<p>Hi everybody!</p>
<p>I'm a high school junior and I am wildly interested in the classics (Latin language and history) and am almost sure that's what I want to study in college. However, I don't really know where to start looking. I have a 3.9 GPA and a 33 on the ACT, so I think all schools are at least possibilities. Does anyone have any suggestions of schools with great Classics programs that I should check out?</p>
<p>Columbia and University of Chicago are two that I know of. We have a friend who is a professor at one and was recruited by the other. They are two of the top in the country. But with a little research you could find more.</p>
<p>HOly Cross has a really famous Classics Department. They even have scholarships especially for classics majors.
I assume you are taking the Latin SAT Subject this December?
You could distinguish yourself by taking one semester of ancient greek at a local college, too.</p>
<p>Harvard, U of Michigan, U of Washington.</p>
<p>Many of the Jesuit schools have good Classics programs.</p>
<p>What is your budget?</p>
<p>What is your home state?</p>
<p>I would not recommend Catholic schools. They teach Classics in an idiosyncratic way and don’t produce much research worthy of mention.</p>
<p>Ivies and big state schools have the best programs. Sikorsky mentioned a few; UC Berekely is outstanding too.</p>
<p>Also, many of the top LACs have small but excellent programs with good PhD placement rates.</p>
<p>If you plug ‘classics major’ into the search engine you will see several discussions on this topic.</p>
<p>*I would not recommend Catholic schools. They teach Classics in an idiosyncratic way and don’t produce much research worthy of mention.</p>
<p>Ivies and big state schools have the best programs. Sikorsky mentioned a few; UC Berekely is outstanding too.</p>
<p>Also, many of the top LACs have small but excellent programs with good PhD placement rates.*</p>
<p>I have no idea of what you mean by “idiosyncratic way.” And to dismiss all Catholic univs sounds more anti-Catholic than genuine.</p>
<p>Anyway, the OP hasn’t mentioned what his/her career intent is, nor has s/he mentioned a budget. Many OOS publics would be unaffordable to a student with need.</p>
<p>If there is nothing distinctive about the way classics is taught at Jesuit universities, why recommend them as a class? On the other hand, if there is something distinctive about it, that something might just as well be undesirable as it might be desirable.</p>
<p>But at this point secular-trained lay faculty do most of the teaching anyway, so we’re probably both wrong.</p>
<p>I bring up research output and PhD placement not because OP expressed an interest in that as a career path - I would advise against it if [s]he did - but because they’re simple quantitative indicators of a program’s quality.</p>
<p>OOS tuition is a relevant concern (though there are more state schools with excellent classics programs we could name) but Jesuit tuition isn’t much better.</p>
<p>Agree Holy Cross has fantastic classics department and offers merit scholarships. HC is also a top25 LAC.</p>
<p>“I would not recommend Catholic schools. They teach Classics in an idiosyncratic way…”
ha…like this guy: <a href=“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Foster_(Latinist)[/url]”>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Foster_(Latinist)</a></p>
<p>Programs to consider: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Bryn Mawr (if female), Cornell, Columbia, Penn, Chicago, Brown, UCLA, Stanford, Berkeley, Holy Cross, Cincinnati, Michigan, North Carolina, Duke, Ohio State, Johns Hopkins, Texas
Still some others to consider: Washington, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, NYU, Iowa, USC, Virginia, Notre Dame</p>
<p>I had a co-worker who’s daughter got a degree in Classics from USC. She seemed pretty happy with it.</p>
<p>That’s the sum of what I know about USC’s Classics program.</p>
<p>Major or at least minor in something marketable on top of your classics degree. And don’t even think about graduate school in the field. Don’t get into the law school track either. Keep your options open.</p>
<p>Sorry it took me so long to get back to you guys. For those who were wondering, everything is within my budget (might take out loans) and my home state is Wisconsin. Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>My daughter plans to major in Classics. We purchased the [Rugg’s</a> Recommendations on the Colleges 31st Edition](<a href=“http://www.ruggsrecommendations.com/rureonco28ed.html]Rugg’s”>http://www.ruggsrecommendations.com/rureonco28ed.html) as a PDF (well worth the $22) that lists schools by major and selectivity for the best programs. The section on Classics consists of 74 most selective schools and 71 very selective schools. </p>
<p>These schools provided by another poster are NOT listed. They may have a Classics program, but not a strong or highly rated one:
</p>
