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My name's Jess and I'm a highschool junior. I'm currently dual(joint)enrolling at the University of Georgia as well. I go to a very rural small (about 600 students) school outside of Athens Georgia. I'm number one in my class. My SAT is a 1350 and I have a 4.1 GPA. My GPA has suffered because my school only offers one AP class, so it's not as high as some students'.

I'm really interested in being a linguistics major, and would like to go somewhere outside of the South. Money's not really an issue either, though I don't think I'd like to go to an extremely preppy school. The important thing to me is to go to a school where there's an excellent linguistics program and possibly a good creative writing program.

Thank you so much for your suggestions. I have a very bad high school advisor and she only knows about colleges in Georgia, so this means a lot to me.

By Valpal (Valpal) on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 12:31 am: Edit

One word: Swarthmore!

By Collegeparent (Collegeparent) on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 10:19 am: Edit

Middlebury

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 12:08 pm: Edit

Also check out:
The Claremont Colleges in California (Pomona and Pitzer in particular), University of Chicago, NYU, Boston U, University of Rochester, Cornell, University of Wisconsin, University of Maryland-College Park, Brandeis U, U of Michigan Ann Arbor, University of Southern California, Georgetown for strong linguistics programs. Although you said you don't want the South, here are a few just in case: Tulane, Rice, Clemson, UNC Chapel Hill, UVA.

By Nngmm (Nngmm) on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 03:50 pm: Edit

Swarthmore!

But you may need to increase your SAT score in order to get in...

By Ahwosg (Ahwosg) on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 06:10 pm: Edit

for the record, either Middlebury created their Linguistics degree within the last month, or they simply don't have one.

That is all.

By Mini (Mini) on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 06:31 pm: Edit

The most famous linguistics school in the country by far is MIT. (No joke.) 22 faculty - many of them world famous. Check it out.

By Mini (Mini) on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 07:27 pm: Edit

Oh, the other famous one is University of Pennsylvania.

By Tokenadult (Tokenadult) on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 10:29 pm: Edit

"The most famous linguistics school in the country by far is MIT."

That is absolutely correct. I think the great majority of the textbooks I had for linguistics courses while taking a Chinese major at a school not (so far) named above were written by MIT professors. I'm surprised not to see UCLA mentioned in the thread.

But my job-market-related advice, as someone who has been there and done that, is to major in ANYTHING except linguistics or a modern foreign language. Such a major is intellectually rewarding, but that's where the rewards end for most people who pursue those majors. There are exceptions to what I just said, but you should know where the exceptions are before committing yourself to a college major.

By Mackinaw (Mackinaw) on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 10:54 pm: Edit

Some people confuse linguistics with language/literature study. Obviously they are related but having great language programs does not mean that there is a great linguistics program.

Among the very best _linguistics_ programs are MIT, Georgetown, Penn, and Stanford.

By Boxmaker1917 (Boxmaker1917) on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 10:58 pm: Edit

Tokenadult, could you elaborate on why you think linguistics and/or modern languages are bad majors? I would think there would be good job opportunties in business for languages. (Not too sure where you'd go with a linguistics degree.) My dd wants to major in modern languages and minor in linguistics -- is this a BAD idea? Thanks!