We have lived in China for over 5 years now and my son wants to continue his study of Chinese as an undergraduate while pursuing a second major in Engineering. I would like to know which schools truly have the best Chinese program in the country. Answers with Ivy league school names just because they are Ivy league are not desired here. I want to know which ones are the best. Ideally, if someone could provide data with regard to student proficiency at the end of the program, that is appreciated.
Do you mean to say that he is already at a level of proficiency where he can take advanced Chinese language courses and other courses that depend on that level of Chinese language skill in college?
You can look up schools with the desired engineering majors, then look to see what advanced level Chinese language, literature, and culture courses are available at those schools.
Possible candidates would include University of Hawaii and several campuses of the University of California.
Check out the several Chinese Flagship programs: http://www.thelanguageflagship.org/content/chinese
Ohio State also has its own Chinese flagship program (http://chineseflagship.osu.edu/)
Some others: The FALCON program and the China & Asia Pacific Studies program at Cornell: http://caps.cornell.edu/,
http://lrc.cornell.edu/falcon/About; Stanford; Berkeley; U Washington; Johns Hopkins; Middlebury
Also check out the International Business & Chinese Enterprise program at U. of South Carolina: http://www.moore.sc.edu/academicprograms/undergraduate/majorsoffered/internationalbusiness/optionsoverviews/ibcetrackhongkong/languageculture.aspx
Berkeley has a great East Asian Languages program. And there would be plenty of opportunity to practice in the Bay Area.
Yes, the presence of native and heritage speakers at the school and in the surrounding communities can be a plus for a student wanting to practice the language outside of the classroom.
As I have come to find out, while my son is proficient very in Chinese, his pronunciation is not very good; particularly his tones, so an intensive program where he can rebuild his foundation might be best. My biggest concern is that when I went to school, most foreign language classes concentrated on grammar and not on speaking like a native (or near native).
I checked out some of the sites recommended.
Actually you are spot on about the Chinese Flagships. We have been looking into the Chinese Language Flagship schools for a while and they seem like they might be the best choice. I have not looked at all 12 of them yet and certainly there are some without engineering programs that can be eliminated.
There are some schools on the list of Chinese Flagships that surprised me such as Western Kentucky.
WKU claims to have a perfect record placing kids in the “Capstone year”. https://wkunews.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2015/03/18/flagship-capstone-2015/
Since they also have an engineering program, we can put it on the list for consideration.
The OleMiss Chinese Flagship program website is impressive. It appears that the Chinese Flagship program there is held in high regard and is somewhat exclusive. Ole Miss also has an engineering school, which is one of the criteria, so we’ll add it to the list as well.
By the way, according to the link to the Cornell FALCON site, “As of May 31st, 2013, after a long and illustrious run, Cornell University’s FALCON Program (for Chinese and Japanese) will no longer be offered.”…so I guess that can be eliminated as a viable option.
The flagships and UCs are good suggestions.
For the combination of very strong Chinese/East Asian studies, and good engineering, Princeton would be excellent (if you can get in). http://www.princeton.edu/eas/about/
Critical language flagship is what you’re looking for, indeed. Choose the colleges that are strongest for his chosen major.
In this order, I’d say the engineering program strength would be
- University of Minnesota
- Arizona State = only if he gets into Barrett
- U Rhode Island
- UOregon would have been a good one, lots of practice to be had in the environment, but I dont think they have engineering.
Ole Miss - the academics aren’t tooooo rigorous overall except in designated programs, but they do have engineering.
If his stats allow him to get into Princeton, then 
he should get into all of the above, along with their Honors College.
Lots of schools have good Chinese studies. Yale, Stanford, Indiana, Princeton, UC Berkeley are all good. For LACs consider Oberlin.
The best language program in China is this one http://ieas.berkeley.edu/iup/ which can be done as either a summer or a semester abroad.