Colleges without Core Curriculum? Also, Linguistics major looking to transfer

College Search & Selection
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<p>Okay I know everyone has their own ideas about what a core curriculum is, what distribution requirements are, and all that. But by core curriculum I mean you don't have to specifically take a math course, a composition course, etc.</p>

<p>I'm currently a freshman at Indiana University and I'm looking to transfer. Here, I tested out of all core requirements -- math, english/composition, and foreign language. I'm trying to avoid transferring to a school where I will have to take these courses (particularly math. or sciences). I know Brown has no core curriculum, and I am applying there. I am also applying to NYU. I believe they do have these requirements, but they also have a top linguistics program.</p>

<p>I'm looking to a third school to apply to. Something safer than NYU or Brown. One I am sure to get into. If I could go to a school where I didn't have to take required courses, I would be in heaven. But I'm still considering schools that do.</p>

<p>Here is some information about me academically.</p>

<p>High School GPA: 3.9
- took most demanding courses offered at my school, but my school
offered few AP courses and lacked an IB program entirely
- I was not in the top 10% of my class. I easily could have been, it just
didn't matter a whole lot to me. I think I was in the 11th percentile.</p>

<p>2220 SAT
-780 Critical Reading
-790 Writing
-650 Math (clearly not my forte)
-(This is a 1430 on the old SAT scale)</p>

<p>AP Scores
- Lit & Comp: 5
- US History: 3</p>

<p>1st semester college GPA: 3.94
- 4 A's, 1 A- 15 credit hours</p>

<p>My high school ECs are lacking but improving in college. I know a school like Brown weighs heavily on ECs. My first semester here I took four 100-level courses and one 200-level. This semester, I am taking two 100-levels, a 200-level, and two 300-levels. Much more challenging but I expect to do just as well.</p>

<p>I am looking for a (relatively) small liberal arts college, preferably in the New England/Middle States area. North Carolina and area would be pleasant too. Not in the middle of nowhere.
I don't like the party atmosphere at my current college, but I'm hardly looking for a dry campus either. I just want a school where people are actually there for the academics, as I currently go to the #5 party school in the nation. A Linguistics program is a must, and I want to partner my Linguistics with something along the lines of anthropology/folklore/ethnography.</p>

<p>If anyone could help???</p>

2

<p>Amherst College -- you could take linguistics courses at UMass though the Five College exchange.</p>

<p>Vassar College -- a bit remote but a serious student body</p>

3

<p>1) Small Liberal Arts
2) Safer than Brown and NYU
3) Has linguistics - hard to find at a liberal arts college</p>

<p>Amherst doesn't have a linguistics major.</p>

<p>Hampshire is the only one I can think of, and you'd still be taking some linguistics classes at UMASS</p>

<p>Is Wellesley harder to get into than NYU? it has everything you want.</p>

<p>Lawrence (Wisconsin) is not in your desired location but meets 1-3. </p>

<p>Rochester is a bit bigger than a small liberal arts college. </p>

<p>William and Mary is a big liberal arts college, not sure how hard OOS</p>

<p>Swarthmore is hard to get into.
Bryn Mawr and Haverford offer a linguistics major through Swarthmore.</p>

4

<p>Rochester is only slightly bigger than a LAC (4200 undergrads; 2000 grads). It is "LAC-like" in that it has a real focus on undergraduate teaching. Some of the most distinguished faculty members fight to teach intro courses.</p>

<p>You may, however, still be required to take a writing seminar, but that's the only required course, and there are 20 or so different topics to choose from. I'm not sure if it's required of transfer students. No one at Rochester can "test out" of that requirement.</p>

5

<p>Honestly, the school I am at know has a student body of 40,000 so a school of less than 10,000 probably wouldn't be bad</p>

6

<p>Check out University of Rochester.</p>

7

<p>Johns Hopkins University</p>

8

<p>I know someone mentioned Vassar above, but they have a really small transfer rate, so definitely not a sure thing.</p>

9

<p>My D seems interested in linguistics, so I've been checking around and "getting educated" over the past year. </p>

<p>The problem with schools that are too small is that linguistics isn't the most popular major, so you need to have a certain size school just to get enough students to offer enough courses in the major. Alternatively you need to find a LAC that is part of a consortium or has cross-registration so that you can take classes at another school. Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Penn have the Quaker Consortium. Swarthmore and Penn have linguistics, and Swarthmore has more linguistics professors (3 or 4) than any other LAC in the nation. Amherst, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Hampshire and UMASS have the 5-college consortium, and UMASS, while not full of high achieving undergrads, is considered by some to be the best linguistics department in the nation. Amherst, Smith and Mt. Holyoke don't offer a linguistics major. Hampshire is basically a make your own major school and seems to have the potential to be a very good experience for a motivated student supplemented with some linguistics classes. It should also be a safety. Wellesley has cross-registration with MIT, which has a great linguistics department with hardly any undergrads in it. They graduated 2-3 majors per year, and Wellesley even fewer. </p>

<p>It seems better and less complicated to me to find a university large enough to offer serious linguistics.</p>

<p>Ivys: All but Columbia and Princeton have linguistics - You already have Brown.
Other Privates: Johns Hopkins, Rochester, Georgetown, Duke, BU and just recently added Carnegie Mellon.
Publics with substantial OOS: William & Mary, Virginia, UNC, Maryland, Delaware, UMASS, UConn, Pittsburgh.
McGill (Montreal) and Toronto have great linguistics.</p>

