<p>Hello, all, this is my first post here...I am a rising senior and I will soon be needing to finalize the list of colleges that I will apply to. The major that I am interested in, linguistics, is not offered at many liberal arts colleges, but thankfully I have found some great ones that do offer it. Pomona and Swarthmore are both schools that offer my major and that I am very interested in, but they are, of course, super selective, and there's no guarantee that I'll get into either of them. I am also thinking of applying to Scripps, which is a member of the Claremont Colleges along with Pomona, and Haverford and Bryn Mawr, which are part of the tri-college consortium with Swarthmore. None of those three have their own linguistics departments, but they offer the possibility of cross-majoring by taking the necessary courses at their affiliated college. Does anybody know how easy it is to cross-major in either of these consortiums? Or to cross-major in general? Is it a hassle, or relatively convenient? Thanks!</p>
<p>I’d suggest asking this on one of the Claremount school boards… Good luck! :)</p>
<p>why do you have to take it at a one of those focused “liberal arts” colleges? that seems like an unnecessary criteria given the kind of major you want.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I know exactly what you mean, but I’m not fixed on those schools or anything like that. They are just colleges that I really like and that I would consider attending, as long as I am able to fulfill my major there. But I am applying to plenty of universities, too. Is that what you had in mind? I don’t think that a liberal arts school will necessarily force me to be less focused on my major. I’ve seen relatively equal distribution requirements at liberal arts colleges and universities. Indeed, the college that I am applying to that has the strictest general education requirements, U Chicago, is a university.</p>
<p>I am a Bryn Mawr student and I would advise against applying to Bryn Mawr or Haverford in order to major at Swarthmore. Taking classes at Swarthmore is a huge hassle. The van ride takes 40 minutes and the van only runs once every 90 minutes, so you should expect to budget two hours between a Bryn Mawr/Haverford and Swarthmore class. Cross-registering between Bryn Mawr and Haverford, on the other hand, is a lot easier and more common because there are two buses running between the two schools all day, and the ride only takes 10 minutes. You also cannot participate in lotteries at Swarthmore, so you cannot take popular classes there or small seminars.</p>
<p>That being said, there typically are one or two students who major at Swarthmore every year.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the help! So I guess I probably shouldn’t plan on applying to either Bryn or Haverford…:(</p>
<p>i suggest you call the college and ask them your question…</p>
<p>but - i think you should apply to pomona and swarthmore. even though you mentioned that you think you won’t get accepted, i still think that it’s reasonable to apply to some of your “dream” college. Unless </p>
<p>1) you don’t have the money for application fee.
or
2) an example (a person with 65 average applying to ivy)</p>
<p>I still plan to apply to Pomona and Swarthmore, sorry if I didn’t make that clear. I just meant that they are both super selective, so I may not get into either, whereas I definitely think I can get into Bryn Mawr and Scripps.</p>