The young man I spoke of earlier was more a hard worker than a brain. Things never came easy for him, but he worked hard. He came from a school district with AP classes that were not as challenging as AP classes are in other districts. He worked in a part time job year-round (more hours in summer). He did not take any prep classes. In fact - I kid you not - he never read a book before he got to Wes (all books assigned in school were either read aloud to him in class by a teacher, a tape, or round-robin by classmates). He suspected his schooling was lacking, but he wasn’t prepared for HOW un-level the playing field was for him. Fortunately, he found assistance and was able to hold his own in school.
One of my daughter’s friends is at Franklin and Marshall where she discovered a love of art history / object based museums / archaeology. I believe she is doing an art history major but she is particularly interested in archaeology and has spent two summer in Greece on digs (I think fairly recent material rather than super ancient). Apparently she has become quite adept at a computer software that create 3D models of objects and that has become a niche. Anyway, while not ideal, you might consider other schools that might be better academic fit where a student can put together art history / archaeology / anthropology / classics courses to come up with a program of study that works.
Also, have you looked at Ithaca College - I believe they are strong in anthropology - not sure about the archaeology but might be worth investigating.
Also any LAC is going to have courses in the subjects that your D seems interested in even if they don’t offer a formal “ancient history” major, you can take the classes you are interested in within the major requirements. Or design your own interdisciplinary major - many colleges allow that.
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@kelsmom: Your comments here are ‘ace’. Bookmarking this thread.
@TheGFG : These are all really interesting points. Loving this.
Yes, I am aware that D can take many classes in her fields of interest without there being an actual major designation. Actually, F&M is currently among our top choices. There she could design an archaeology major or minor. However, posters giving me advice on other threads have pointed out the pitfalls of the create-your-own-major plan, such as lacking a departmental “covering” ( especially for advising ) and not getting first choice at the classes from the various departments that you’ve cobbled together to make your program, since you’re not technically one of their majors. Furthermore, the archaeology prof at F&M she contacted about creating an arch. major stressed how motivated you had to be to go that route and it requires a senior project, so that is one reason why we have some reservations about F&M. No school is perfect, but since D will be going ED, we’re trying our best to pick well.
Based on second hand information re: Williams athletics, which I assume is similar to Wesleyan’s, it sounded as if the demands of balancing a sport & academics depend on the sport. With that in mind, could your daughter contact any of the athletes in her sport and ask them about their experience? And, by and large, I had the feeling that the coaches in general want scholar-athletes so they support both aspects of the students’ lives.
I learned about WES here on CC several years ago. It is an awesome school and was the only LAC I happened to visit and fell in love instantly, sadly, none of my kids went the LAC route. I recommend it highly to others.
Sending good vibes to your DD on this one @TheGFG. Is she drawn to this school the most out of her options?
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Thanks, learninginprog. To be honest, D is pretty neutral on all of her choices because even though she can find plenty to like about them, they all have at least one fatal flaw. She is having trouble deciding which fatal flaw she wants to overlook. Unfortunately, the faults aren’t trivial–they’re not things like too many squirrels or no Starbucks. They’re larger problems like a team that’s worse than her high school team, or a program with only 2 archaeology courses. One of Wesleyan’s flaws is that they come in $11,000 per year more expensive than other schools. However, they just had a big endowment campaign to benefit FA, so we are hoping the grant improves over the current figure from the 2015 NPC. They hadn’t updated their NPC yet when we checked a week ago. We are willing to pay a little more for fit, but not that much more when other top schools like Haverford are cheaper. That said, if the FA works out, I think she’d choose Wesleyan at this point.
^I wouldn’t hang my hopes on the Wesleyan NPC changing its results between now and September. The real “flaw” here is that ED precludes you from comparing actual FA offers, you’re limited to comparing ballpark figures. It’s really like saying, you’re going to buy a Camry over an Infinity because the ad in the paper says it’s the best buy. It may or may not be true. We’ve discussed how some schools might treat a single salary household differently than a two-salary family with the same total income. If the Haverford (or, Dickinson or F&M) NPC assumes you are a two-income family, it may be giving you a false positive. Still, you can only do the best with the information you have. I don’t envy you.
Well, hopefully if and when D passes the athletic academic pre-read, she can ask for a FA pre-read. That should clarify the matter somewhat.
I’ll chime in here just because my own D is interested in pursuing a very similar academic path to yours, @TheGFG . But she will be attending a smaller state school in Indiana, Ball State, (definitely not approaching elite) where they offer as a major Anthropology, Archaeology and Classical Studies.
My D also attended a rigorous high school but other than that - she is very good at standardized tests, generally good at, and understands advanced math (just bored by it and therefore dislikes it) - but because of emotional issues and some immaturity, under-performed on grades. I personally think she’d do well if given the opportunity at an elite LAC but - I’m not convinced she has the work ethic for it yet. That’s why we steered her to less selective universities where she’d be among the top freshmen applicants for test scores, at least.
Your D, however, sounds like she might have the work ethic to overcome being “average” as you say. I really do think that counts for a lot, just mho. If she’s admitted to Wesleyan, she’ll probably do fine, especially if she seeks any help and guidance that’s available.
