I am hoping that some gems might be out there that we are missing. My dd is only a jr, so this is not a late in the game search. Our budget is very tight. We really need to try to keep our contribution to near $10,000 yr (parental contribution). Our EFC, however, is almost 3x that. So, merit $$ is necessary.
The quandary we are running into is finding a foreign language dept that can actually meet dd’s abilities and goals in Russian and French. Most of the high scholarship schools we have been investigating have graduation goals for their students of around high-intermediate/low-advanced level of proficiency. She is already matching that in French and her Russian tutor has a goal of mid/high-intermediate by the end of 11th grade. For example, when we met with the French dept at one high merit $$ school, the description of their graduation objectives for their graduates is what she is currently doing with her French tutor and she still has most of 11th and 12th grade to go.
It seems like the depts that meet her academics needs are significantly beyond our ability to afford. There is no option for our increasing our contribution. Most dept scholarships appear to fund study abroad and not regular UG tuition. Our in-state options are not a match. We have found a couple where the French dept can meet her needs but the Russian dept is limited.
FSU is one we are starting to research.
(Also, merit based strongly on ECs/community service/leadership are unlikely. She was incredibly ill her sophomore year and her ECs from last yr are pretty non-existent. She has been diagnosed with an chronic inflammatory auto-immune disease and is currently on powerful meds and her health is starting to improve, though she is still pretty tired most of the time.)
Are you located in Florida? Given her health situation, will she want to stay in-state or are you looking farther afield? How far are you willing to travel? Do you all have a preference for larger universities, smaller LACs? Could you provide some information about her GPA, standardized tests outlook (did she take PLAN or pre-PSAT last year?) If you can be more specific, you will get more helpful information from the forum members.
We are not in FL. We live in lower AL. Location is a concern for me, but as her health is improving, I am starting to loosen up a little.
She is homeschooled, so her coursework is pretty atypical. That is how she has such a high level of language mastery at this point. She has been self-studying French since elementary school. She went to French camp at BYU this summer and their placement test had her place into 300 level classes. She is now working with a francophone. She took 4 yrs of Latin and took the subject test in June. Unfortunately, she was still recovering from being severely ill in May. She had had fevers hovering near 106 for almost 3 weeks and was so sick she could not sit up by herself. Her score on that subject test was only a 690, but I am amazed she scored that high bc at that point she hadn’t done much more than sit up by herself for 2 weeks and she was suffering from prednisone induced brain fog. We had planned on the math 2 at the same time, but an hour was pushing her mental stamina at that point. (She was still in major recovery mode when we let her go to French camp. She had been looking forward to it since Dec.)
She has not taken any standardized tests since middle school bc every time we had her scheduled last yr she ended up being ill. Her middle school scores qualified her for CTY. Based on her scores she is getting on her prep for the PSAT, we think she might qualify for NM, but we are not counting on it since the scoring/predictions are unclear. Her test scores for the ACT should be around a 32 based on her middle school scores. (Unfortunately they want to put her on methotrexate or imuran after the PSAT, so we aren’t sure how the new meds will impact her.)
She is an advanced student. This yr she is taking cal (planning on the AP). Her coursework over the past few yrs includes reading works like Paradise Lost, Divine Comedy, War and Peace, etc. Science is her weakest area on her transcript, but she plans on DE for science starting in the spring.
It is hard to quantity her achievements like kids on the chance me threads. We just do things differently.
you need to repost this on the Financial aid forum. And dont limit your query to merit $$ .
In addition, I suggest you buy online a relatively new copy of Rugg’s Recommendations - It has complete rankings of colleges basest on the strength of the majors they offer.
Cross reference it to any merit/ FA aid schools.
Your DD may be eligible for FA from schools that dont offer Merit $.
Look into Bryn Mawr! Our Russian and French programs here are AMAZING–one of the best in the country! Bryn mawr doesn’t give much merit aid, though–but depending on her high school accomplishments it may not be out of reach
Bryn mawr tends to be extremely finicky about financial aid. They gave me 10k more than the npc predicted, yet another friend here got 0 aid at all despite her inability to pay. shrug I love my school, but fin aid here is unpredictable. Since the app is free, you may decide to try it out and hope for merit aid.
(Also, I too was homeschooled and have a chronic disease (: )
Well, I found another option that I had somehow missed earlier, UKy. They offer more upper level classes than many depts. I’m going to have dd start researching their program. Knowing there might be an additional option has lowered my stress!
DD is a linguistics major and a NMF, so U Kentucky ended up on our final list because of their generous NMF scholarship and a real linguistics department. Although she ended up at Cornell, UK was a close second because she was impressed with the faculty she met at UK and I was impressed with how kind they were to her .
If I remember correctly, there was a dad her whose DD had a Russian interest and she ended up at Truman State…a univ that many love. The family was OOS, and Truman gave a nice award for good but not high stats.
@mdcmom Thank you so much for that post. Linguistics is her other strong area of interest. She loves grammar and words, has a strong interest in translation, etc. This is the first yr she hasn’t taken 3 languages. I really encouraged her to drop Latin after poetry bc I wanted her to have more down time this yr. She knows she wants to continue both French and Russian, but business, linguistics, international relations…she is researching paths. (She has wanted to add another language for the past couple of yrs, but I had to draw the line bc she was spending too much time on languages!)
