<p>Your list looks good, and I would agree with these suggestions. However, the list is also extremely competitive. These days, you really need to include schools that are more of a wide range regarding selectivity. I hesitate to say "safety," because apparently there is no such thing any longer. Classics are interesting in many schools. Please widen your range!</p>
<p>Penn has an excellent classics department. I wish I had taken more classes in it. However Penn has a severe paucity in the lefty vegan types (henceforth referred to as hippies ;)) now as a right-of-center fellow, this is something that drew me to Penn. But it might not be as good a "fit" for your D. I would still say it is worth visiting when you hit up bryn mawr and other Philly area schools.</p>
<p>^ Still, with 10,000 undergrads--including 6400 in the College of Arts and Sciences--she should be able to find more than a few like-minded souls at Penn. :) In fact, maybe almost as many as at Bryn Mawr and other LACs.</p>
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Classics are interesting in many schools. Please widen your range!
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<p>There's the rub, when it comes to kids who have a great deal of Latin and/or Greek going in to the process. D had a lot of trouble finding non-reach, non-religious schools with the depth of courses that she needed. At some places, there were perhaps a handful of language courses that were left for her to take, not nearly enough for someone intending to major in the language(s) itself, rather than Classical Civilization. Some of these students have 6+ years of Latin under their belts, and 3 or more of Ancient Greek. They come in at the 300 (and in some cases 400) level, a level at which the course offerings start narrowing greatly at most schools.</p>
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<p>The only Ivy that doesn't have a strong program in the Classics (from a research perspective) is Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I actually think Brown has a fairly considerable "snooty" feel to it. Columbia and Cornell probably have the least amount of snootiness, but at Cornell the feel is very middle class and bourgeoisie, which doesn't sound exactly like what your daughter is looking for. For instance, at Cornell the students wear hockey jerseys to the hockey games. At Brown, the students get dressed up in their outfits as if they are Brooklyn hipsters.</p>
<p>Although Cornell certainly has that subset on campus too, and being a Classics major, it would not be very hard to find it.</p>
<p>And Ithaca basically invented the vegetarian/vegan movement. There's even an organic farm right on campus, even if the actual agricultural science majors at Cornell tend to look down on the organic farmers as a bunch of rich liberal goodies.</p>
<p>Dilmun</a> Hill</p>
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Some of these students have 6+ years of Latin under their belts, and 3 or more of Ancient Greek. They come in at the 300 (and in some cases 400) level, a level at which the course offerings start narrowing greatly at most schools.
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<p>If that's the case, she really needs to attend a large research university. Here's the Cornell listing for Classics:</p>
<p>Courses</a> of Study 2007-2008: College of Arts and Sciences</p>
<p>I'd very much like to find some good non-"reach" schools that can offer D what she wants in the way of classics. Although it's still a little early to say, we're expecting her stats to make her competitive at a lot of top schools, but it makes me extremely nervous not to have some easier admits on the list. That's one factor that makes the Seven Sisters attractive: although they're clearly quality schools, their acceptance rates are pretty high. Bryn Mawr, for example, was 44% last year, and projecting out D's PSAT scores (an iffy proposition, I know), she should be in the top quartile of SAT scores there. Still, that's far from a "safety." Michigan, Berkeley, and UNC-Chapel Hill all have strong classics programs and admit large classes of varying stats, but again, these are not exactly "safeties." Hadn't considered U. of Washington, will take a look. I am trying to interest D in Wisconsin-Madison which would appeal to her lefty-vegan side, seems to have a fairly good classics program, is a somewhat easier admit than Michigan, Berkeley, or UNC-Chapel Hill, and for us as MN residents has the added advantage of tuition reciprocity so we'd pay in-state rates. Unfortunately, it's in the Midwest, where she least wants to be. (I do appreciate the suggestion about the intimacy of the classics programs even at these big mega-universities, Philoglossia; I got my undergrad degree in philosophy in Michigan and the department had almost as many world-class faculty as it did undergrad majors, and I hear classics is similar). </p>
<p>Thanks for the specific suggestions. Any others, especially as to non-"reach" schools (particularly non-religious ones)?</p>
<p>Also, does anyone know when the new NRC grad program rankings are coming out? Those currently circulating are from 1995 and a lot can change in 13 years.</p>
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<p>Thew new NRC rankings come out this fall. Nobody has any idea what they will say. The whole world could get turned upside down.</p>
<p>D was looking hard at Boston University - she said their course offerings were pretty good. While it's certainly not a safety for anyone, it sounds like it could be a match for your D rather than a real reach: BU</a> | Department of Classical Studies. One advantage of a university over an LAC in such a situation is that undergraduates can usually take graduate-level courses, and that provides more options.</p>
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<p>"Snootiness" is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. Sometimes it's as simple as the attitude of a student tour guide. Some are really off-putting. Same with admissions counselors. I know there's a fine line between selling the genuine virtues of your institution and over-hyped puffery, but it's more than just that. At some schools you pick up the vibe that people just think they're very, very special, that they're far from certain whether you qualify for that magic circle, and they're doing you some kind of extraordinary favor even to entertain the possibility. At other schools the tour guides and admissions counselors are much more open, candid, down-to-earth people, genuinely interested in prospective students and wanting to help them through the process and provide honest information whether or not they'll ever make the finish line. And it may just be the luck of the draw; very likely there can be some of each type at the same institution. But D's "snootiness" radar goes off when she encounters even a faint whiff of it, and she wants nothing more to do with the institution. Are we just hypersensitive, or is this a recurring theme?</p>
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Are we just hypersensitive, or is this a recurring theme?
