Should I apply as a Linguistics or Anthropology major?

Applying to College
1

Demographics: White non-binary student, northeast, competitive public high school.

Hooks: none? I have a few legacies here and there, but I don’t think lgbtq+ counts.

Intended Major(s): Linguistics or Anthropology- Which one I am more qualified for, admissions-wise?

ACT/SAT: likely not submitting, but this may change (waiting on test scores rn).

GPA and Rank: Upward Trend- 3.55 unweighted, but I went from a 3.4 freshman year to a 3.8 junior year. 3.9 weighted, but once again, upward trend.

Coursework: My school doesn’t offer APs freshman year and only offers a select few for sophomore year. Most of the APs also have a lot of pre-requisites that make it difficult to take the class.

Sophomore- AP Human Geo

Junior- APUSH

Senior- planning on taking AP Latin, AP Gov, and AP Lit

Awards:

Will be earning my Eagle Scout Award

Eagle Project- completed project focusing on ecological biodiversity of a young ecosystem. Created a forest management plan, a patio, a large kiosk, an environmental remediation project, etc. Basically, I took a piece of devastated land and turned it into a nature preserve.

Extracurriculars:

High School Marching Band- 4 years, we are a top ten band in my state. I have a year of leadership (section leader).

High School Jazz Band- 4 years. We have gone to national jazz competitions.

High School Wind Ensemble- this is a class, but we played at Carnegie Hall.

Music Mentoring- president and vice president of a non-profit focusing on giving music lessons to students in need.

BSA Scouts- all through high school. Plus Eagle Scout.

Volunteering- 150+ Hours over 4 years.

Should I apply as a linguistics or anthropology major? Is there another major you might recommend?

I have an interest in cognitive and neurolinguistics. All the other linguistics applicants I see tend to have a ton of language EC’s, will a lack of those hurt me?

Looking at schools such as Brandeis (reach), Syracuse (match), and UVM (safety/likely).

2

It won’t make any difference which one you put down as your intended major: afaik those schools don’t accept by major, and both subjects are in the same general section of the uni (Arts/SocialSciences). At most of them you don’t formally declare your major until second year- if you are a Junior in HS that’s 3 years from now.

Read up on what the majors involve and put the most interesting one as your intended major (or put ‘undecided’). Take some classes in both and see what suits you.

2 Likes
3

Thanks for clarifying. I had suspicions that they did not directly admit by major, but I was unsure.

Honestly, at least at the moment, I find linguistics more interesting. What’s holding me back from telling colleges about my interest in studying linguistics is my lack of linguistics-related extracurriculars and academics. I got a B/B+ in freshman and sophomore Latin. I mean, I worked hard, and now I’m moving up to the AP level, but it still worries me. And I haven’t taken a heaping pile of languages…which is what every other linguistics applicant seems to have.

That being said, linguistics is the study and science of language, which IMO is bit different from foreign languages/culture studies.

1 Like
4

All the more reason to read the major descriptions carefully for each school- esp for a subject like linguistics!

Be the best student you can be, do activities that are genuinely interesting and meaningful to you, investigate subject areas that you are interested in- then get into college and try them on for size. You can be interested in- and take classes in- subjects beyond your primary academic interest. Keep an eye out for hybrid programs-you may find that your actual interest is at the crossroads of two subject areas (eg, anthro-linguistics- how language develops in different human societies).

tl;dr- just keep following your real interests and see where they take you.

1 Like
5

My daughter was just accepted as a Linguistics major and she is interested in either a minor or dual major in Anthropology.

The college she will be attending has a pretty small Linguistics program that gives students some flexibility to create their own path, which was very attractive to her. I don’t have any idea if choosing linguistics as a major made a difference in her acceptance. It’s possible they are trying to grow their program but I find it hard to believe it was a make or break factor. It probably wasn’t a factor at all.

She doesn’t have a ton of world language courses or related ECs. She completed a year of Mandarin and she’s finishing up her third year of self-study Korean this semester as a homeschooler. Her linguistic-related ECs included one year of Latin club in 9th grade and some volunteer online captioning.

My feeling is that, unless you are trying to get into one of the top linguistic programs in the country, it doesn’t matter whether you took a lot of world language. Maybe it doesn’t even matter for the top linguistic programs. What’s important is that you’re a strong applicant for the university. And, as you say, linguistics isn’t necessarily about world languages. It’s about language.