<p>Given what you said in the other post about wanting serious students but easier to get in than NYU and Brown, I'd add Rochester as a likely and McGill as a safety since Canada is all stats based and it seems like you "got the goods". If those are too cold, I'd consider Toronto (not as cold as Montreal and less snow than Rochester), Virginia, William & Mary, Maryland or
Pittsburgh. </p>

<p>BTW, Some of these schools require SATIIs of freshmen. I don't know if you need SATIIs as a transfer. </p>

<p>Not a criticism, but I'm just curious why you went to Indiana in the first place. Maybe others can learn from your experience.</p>

<p>Good Luck</p>

10

<p>Whatever in the world made you think that Columbia didn't have Linguistics??</p>

<p>Columbia</a> College Bulletin</p>

11

<p>I'm no expert, so maybe you can teach me something. However, I observe from clicking on each tab</p>

<p>1) Departmental Info: There is not a single professor on that page that is a genuine linguistics scholar. They are all scholars of related disciplines and seem to be "covering" the linguistics classes. </p>

<p>2) Undergraduate requirements: It says
"The special concentration in linguistics is not as of itself sufficient for graduation. It must be taken in conjunction with a major or a full concentration in another discipline." </p>

<p>Correct me if I'm wrong, but my read is that they don't have enough "beef" to have a regular concentration. Compared to NYU or Brown, it doesn't seem like serious linguistics department.</p>

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<p>I'm no expert in Linguistics and certainly won't attempt to teach you. I merely responded to your statement that:</p>

<p>"Ivys: All but Columbia and Princeton have linguistics"</p>

<p>CC does list it as a department and presumably students take courses in it and gain useful knowledge. I looked at NYU's department and without doubt they are stronger and deeper -- something I did not really expect. I know well that some NYU departments are significantly stronger than CC including math which I do know from first hand experience. Anyway, thanks for your clarification.</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
CC does list it as a department

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yes, but the department died a long time ago. Now they offer few courses. There supposedly have been some efforts to revive it, but they've failed. (Also, I believe you can only get a ling minor at Columbia now, though I'm not too sure on that.)</p>

<p>
[quote]
Other Privates: Johns Hopkins, Rochester, Georgetown, Duke, BU and just recently added Carnegie Mellon.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>JHU has a linguistics department? Last I checked, it didn't.</p>

<p>To the OP: there are a lot of great ling universities. By the way, one of the greatest linguists today, George Lakoff (now a professor at Berkeley), graduated from Indiana U with a PhD in linguistics.</p>

<p>Profile</a> : George Lakoff - Linguistics Department, UC Berkeley</p>

<p>At any rate, if you really want to transfer, here are some great schools for ling:</p>

<p>Publics: Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, Ohio State, UMass-Amherst, UIUC</p>

<p>Privates: Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Cornell, Penn</p>

<p>Funnily enough, Gourman places Indiana U #6 for publics in undergrad ling, and top 15 overall.</p>

<p>UCLA
U Chicago
UC Berkeley
U Penn
Cornell
UC San Diego
Yale
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
Stanford
MIT
U Michigan Ann Arbor
Indiana U Bloomington
U Wisconsin Madison
U Washington
NYU
Ohio State
U Rochester
Harvard
U Hawaii Manoa
U Kansas
Rice
U Texas Austin
U Pittsburgh
U Arizona
U Minnesota
UC Irvine
U Florida
U Iowa
U Mass Amherst
UC Santa Barbara</p>

<p>And here's the NRC ranking:</p>

<p>NRC</a> Rankings in Each of 41 Areas</p>

<p>If you're looking for LACs, Swarthmore is probably the best for linguistics, though it isn't really "safe."</p>

14

<p>"JHU has a linguistics department? Last I checked, it didn't."</p>

<p>You are right, but they have a Cognitive Science department with linguistics as one of the concentration areas, decent linguistics offerings and actual linguistics professors. It's a bit unusual but it's hard not to call that a serious department.</p>

15

<p>Well I live in Indiana, and I was pretty much forced into it by my parents because my dad is a disabled veteran so the veteran's auxiliary pays for most of tuition. and even though the linguistics program here is pretty good, i hate the school</p>

16

<p>Ohio State? Though it's 1) in Ohio and 2) very big, it has a great linguistics department.</p>

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<p>yeah both of those pretty well kill OSU for me</p>

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<p>

Ill</a> Communications</p>

<p>I agree with the suggestion of Swat. It also offers cross-registration with Penn, which has extremely strong programs in linguistics, anthro, and folklore.</p>

<p>If you're looking at NC, the best school for linguistics is NC State, which unfortunately doesn't meet your criteria. UNC Chapel Hill might be worth looking into, though. It's considerably larger than what you're looking for, but linguistics, anthro, and folklore are strong. UCLA recently stole Carolina's best linguist. :( UNC drops residency as a factor for transfer admissions, so it's pretty transfer friendly. Although it's large, Carolina can seem surprisingly small. All of the courses I've had over there were relatively small (< 30), and I have NEVER visited without accidentally running into someone I know.</p>

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<p>Hamilton has no core and Colgate has only one core class</p>

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<p>Definitely check out University of Rochester. It’s in a small city, has 1 course requirement and is not a complete party school but students do still have fun.</p>