However, if she needs some safety options, that are affordable, you might consider some of the public universities and/or less selective LACs in the NE, especially some of the smaller, less-known ones where she may have a chance to actually stand out and shine, given her high school background.
We were surprised by what some of the smaller midwestern public schools had to offer in these departments, and because the schools are smaller than the flagships, the departments are smaller, and seem to offer more attention and guidance from professors. (For instance, I was pleasantly surprised at the solid curriculum offered at Ball State’s (and a few others) Arcaheology and Anthro dept.)
You might consider some flagships, too though… but athletic opportunities might be more accessible to her at smaller schools.
My point is, the elite colleges are not the only ones that offer these subjects.
Have you looked at Lycoming College and Susquehanna in PA, or Hood College in Maryland, for instance?
I tend to agree that the tippy-top colleges probably are better-funded programs with better opportunities for bright students in the Humanities. We had our own reasons for not pushing my kid to try her chances at one of these - I think my own D is better off, at least for now, at being a big fish in a small pond…
But if you’re not confident your D would be admitted, or would do well, do not underestimate what the less selective schools would offer.
@TheGFG, I did hear about the endowment at Wes. I hope it all works out for her. She has a thorough co-pilot in you. I
Thank you!
GFG, as a former Classics major I have followed your D’s story with a lot of interest.
Just want to chime in on two points:
1- Wes is an awesome school. Depth and breadth academically, which a lot of schools its size do not have; attracts kids who are both intellectual and activist, or intellectual and artistic, or intellectual and something else (your D clearly being the athletic “something else”.) But I don’t know any one dimensional Wes students or grads.
2- I totally understand having to balance the “fatal flaw” issue on a variety of schools. But the senior thesis/senior project requirement should not be one of them. For an interdisciplinary major like art history/antiquity, or classics/archaeology, or archaeology/museum studies, it can be the difference between being employable (both in the actual field as well as outside- in a random business job) and not. It’s not that anyone actually cares about the content… but the process of finding a topic, identifying primary sources and objects, synthesizing random bits of research into a coherent whole- this will be the essence of her education.
If your D wants a job working as a museum professional, it is HIGHLY unlikely that the museums she interviews with will have an exact need for someone with her specific skills. That’s why the senior research project is so critical- it shows how she has learned the tools and the process for becoming an expert in a specific area (and can do it again and again) vs. being a subject matter expert at age 22. She may find the good jobs when she graduates are in archival management (and there aren’t a lot of Classical archives… given age, wear, and the elements). She may find the good jobs are at a historical society which focuses on Colonial history, or a great job at the Morgan library in NY which has more of a rare book focus.
So don’t knock out the senior thesis during your research. To me, that’s the single most important element of a solid program in classics/museum management/art history.
And if she’s interviewing for a job at CNN as a writer, or at an ad agency in account management, or an insurance company in claims management, ALL of them will want to see that she can research/synthesize/present/edit a weighty topic on her own.
I still think Holy Cross is a terrific place for your D (I think I voted to put them on the list a few months ago). Wes is fantastic also, but I do think academic overload is slightly more possible at Wes. I don’t think it’s a competitive environment… but the kids are hard-wired to do well there.
Ahh, but Holy Cross is D1, and that is a whole 'nother can of worms, both in terms of being recruited and competing while in school.
Sorry- I am a rube when it comes to the nuances of athletic recruiting.
Mea Culpa.
And I am a rube in so many other areas where you are awesome, blossom.
Thanks all. HC does not offer much in the way of archaeology, however, and what little they have is strictly classical. I consulted with several archaeologists currently employed locally, and they said their cultural resource management firms aren’t too impressed by candidates with experience in classical archaeology. They want their prospective employees to have done fieldwork in the the Mid-Atlantic–not Greece or Italy. (They like Monmouth University grads, partly for that reason. Regrettably, Monmouth is Div. 1.) Wesleyan had been doing a dig right in Middletown, and are now processing those artifacts. However, I don’t know it they plan to start another one in CT or nearby that D could do. She sent away for more info on the department.
As for the senior thesis or project, I agree it would be awesome. I would just prefer it weren’t required in case she isn’t quite up for something of that magnitude due to executive functioning skills etc.
Your D doesn’t know if she wants to become an archaeologist, or a museum curator, or a rare books preservation expert, or a HS Latin teacher, or an expert in ephemera and works on paper for an auction house, or an exhibit designer for a museum consulting firm. Nor should she- she’s a HS kid. So don’t cut the salami too thin here. The only way to make sure that a college is going to have every single class she conceivably might want to take would be a place like U Michigan or Berkeley with world class Classics AND a huge university behind it for everything else.
So if she doesn’t want a huge flagship… the smaller U’s are not going to offer digs in New Jersey PLUS an expert in coins and medallions, PLUS a sequence on material science for art historians PLUS the languages and a literature sequence, PLUS field training working with paleontologists and anthropologists and ethnograpphers.
Like I said… cutting the salami too thin. Look for a college which has enough in the general areas she’s interested in and she will figure out her path from that.
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Exactly, which is why I like Wesleyan’s survey style program in archaeology–it has a little of everything. Some foreign and some domestic field projects, as well as courses that will expose her to the art and artifacts of many different parts of the world. Then with the open curriculum, she will have plenty of room to take art, classics, anthropology and history classes too.