<p>Many mention Middlebury and Georgetown. Please suggest others that are top of the list and then the next tier.</p>
<p>THX</p>
<p>Princeton and Brown have excellent language departments. Generally, most small liberal arts colleges(Amherst,Wesleyan,etc.) will have strong language deparments too.</p>
<p>Smith's is wonderful, as well.</p>
<p>Here's a recent thread that covers the topic well:</p>
<p>University of Chicago has an exceptional array of offerings, with lots of depth and breadth as well as variety of languages taught.</p>
<p>Among the LACs, besides having the languages you want, look for the percentage of students who are language/area studies majors. Having a high percentage of majors drives richer course offerings, especially upper class electives. It will also mean more language tables, halls, film series, (cooking classes), and much better advising about study abroad options (because it will be based on actual experience.) Smith and Middlebury have by far the most. (The number of Fulbrights to non-English-speaking countries is also often a surrogate - albeit a weak one - for good language departments.)</p>
<p>There are many liberal arts colleges with one 1-3 professors in a particular language. If you are a major, and your professor is away the year you need advising for grad school (and sometimes, even letters of recommendation), you could have difficulties. Or, again, upper class electives may be extremely limited when professors are on sabbaticals. </p>
<p>For this reason, check out the size of departments and number of majors carefully. In many cases, good state universities may in fact have more options, and more intensiveness when it comes to offerings. University of Wisconsin (just as an example) has a very strong reputation for language study.</p>
<p>I would also look for schools that have residence halls themed around languages, and "language tables" in dining halls. For instance, I walk my dogs past the Russian House on the Macalester campus. Many other LACs have similar themed residence halls. Mann kann sehr schnell damit eine Fremdsprache lernen!</p>
<p>UCLA offers instruction in 76 foreign languages.</p>
<p>Center</a> for World Languages: Foreign Languages at UCLA</p>
<p>Now that is almost cruel! The site made me laugh and be excited for my DD. We are CA residents.</p>
<p>Any thoughts about languages at the Claremont colleges?</p>
<p>Scripps is very good in Romance languages. Pomona wins quite a few Fulbrights, and has language halls.</p>
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In many cases, good state universities may in fact have more options, and more intensiveness when it comes to offerings.
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<p>I couldn't agree more. I really think someone serious about studying languages, especially if they have slightly esoteric interests, should seriously consider a larger university. </p>
<p>My personal criterion for picking a college, long ago, was that it offer Sanskrit, in case I wanted to study that. Turns out the need never arose.</p>
<p>Dartmouth has strong language programs, very much integrated with study abroad. They are known for the "Rassias Method" of intensive study, named after John Rassias, a Dartmouth professor.</p>
<p>This is something of an interesting topic. I love languages. I have at least some decent reading ability in 6-7 of them, and speak three (other than English). But I never thought it was a good use of my time to take language courses in college. You don't NEED the resources of a university to learn languages. Professors generally don't teach basic language courses -- that's something handled by adjunct instructors, and a way for native-speaker grad students to pick up extra money. You need books and a teacher (who need not be an academic at all) and some time and elbow-grease.</p>
<p>Now, maybe Sanskrit or Akkadian would be good things to learn in college. And if a student doesn't know any languages going in, he or she has to start sometime. But it's an unusual kind of thing for a college -- teaching a very basic course that involves no scholarship whatsoever. And, in fact, it's probably next to impossible to learn a language solely in the classroom; you have to go somewhere else to really seal the deal.</p>
<p>So . . . if you are spending about 36 months, total, at a unique institution, and paying something like $200,000 for the privilege, why should you devote a significant part of your time there to something you could learn better elsewhere at much lower cost, and that -- except for dead or very obscure languages -- does not involve any of the resources that make your institution special?</p>
<p>I took a language course because I liked the pace of something that met every day and didn't require a big paper, a lot of reading (at the elementary level) or cramming for exams. I did supplement what I learned in college with taking a month long intensive course one summer in the country of the language and ended up using my knowledge for being able to research for my senior thesis. </p>
<p>I agree with you JHS, though that there are probably more efficient places and ways to learn modern languages, at least.</p>
<p>Aha! My daughter just returned from spending her 11th grade in Italy attending an american hs (SYA) and she earned a 5 on the AP test without any prior knowledge of the language ... I understand your point! Vassar offers a program where basically they will help you study on your own. I think gap year abroad in another culture learning another language sounds wonderful ... D is interested in Portuguese/Brazil.</p>
<p>I am using strength in languages to also mean strength in international studies/study abroad programs etc. at a LAC.</p>
<p>She wants to combine interests in languages, cultural anthropology, film and possibly linguisitcs.</p>
<p>Found this thread that looks at the UNC-Chapel Hill language programs. 2 professors of foreign language that I know both got their phds at UNC-CH.</p>
<p>All the Ivies and most other top research universities, public and private, have extensive language programs. Most LACs do not, for understandable reasons: they can't afford to support faculties in languages and literatures that do not attract many students. Middlebury is an exception among LACs. Wesleyan, a bit bigger than many LACs, also has fairly broad language offerings.</p>
<p>This is a central concern for my D, a rising HS junior just beginning her college search. She's a bit of a language freak: she's done a lot of Latin and ancient Greek and a fair bit of French but is interested in adding Portuguese and eventually other Romance languages, certainly Spanish, possibly Italian, possibly Catalan. She's also interested in Hindi. But she'd much prefer to be in an LAC environment. One solution: look at LACs that have an affiliation with a larger research university allowing the LAC students to take courses at the larger university. So, for example, while the language offerings at Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr are quite strong for LACs---between them, Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, German, Russian, and Spanish, as well as Latin and ancient Greek---they don't offer either Portuguese or Hindi, the next two languages D wants to add (and by the way, two of the most widely spoken languages in the world). But both are available at Penn, and students at any of these three LACs can take courses at Penn not offered by their own school.</p>
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<p>For a combination of languages, cultural anthropology, and linguistics I'd look at U Chicago, Stanford, Berkeley, Penn, and UCLA. Not sure about film at these schools apart from UCLA where I hear it's excellent. At the LAC level I'd definitely look at Swarthmore, arguably the only LAC with a substantial program in linguistics, a solid program in languages, and good in anthrpology as well.</p>
<p>^Penn has a special residential program devoted to film--it's housed along with the Modern Language Program.</p>