you can’t learn Java programming at Reed. In fact, their Math department includes several courses that could as easily be labelled CS:</p>
<p>Mathematics 121 - Introduction to Computing
Mathematics 382 - Algorithms and Data Structures
Mathematics 384 - Programming Language Design and Implementation
Mathematics 441 - Topics in Computer Science Theory
Mathematics 443 - Topics in Advanced Algorithms</p>
<p>These courses seem to cover a significant part of the IEEE model CS curriculum; so if you decided to do a CS minor, you’d probably be able to accomplish it easily (perhaps with one term or a summer at UWashington).</p>
<p>“Computational Linguistics” should be a highly employable field in any case, one that can accomodate language people, linguistics people, CS people and Mathematicians who broadly understand how these areas intersect and are enthusiastic about their work.</p>
<p>Are you sure? You state that you are in a math/science high school right now. Have you taken calculus and physics in HS? The first semester at MIT is P/F and the second semester is ABC/NR specifically to reduce stress. MIT has a version of the science core which is taught seminar style with 5 or 6 students and a professor. Not every student at MIT is a math/physics wiz or hardcore engineer. My D certainly was not. She was good in HS but nowhere near the level in math of many of the other students. She wants nothing to do with engineering. She does not like wet labs. She had never programmed a line of code until she started at MIT. (Now she used Matlab to design CogSci experiments which she actually found pretty easy to learn). She takes two humanities classes per semester and has not had to cross-register at Harvard yet for lack of offerings. Freshman year was not easy for her but neither was it unmanageable. All assignments are done in groups and MIT provides you a free tutor if you have any problems. Granted if you hate everything quantitative you are going to have a miserable time.</p>
<p>I researched small LACs for Computer Science last year. Perhaps I can give your some suggestions for the CS major</p>
<p>Reaches
Yale, Stanford, Pomona, Swarthmore, Rice? (no cogsci): They all have respectable CS departments.
Reed? (no CS): you should not apply here because Reed doesn’t offer what you want
Matches
Carleton, Macalester, Scripps (Claremont consortium): good for LACs.
Brandeis? (no cogsci); You should apply there because CS is good.
Smith: for UMass consortium
Trinity: Another small LAC that offers engineering and CS
Safeties
Rochester: Good
Case Western: Another good school for CS program</p>
<p>All of these schools require certain compromises. If Reed is otherwise a good fit (and you sure sound like a Reedie to me) I would not rule it out just because they don’t have a department with the label “Computer Science”.</p>
<p>Reed has a significantly higher admit rate than any of the other reaches on your list. Its Linguistics department appears to be stronger than most of the less selective schools. I’d apply, then sort out the pros and cons after all decisions roll in.</p>
<p>But it’s mid-December so time’s getting short.</p>
<p>Reed’s computer science is in the math department; current computing course offerings:</p>
<p>Mathematics 121 - Introduction to Computing
Mathematics 382 - Algorithms and Data Structures
Mathematics 384 - Programming Language Design and Implementation
Mathematics 441 - Topics in Computer Science Theory
Mathematics 442 - Topics in Computer Science Systems
Mathematics 443 - Topics in Advanced Algorithms</p>
<p>Light compared to CS degree school offerings.</p>
<p>Reed has its Center for Advanced Computing; a current project studies artificial life:</p>