<p>Here are a few schools listed that were not previously mentioned:</p>
<p>Iowa State (not U of Iowa)
Agnes Scott
Buffal0 (SUNY)
Carleton
Davidson
Gustavus Adolphus
Hendrix
Lawrence U, WI
U of Maryland
U of Minnesota
U of Pittsburgh
Reed
Wabash
Whitman
U of Wisconsin
Beloit
Cal State/Long Beach
Florida State
Hobart & William Smith
U of Kentucky
U of Nebraska</p>
<p>The most selective lists within Rugg’s is mostly populated by top 50 LACs & Universities, but keep in mind only the schools with the strongest programs are listed under each major heading.</p>
<p>For those who were wondering, everything is within my budget (might take out loans) and my home state is Wisconsin</p>
<p>Well, don’t borrow too much. How much do you think you’ll be earning as a newish grad?</p>
<p>YOU can only borrow the following amounts:</p>
<p>Frosh 5500
Soph 6500
Jr 7500
Sr 7500</p>
<p>So, you can see that borrowing won’t go far. PLUS, most schools will already that THOSE loans in their FA pkgs so you won’t be able to borrow to cover any shortfalls.</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay each year?</p>
<p>^^ Have a look at the National Research Council’s assessment of Classics programs:
[NRC</a> Rankings Overview: Classics - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“NRC Rankings Overview: Classics”>NRC Rankings Overview: Classics)</p>
<p>The average of Cornell’s scores would place it 17th in the NRC assessment (although the NRC wisely resists USNWR-style one-up rankings).
<a href=“https://www.stanford.edu/dept/classics/cgi-bin/web/sites/all/files/SU%20Classics%20NRC%20Rankings-2010.pdf[/url]”>https://www.stanford.edu/dept/classics/cgi-bin/web/sites/all/files/SU%20Classics%20NRC%20Rankings-2010.pdf</a></p>
<p>Compare the faculty and course offerings at Cornell to the faculty and course offerings at, say, Hendrix College. I have nothing against Hendrix (which seems like a fine LAC), but it sure looks to me as though Cornell has a much stronger department.</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr (a women’s college) and Haverford (coed) both have excellent classics departments, they’re about a mile apart, and they operate a joint course registration system allowing students at either school to take unlimited classes at the other school, with registration as easy as signing up for class at your own school. The classics departments also coordinate their course offerings so you get a wider and deeper curriculum than you’d ordinarily get at a small college. They’re also in a consortium with Swarthmore and Penn, both a slightly longer schlep but it is doable, and some students do take classes at Swat and/or Penn, especially if the class is unavailable in the “BiCo” (Bi-College Consortium, i.e., Bryn Mawr and Haverford). Bryn Mawr and Haverford also stagger their class schedules, one starting on the hour and the other on the half hour, to allow students ample time to make the 5-minute shuttle commute between campuses with minimal disruption to their schedules. My D1 is a classics major at Haverford; she usually has 1 or 2 classes per semester at Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>Notice that Bryn Mawr College is included in the NRC Classics ranking (cited above). This is the only case I’ve noticed of a LAC appearing in an NRC ranking (with very good numbers to boot).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But keep in mind these are Ph.D. program rankings, so most LACs aren’t going to be listed. An exception is Bryn Mawr, which does offer a Ph.D. in classics; its Ph.D. program is ranked in a very similar range to Cornell, with a slightly higher S-ranking and a slightly lower R-ranking.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Or maybe a bit higher, since Columbia, UC Berkeley, and Michigan is each ranked twice for separate Ph.D. programs in distinct subfields of classics/classical studies/classical art & archeology, etc., with all 6 of those programs at the 3 schools ranked ahead of Cornell. For an undergrad the distinct Ph.D. programs don’t matter, because you can take classes in any of the subfields. So among research universities offering undergrad classics majors, Cornell probably ranks 14th.</p>
<p>Notice also that the University of Cincinnati has a surprisingly strong classics program. Cincinnati and Michigan would be the top programs at the research university level in the Midwest, though Chicago, Ohio State, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are also strong. Among Ivies, it’s Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Penn, with Brown, Cornell, and Yale not too far off the pace. In the southeast, Duke and UNC Chapel Hill are very strong. In the West, it’s Stanford and UC Berkeley, followed by UCLA and USC. </p>
<p>But you can also get a fine undergraduate education in classics at a number of LACs; you just need to spend some time looking over their faculty roster and course offerings to make sure there’s enough there.</p>