My daughter is interested in majoring in Classics (Latin and Ancient Greek) at a US university. Other than the Ivys, what would be good choices for strong classics programs? Thanks, Londondad
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I’d look into small LAC’s like Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst, Pomona, etc. as well as William and Mary.
Good luck!
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Thanks
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Search for postings by warblersrule on this subject.
Example:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/16471231/#Comment_16471231
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Stanford. Have her check out Josh Obers interesting work. New book just out. And check the following thread:
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LACs can be potentially excellent for classics. I might look first to those with a full anthropology department (as opposed to anthropology and sociology combined) with an available archaeology track. Then look for a good raw number of classes offered in the classics department (about three dozen plus should provide sufficient depth and choice). These aspects of a college with give you some idea of its commitment to the study of antiquity in general. Then look for any areas of specialty that your daughter may be interested in to make sure they are sufficiently covered. Furthermore, look for an enviroment (e g., rural vs. urban) that seems suitable and be aware of the basic statistics of the colleges of interest (e.g., average SAT scores).
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Fwiw, the prestigious American Journal of Philology has been stationed in a liberal arts college, rather than a research university, only once in its 135 year history, when a current Hamilton College classics professor was selected as its editor.
I disagree with some of the advice in this thread. While some LACs are indeed very good for classics, the powerhouse programs are at universities, and the top programs offer a breadth and depth of classes unmatched by any LAC except Bryn Mawr. Because classics is such an unpopular subject these days, you’ll find that classical language courses are inevitably quite small (<20 students) even at very large universities. Moreover, it is only universities that offer related ancient languages, both Indo-European (e.g. Sanskrit, Old Persian, and Hittite) and other (e.g. ancient Egyptian). I would especially emphasize universities if she’d be entering college with a background in one or especially both of the languages.
As for anthropology programs, they have no more overlap with classics than other liberal arts disciplines like art history, philosophy, religion, economics, and political science.
It will be difficult to beat the top British options, if you’re from the UK as your name implies – either in cost or quality. Oxford has the world’s best classics program by a wide margin, of course, but there’s also Cambridge, UCL, Bristol, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Exeter, St Andrews, KCL, Glasgow, Liverpool, etc…all of which stack up quite well against the best American programs.
I’ve written about classics programs extensively over the years; post #3 links to pretty much everything I have to say on the subject, except I oddly forgot Princeton in my Tier 1 of university classics programs. I’ll quote the relevant parts here, making a few edits:
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Illinois? Is that UIUC, Illinois State… ?
What if your student does not want to attend a large state university, or does not have the high school stats to be admitted to any of the private schools you mentioned?
Are there any other schools, public and/or private, that you recommend or know about for Classics?
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UIUC. UIC also has at least two extremely well-known and respected scholars in ancient studies.
Around 250 colleges offer at least some form of classics, so yes, there are plenty I didn’t mention. Some of them have only a couple of professors; others are rather good. If you’re not planning on graduate studies in classics, or if you don’t have any background in Greek or Latin, you can take a much less rigorous approach to college selection than I indicated above.
For such a student, colleges like UVM, the College of Charleston, CUA (Catholic), U Dallas, Rhodes, Villanova, LMU, Dickinson, Trinity, and dozens of others provide perfectly good classics educations. Among bigger schools, there’s some outstanding classics programs to be found among good but not hyper-selective public universities like Cincinnati, SUNY Buffalo, CUNY Hunter (especially for those eligible for Macaulay), FSU, and so on. I’d suggest starting with a college search engine such as IPEDS, College Board, or the one here on CC and come up with a tentative list based on desired size, location, selectivity, cost, etc. and then narrow the list down based on the quality of the classics programs, keeping in mind that many students change their majors.
For those interested in graduate studies in classics, many students coming from weak(er) undergraduate programs choose to complete a Post-Bac program in classics (at Penn, UNC, UCLA, Columbia, et al) or a MA program. In fact, MA programs are becoming common even for very qualified applicants, as classics PhD programs are very competitive.
All of that said, unfortunately there is a much steeper slope in quality among classics programs than in, say, English or biology, where one can find many strong programs. That is far more true and relevant at the graduate level, of course, but to some extent it affects undergraduates as well.
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“As for anthropology programs, they have no more overlap with classics programs than other liberal arts disciplines like art history, philosophy, religion, economics and political science.” (#7)
I was emphasizing the archaeological track of anthropology (#5 ), which does, in my opinion, overlap with classics substantially more – at least for students interested in field work – than the other disciplines mentioned. But the main reason I introduced the point was that some colleges lack archaeology programs entirely, while the other disciplines mentioned are present at virtually all top universities and LACs.
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Thanks, that’s very helpful!
This is for my D, actually, currently a high school senior. She loves history, languages, and Greek and Roman studies. She will probably pursue History, but she specifically wants to apply to colleges that also offer Classics, Anthropology, and Linguistics as academic options. I can see her pursuing Classics, even with just a minor - but she simply does not have the GPA to get into top-rated schools.
She’s going into UG undecided and is applying to basically regional public schools in the Midwest. I’m talking about SIU-Carbondale, Ball State, and Ohio U in Athens OH.
She may have the stats to be admitted to UIUC but absolutely hates the campus and town - we’ve been there a few times. Really doesn’t want to be at a huge research school and doesn’t like small LACs either. Dickinson was on her list earlier, but she’s ruled out the Northeast, and like I said, LACs altogether.
We’ll take a look at the IPEDS site. We did use the CC engine to come up with her initial list.
Thanks again!
P.S. And, to OP, sorry to hijack your thread! I’ll be quiet now, :). Best of luck to your daughter in her college applications and pursuits!
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I always pipe in on these threads because @warblersrule despite being an encyclopedia of knowledge about classics departments never ever mentions my son’s Alma Mater where he got a degree in Classics - Bard College. Yes, it’s a small department, but full of vibrant exciting professors offering terrifically interesting classes. And my son has now taken a number of graduate classics and ancient history seminars at an Ivy where the only other student was usually from Oxford, and had no problem holding his own. But he feels like the breadth of offerings at the Ivy are generally less compelling than those that were offered at Bard.
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Some of the discussion depends on whether the OP’s daughter is interested in classical languages or the broader classical studies, and then on whether the emphasis will be on Latin and Greek studies, as stated in the original post, or whether more esoteric classes, such as those offering language instruction in Old Persian and Classical Armenian, will be called for. In any event, a perusal of the course catalogues of some of the colleges mentioned should prove instructive.
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@BeeDAre - no problem. There are some good comments and info here. Thanks everyone for the help.
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Most good Catholic colleges and universities will have decent Classics programs, since Greek and Latin are essential components of a traditional seminarian education.
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A vote here for Dartmouth. One of those schools that has a relatively large [and wonderful] faculty from past years and thus extremely small classes. D and her friends sometimes had to twist arms to get enough people to sign up (5 or 6, maybe) to make a given class happen. And, the FSP [alternates between Greece and Rome] is unique. http://classics.dartmouth.edu/foreign-study
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@BeeDAre: If your D doesn’t care for large, research universities, perhaps a smaller university like Tufts (which is in MA–think you may have ruled out anything but the midwest) or Washington University (which is in St. Louis) and has a Classics Department. I know Tufts has a fairly well-recognized Classics program, not sure about Wash U, but Wash U is a strong academically.
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Holy Cross in Massachusetts has strong Classics program and HC gives merit scholarships in that area.
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Thanks for those suggestions, Bromfield, but her GPA and junior year grades are probably not high enough to gain admittance into Tufts or WUSTL.
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