Hey guys, I’m writing to you as a student in the UK, my parents are moving to the USA so i’m going to go to university there :D, Im looking for english lit courses which are good. I got 2230 in my SATS and 7AS, 3A’S and a B{in french} at GCSE, I have just completed my AS levels which went well and i was predicted 4A’s in them, next year I’m confident i can get 2A’S and an A. Im looking for schools which suite me, prestige is a big factor for me, I’m really looking for the top schools in the USA because my choices in the UK are Oxford and Durham,and so, i would rather go to them then an average US uni. I would prefer small schools (Ideally from 2000-7000 but 4000 is perfect) with an intellectual and close knit ambience and i would consider LAC’s. I would prefer a school in the middle of the scale in terms of politics and being COED is a must. I don’t mind so much about the location in terms of what area of the US it is in but i would prefer a rural and urban setting (although these aren’t a must).But to be honest the most important factor is what the english lit course is like (which is why all the school finders aren’t working).
my priorities go in order of: lit course
size
school feeling
prestige
Location
COED
Thank you so much and i would appreciate any help I can get!
I assume that when you say English Lit. course you mean the department or major, yes? In the US a “course” usually refers to an individual class (like on Shakespeare or on the Victorian Novel). So you are looking for an American college or university with a strong English department. I’m also not sure what you mean when you say you would prefer a “rural and urban setting”. Could you clarify which one? Or do you mean you want either urban or rural, but not suburban?
Got it. I think you’ll find that all of the top 20-30 LACs in the US have very good English departments, and most are in beautiful rural or suburban locations. One of the things to consider is that some of the universities with top ranked English graduate programs are at large universities (the ivy league colleges, Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA) where in some cases (i.e. especially with Berkeley, UCLA, and Michigan) many of the classes will be large lectures with graduate TAs as graders. So even though the faculty are stellar, undergraduates do not get as much direction from them as at smaller LACs and equivalent institutions. And for a field like English, small discussion classes with lots of attention from full-time faculty are important. So excellent liberal arts colleges like Vassar, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Williams, Wesleyan, Kenyon, Oberlin, or Bard would be good choices for your top range of applications. For something slightly larger, but also with a great English Department, a focus on undergraduate education, and a lovely location, take a look at the College of William and Mary.
All but a tiny handful of colleges are coed, so that isn’t a big deal.
You don’t apply to a course or a subject in the US, and in most cases you don’t declare a major until the 2nd of your 4 years.
A variable you should probably research a bit is GenEd (general education) or distribution requirements. Virtually all US colleges have some requirements (try looking for ‘graduation requirements’), which range from minimal (such as Brown) to a very substantial ‘core curriculum’ (such as Columbia). Most are somewhere in between.
The best colleges with respect to undergraduate focus would be LACs, because they generally only have undergraduates. For a university that approximates this environment, Princeton meets all of your criteria, including that for location, in this case suburban New Jersey.
Dartmouth belongs on your list, not specifically for its English department (which I don’t know much about), but because it meets your criteria in every other way.
The establishment of which colleges are “intellectual,” as stated as a preference in your original post, is difficult to determine. Dartmouth, reputationally at least, departs from this stratum – see the Rolling Stone article – nonetheless, an over reliance on stereotypes of this type can lead to an unwarranted elimination of a college that might, in reality, work well for you.
You can read through a few Newsweek lists, “The 25 Most Desirable Rural/Suburban/Urban Schools,” to give you an idea as to the settings of some U.S. colleges. In terms of your criteria, your ideal school will be on one of these lists.
For English, Emory, Kenyon, and Hamilton are stand outs. Colleges such as Vassar, Macalester, Bowdoin, Connecticut College all have strong departments as well.
Overall, LACs will be better for someone interested in English because they offer smaller, discussion-based classes with writing-intensive classes. However if you’re interested in specific areas of English literature or theory, you should look into course offerings.
If you are moving to the U.S., and you have already received acceptance to Oxford to read English Literature, there are a few other things you should know about. One is the discipline of Comparative Literature, which is rigorous, but studies all literatures of the world, and the theories that help facilitate and negotiate between them. You will be required to read more than one language, and I take that as a positive.
Yale, Stanford, Duke and UC-Berkeley would all excel, as well as hosting traditionally excellent Departments of English. Brown may be a bit less prominent, but would also offer great prospects for literature study. Also be aware that some schools may have different names for similar types of programs (e.g. Stanford and Duke).
For LACs, which is a different type of experience but one worth considering per above, I would recommend exploring Swarthmore, Amherst and Williams as possibilities. It would help you as well to visit and perhaps speak with a few people from your top choices, because the higher education system in the U.S. will have a different atmosphere and opportunities than you may be accustomed to. This forum is also a good place to research, and you might try looking up past discussions.
Edited to add: if I were coming from the UK to study literature, and already had an Oxford acceptance in hand, I would most likely consider Yale, Stanford, perhaps Berkeley if you don’t mind the size as it has outstanding offerings in those disciplines, and the above-named LACs. And I would try to visit Brown, because it can be exceptional, even though it may feel more like a cross between a LAC and research university. Finally, the rest of your qualifications must read pretty strongly, but if you can raise your SAT score a bit for these U.S. schools, it would help your chances.
OP is only a junior - Oxford and Durham are his “dream schools”, not where he’s been admitted. He has strong predicted AS level grades but still hasn’t got the final results and won’t have A Level predicted results till next year.
OP, will you be visiting the US this summer to get a sense of US colleges (universities)?