Hey guys, I was really hoping that some of you would be able to help steer me in the right direction. I will graduate soon and I wish to study ancient languages such as koine and Latin. I know that i can apply myself, I currently have taken and take Ap history classes and get 100s both in class and on language exams. These two subjects seem to be my only hope due to my Math learning disability. I need a practical application please! I cant be a clergy member because I dont belong to a faith with a paid clergy please help me! Thanks if anyone gets back to me.
(1) All colleges will look at your GPA, and most want test scores as well. You’ll get better suggestions here if we know your weighted/unweighted GPA, class rank, and any SAT or ACT scores you have.
(2) What can you afford to pay? Will you need substantial financial aid or merit scholarships?
(3) What are you looking for in colleges in terms of size (2000 students? 40,000 students?), setting (rural, suburban, rural), and location (which regions of the US)?
(4) Which state do you live in? You may have excellent options among your state’s public universities.
You’ve expressed an interest in ancient languages, but what are you interested in studying? Greek and Latin are typically taught in classics departments, but most classics departments teach Attic Greek, not Koine, which is more often found in religion departments (it’s sometimes labeled “biblical Greek”). Alternately, perhaps you’d like to major in something like history and study Latin and Greek along the way.
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You’ll need a strong classics department and perhaps a test optional university.
(Unless you already have a high level of proficiency in ancient Greek I wouldn’t worry about koine quite yet).
Holy Cross would match what you want but will require a very strong academics.
Also why do you think ancient languages are the only major for a student with a math LD?
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I dont think that ancient languages are the only major for student with a math LD its just what i think I can pursue and excell in honestly. I saw an earlier comment about majoring in history and studying koine and Latin on the way. That way I can deepen my understanding of ancient texts. I really want to thank you for replying to my post because im totally lost, thanks so much.
I’ll study Latin and Greek on the way and Major in History I guess. Hopefully I find a classics department that Offers Koine. Thank you for replying to my post and reaching out to me. I appreciate any feedback.
It’s great if you love ancient languages and want to study that. Go for it. And, I’d also add that there’s no need to feel limited to those because of a math learning disability. There are lots of majors/jobs that don’t require math skills.
Approximately, how much aid, if any, will you require? Lots of schools might be a great fit for a student and completely unaffordable. It’s all very complicated. You might be a great candidate for aid or merit scholarship at one school and not at all at another. Also, what is your home state? If money is an issue, looking there will certainly be a place to start.
If you math LD affected your test scores, then googling “test-optional colleges” is a great start. Many terrific schools don’t even require test results and will evaluate your application without test results. I agree Holy Cross would be great school to research. You indicate you have a religious affiliation where clergy are not paid. HC is a Catholic school, and, to my mind, a non-Catholic student really has no reason to have any apprehension about attending, many non-Catholics do attend. I think this is generally true at other Catholic colleges/universities and ones affiliated with other faiths as well, although this is obviously a personal decision for you.
I know very little about your areas of interest. Here are a few I would suggest you research. If female, then maybe Mount Holyoke, which is part of the Five College Consortium with Smith, Hampshire, Amherst, and U Mass Amherst. Students can take classes and take advantage of other opportunities at the member schools, so I’d think you could also take classes at Amherst and/or UMA. You’d have to see how this works. You could also apply to those other schools; I just put MH because the others require test results, and Amherst is extremely competitive. But you could look into those as well. And you’d have to see how many and what classes you could take at the other schools.
Other schools that pop into my mind for you to explore: Brandeis, GWU, Reed College, NYU, St. John’s University (NY). Reed is a very intellectual school (note that it has a very political student body, if that is a plus or minus for you). We visited a handful of years ago, and I believe that students could satisfy the math requirement with language classes. But you’d have to double-check that. Unfortunately, these schools are very expensive, and for the most part offer little aid. I know that is the case at NYU.
University of Pennsylvania actually told us that if a student wants to study a language it does not teach, it will find someone to teach them. So, of course, that’s great. But Penn is an Ivy League school and very, very competitive, especially in RD. If that’s not a realistic possibility, I wonder if you could explore another likely school in the Philadelphia area and cross registering for some classes at Penn. I have no idea if that would work.
Middlebury is also a terrific languages school, but also very competitive. And here is a list of top classics schools:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124716
If money is an issue, you can also google “colleges that meet full financial need.” Holy Cross is on that list as well, and maybe you could look for schools that are there and are also test optional. Note that schools that claim to meet full financial need might also be “need aware” and might not, in the end, offer sufficient aid for you. But it’s a good place to start.
Good luck!
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Thank you theres a lot of helpful advice in this comment i appreciate this. Ill check out everything. My weighted GpA is above a 4.0 because of Aps and Honors so hopefully that helps!
Yes, look for strong classics departments. Also, possibly medieval studies programs. Just about any classics department will have someone who is familiar with koine, but you may need to dig a bit deeper for strength in the subject area.
Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, and U Penn have cross-registration. Students at Bryn Mawr & Haverford can major at either campus, so check both of those out. Getting between BMC and HC is a snap. It is a bit trickier to get to Swat or Penn, but students interested in offerings at the other institutions do manage to pull that off - especially the ones who ditch classics for Archaeology and then decide they need one of the other ancient languages taught at Penn. 
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University Latin classes are a dime a dozen. Koine Greek is best described as “common” Greek, and any decent classics department will have a class in biblical translation. Probably two, as you’ll translate the Old Testament one semester and the New Testament the other semester. These are usually upper level classes, because you’ll need to have a good foundation in Attic Greek first. For what it’s worth, Koine Greek is much easier to translate in comparison.
As to what you can do with it, it’ll be the same as any other humanities major. Maybe nothing, but you will have learned a bunch of valuable stuff. As to where you can go, I don’t put much stock in “rankings” unless grad school is your goal. It doesn’t sound like that’s necessarily in your plans based on what you wrote. Most Classics programs should be able to meet the short goals you stated. Be aware you’ll also have to study ancient civilizations and archaeology. I’d recommend UMBC, because I went there (they call it Ancient Studies there, by the way), and wouldn’t count out the religious colleges.
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If your beliefs are aligned with the college’s mission, you might look at Wheaton in IL
https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/programs/modern-and-classical-languages/classical-languages—greek-latin-hebrew/classical-languages-courses/
They are not test-optional, but admitted student stats are not stratospherically high. If your learning disability is documented and you have strengths that counterbalance the weaknesses (which it appears you do), and if you are a fit in terms of your beliefs and values, you may be fine even if you don’t hit all the stat benchmarks.
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You should look at the University of Cincinnati. This is one of the cases where a universities level in an individual subject is way above the university as a whole.
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Classics departments will teach you Attic Greek to begin with, but there are plenty of works written in Koine that can be studied in the Classics curriculum. Polybius and Plutarch for example are written in Koine.
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