Hi I’m currently a junior in high school living in New York State and have been taking Chinese for 8 years with straight As. I’m looking to major (or possibly minor) in Chinese and curious as to which schools have the best Mandarin Chinese programs. Thanks!
Hamilton administers Associated Colleges in China and appears to show an especially strong commitment to instruction in Chinese language and culture:
https://www.chinainsight.info/education/general/231-associated-colleges-in-china-a-hidden-gem.html
Middlebury would also be excellent, as would Williams.
Cornell, Stanford and Yale would be strong larger school options.
For less selective alternatives, look into Lawrence and Valparaiso.
Perhaps you may inquire at these schools / departments to verify the use of Mandarin:
http://www.chinese.hku.hk/main/undergraduate/bachelor-of-arts/
http://www.shss.ust.hk/ug/major/gcs/
You would be an international student, but the costs are not especially expensive compared to US schools.
@merc81 and @ucbalumnus have given you excellent advice, @buffalo124
For languages it’s hard to pick any school over Middlebury.
What are your stats?
What’s your EFC and what’s your parents’ budget?
Look into Critical Language Flagships.
WKU + honors college would likely be a safety.
@MYOS1634 3.7 GPA 1350 SAT. Not sure of my family’s EFC but our budget is around $25k-35k a year
Tufts offers 6 levels of Chinese courses, a large number of Chinese culture courses, a summer immersion program,
a fall semester study abroad program in China and a spring semester study abroad program in Hong Kong. There is a high demand for language courses at Tufts (so they tend to be offered more frequently) because all liberal arts students have a 6 semesters of language/culture core requirement and IR majors (one of the largest majors along with CS) have a 8 semester language/culture requirement.
I am guessing that Georgetown may have a strong Chinese department because they have a large, strong interdisciplinary IR program as well.
Truman State offers six levels of Chinese and a pretty complete Asian Studies major (Chinese concentration). Again as a safety.
If your current level is higher than College Level 6, then you probably need a university that has a graduate program or an unusually strong major.
(I’m sure you’ll hear about all the wonderful reach schools we have in the US: Tufts, Middlebury, Georgetown… so I’m trying to think of schools that would be agood fit academically while being likelies or safeties).
You could read through here for further ideas:
http://colleges.startclass.com/d/o/Chinese-Language-and-Literature
If your knowledge of the Chinese language comes from being a heritage speaker (i.e. learned speaking and listening from parents in early childhood), consider also schools which offer courses for heritage speakers. Example at http://guide.berkeley.edu/courses/chinese/ (the 1/10/100X courses are for heritage Mandarin speakers, while the 1/10/100Y courses are for heritage speakers of non-Mandarin versions of Chinese). Consider also the offering of advanced level course work beyond the sixth semester level (101, 102, 111, 112 from the linked page).
Decades ago, Pitt had one of the better Chinese libraries (as did Harvard ) in the country… More focused at the graduate level. Yale also had a strong program. If you have a really solid start, you should probably consider schools that have strong graduate programs so that you don’t exhaust the school 's offerings, however excellent they may be.
I’m thinking you should go to a school in a city with lots of Chinese, like NYC, LA, or SF. That way you’ll be exposed to lots of Chinese writing and Mandarin language in real-world situations.
If you are looking for “professional level proficiency”, then The Language Flagship Program provides some options that are more accessible than the options listed above. .