@mom2collegekids Thanks for the link. I can’t tell if they offer enough higher level courses taught in Russian or not. I will have dd read through their site. (None of the nearby colleges offer enough courses, even when offering a major. So those options have already been pretty much eliminated.)
If she is NMF material, she might qualify for full tuition at University of Pittsburgh. Contact the language department and ask questions, also about honors courses offered in those languages and/or graduate level courses she might be able to take with her advanced knowledge.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek What kind of test scores do you expect her to have? Will she take the PSAT?
Because of her health, do you want to keep her within a certain number of hours?
how many upper division Russian classes are desirable?
Bachelor of Arts Requirement: 0-6 Credits
Intermediate proficiency in ONE foreign language
RUSS 215 - Intermediate Russian I Credits: 3
RUSS 216 - Intermediate Russian II Credits: 3
MAJOR REQUIREMENTS:
The Russian major consists of two (2) parts: Required Support and Major Requirements. Each student must complete both parts.
Part I: Required Support: 3-11 Credits
RUSS 115 - Elementary Russian I Credits: 4
RUSS 116 - Elementary Russian II Credits: 4
If a language concentration:
LING 238 - Introduction to Linguistics Credits: 3
Part II: Major Requirements: 35 Credits
RUSS 315 - Advanced Russian I Credits: 3
RUSS 316 - Advanced Russian II Credits: 3
RUSS 350 - Russian Culture Credits: 3
RUSS 370 - Survey of Russian Literature I Credits: 3
RUSS 400 - Russian Capstone Experience Credits: 2
FOUR courses from the following:
RUSS 325 - Russian and Soviet Cinema Credits: 3
RUSS 340 - Russian Drama Credits: 3
RUSS 371 - Survey of Russian Literature II Credits: 3
RUSS 372 - Contemporary Russian Literature Credits: 3
RUSS 375 - Topics in Russian Credits: 3
RUSS 420 - The Modern Russian Novel Credits: 3
RUSS 480 - Major Russian Writers Credits: 3
Choose one of the two areas of concentration
Language
RUSS 415 - Fourth Year Russian I Credits: 3
RUSS 416 - Fourth Year Russian II Credits: 3
HIST 381 - Russia from the Earliest Times until 1861 Credits: 3 OR HIST 382 - Late Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union Credits: 3 OR HIST 384 - Peoples of the Russian Empire and Former Soviet Union Credits: 3
History
HIST 381 - Russia from the Earliest Times until 1861 Credits: 3
HIST 382 - Late Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union Credits: 3
HIST 384 - Peoples of the Russian Empire and Former Soviet Union Credits: 3
NOTE:
No grade of “D” in major courses is accepted toward the Russian major.
It isn’t as simple as looking at a long list of course offerings. It is more a matter of the language acquisition goals. In the list above, without reading course descriptions, it looks like only 4 classes above the 200 level are actually Russian language classes. Several of the depts we have visited with similar offerings have graduation objectives of high-intermediate level skills (those are ACTFL ratings.). Her Russian tutor believes she will be close to that level by the end of 11th grade. Her personal goal is to reach advanced and would love to achieve superior.
The majority of the courses are cultural/history/literature courses. She definitely wants to pursue those as well, but she wants to be able to improve her language skills at the same time.
Anyway, that is why I stated she needs to investigate the course offerings and contact the dept for graduation objectives. She can tell by reading their course descriptions where she might fall in those upper level courses.
ETA: in terms of distance, I would prefer to keep her near us and her own drs, but at the same time, she has very strong personal goals. Within driving distance is my strong preference. We are used to driving 9-10 hrs, so that is doable, but much beyond that is really starting to get beyond my comfort zone if there was an emergency.
@mommdc Thank you for those links. It took some digging, but I finally found Temple’s course list. They offer a lot of their lit and history classes in Russian with writing assignments in Russian. That is exactly what she wants. It is farther than I would like, but I will mention it to her so that she can do more research and see if there is easy flight access.
We visited Ole Miss and their Russian dept is very limited and I think dd has eliminated them from her list. We lived in Richmond for several yrs before we moved here a couple of yrs ago. We are familiar with UR and know many alumni. Dd would love their campus, but with both UR and Tulane, I think when I looked at them they were out of our budget. I will have dd go back through their websites, but I think their scholarships are competitive.
I know it’s far and probably too much, but I found the description interesting, their goal is superior proficiency in Russian. Maybe they could point you to other programs of interest?
@mommdc Yes, Wisconsin would be a dream school. There are only 4 Russian flagships (Bryn Mawr, Portland State,and UCLA being the others). I’m not sure how they were chosen, but 2 are completely unaffordable, Wisconsin will most likely be, and Portland appears to be a commuter school with an older population (not to mention as just about as far across the country as you can get.) Superior is definitely her personal goal, but she can’t get to that level on her own.
With the state of the world, it is also surprising that many Russian dept’s are having their funding decreased.
Her Russian tutor is used to her students going to tippy top schools. She is horrified by the schools we have visited. She does not want dd to attend any of them. She is at least somewhat hopeful about FSU and UKy. She also wants us to look into Indiana.