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<p>No. I don't think your D's "snooty-meter" is that unusual.</p>
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<p>Tufts is an interesting suggestion for undergrad classics. It does appear to be quite deep in the field. But judging by median SAT scores and acceptance rate, is highly selective, only a notch or so below Brown and Northwestern. Yet its peer assessment rating as reported by US News is not stellar, only 3.6---not nearly as good as Michigan (4.5) or Berkeley (4.8) which are more on a par with Brown (4.4), Cornell (4.6) or Columbia (4.6), but whose acceptance rates are higher and whose median SAT scores are lower than Tufts. I'll admit that as an academic, I'm inclined to weigh peer assessment more heavily than others might, on the theory that colleagues at other schools usually have a pretty good idea of faculty quality, and that should count for a lot.</p>
<p>But what's up with Tufts? How can it be that with a less-than-stellar peer assessment score, it still attracts such a large applicant pool and such a strong class? I've always assumed this is partly because a lot of students who want to get into Harvard or MIT, or other Ivies for that matter, use Tufts as a back-up, so in a sense it draws applicants out of proportion to its own strengths. Is that fair? If not, is there some other explanation? Frankly apart from geography (which in D's mind would favor tufts), it's hard to see why Tufts would be a better bet for undergrad classics than Berkeley or Michigan with their truly outstanding faculties. Can anyone enlighten me on this?</p>
<p>Same question about BU as about Tufts. Like tufts, BU appears to have some real depth in classics. Although they're not quite at the same level (Tufts being more competitive), BU also seems to be quite selective, certainly disproportionate to its peer assessment score of 3.4 which puts it behind a lot of Big Ten schools that I think of as not being terribly selective at all, e.g., Purdue 3.8, Indiana 3.7, Ohio State 3.7, Minnesota 3.7, Iowa 3.6, Michigan State 3.5. Some of these Big Ten schools are in the 70-80% acceptance range. What gives? Is BU overrated just because of its location? (Certainly D would choose it over these other schools on that basis alone). Are the Big Ten schools just horribly underrated by applicants? Is there some flaw in the peer assessment rating? I'm genuinely curious. </p>
<p>Again, my guess is that a lot of it has to do with BU being widely seen as an acceptable back-up for applicants to Ivies and other prestigious northeast schools, allowing it to draw a disproportionately large and well qualified applicant pool relative to where it would stand on its own merits. That, and Boston's reputation as a great college town. Fair? Or am I missing something?</p>
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Is BU overrated just because of its location?
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<p>Yes. Like NYU, BU was a school that enjoyed a mediocre reputation thirty years ago. Both NYU and BU have leveraged their desirable locations into acceptance rates that are out-of-whack with the overall quality of the product.</p>
<p>Hopkins has a strong classics program (mid-atlantic), but atmosphere may not fit.</p>
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<p>bclinton, My feeling is that although there are unquestionably some smart and talented kids at BU, overall the academic and intellectual level of the undergraduate school is middle-range. For Tufts, I would say it varies by department. I'd put it a notch or two above BU, and for some disciplines like IR, superb.</p>
<p>Agree that snobbiness is subjective. My son's reaction to the tourguides and information session leaders at various colleges would be diametrically opposed to others' perception. Our experience with admissions at Brown was horrific, but we knew, logically if not emotionally, that it didn't reflect the real attitude of the school, the faculty, the administration or the student body so it stayed on the list.</p>
<p>It reminds me of what people used to say about subway lines in New York: everyone thinks their own line is safe and friendly. But the other guy's line is full of thieves and murderers. :)</p>
<p>In the college research and selection process I don't think that hyper-sensitivity is a bad thing. There are dozens of colleges that would be good choices so there's nothing wrong with eliminating for any and no reason (as my Manhattan coop board used to say). The only qualifier here is that your daughter has a specific wish list in the Classics area, so she may have to weigh her tradeoffs.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, Tufts has established a solid reputation as a strong safety school and rarely applicant's first choice.</p>
<p>Tufts Syndrome!</p>
<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergraduate Classics</p>
<p>Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges
California-Berkeley, University of
Yale University
Princeton University
Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of
Bryn Mawr College
Texas-Austin, University of
Brown University
Columbia University
Pennsylvania, University of
Cornell University
Stanford University
Chicago, University of
Illinois,Urbana-Champaign, University of
Duke University
Johns Hopkins University
California.Los Angeles, University of
Indiana University-Bloomington
Boston University
Catholic University of America, The
Fordham University
Vanderbilt University</p>
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<p>Ruggs recommendations, Classics.</p>
<p>Barnard.
Bryn Mawr.
Chicago.
Columbia.
Dallas.
Drew.
Duke.
Georgetown.
Harvard.
Holy cross.
Johns Hopkins.
Kalamazoo.
MacAllister.
Michigan.
Middlebury.
New York University.
North Carolina.
Northwestern.
University of Pennsylvania.
Princeton.
Skidmore.
Stanford.
Swarthmore.
Trinity.
Tufts.
Williams.
Yale.</p>
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