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Can any of you name a good LAC (or university) that would be a safety for a 1500 SAT/ great academics/solid ECs student?

No holy cross
i don't want a school that has "holy" in it

and not that this would be a safety (a match) but does wesleyan have a good program?

By Rhonda63 (Rhonda63) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 05:30 pm: Edit

My D is a Classics (and English) major and looked at LACs two years ago when she was applying to colleges, although she ended up at a university. In particular, she was looking for schools that were overall academically good and also had strong classics depts, with sufficient upper level Latin courses that she would not run out of classes to take before she graduated (she had two years of AP Latin, w/5s on both the Virgil and the Catullus/Horace exams).

Wesleyan had a good dept -- it was on her RD list of schools. As more of a safety, Macalester had a good dept. Bryn Mawr has an EXCELLENT classics dept, one of the best in the country (don't know if you're a girl). Swat and Haverford's are good if you factor in courses you can take at Bryn Mawr. She looked at Reed at the last minute, right before she got into her ED school, so I don't know if she thought it had enough to offer -- I remember the head of the dept e-mailed her in response to her request and I think she thought his response was pretty positive regarding the dept. Wellesley also had a good dept (if you're a girl) as did Vassar.

That's all I can remember off the top of my head. Wesleyan, Vassar, and Macalester were on her RD list (and Reed might have been). I would recommend checking the online course catalogs to look at course offerings. Also contact the head of the dept and indicate what your background in classics is and ask them about courses. They do not get a lot of majors with good language background, so they will respond. If possible, arrange to meet with them if you visit the campus.

One thing to consider is that a classics dept at a university will have graduate level courses that might be useful if you've got a lot of Latin or Greek already. But certainly some LACs would be fine, too. Bryn Mawr has a small cadre of classics grad students, btw, which I think is helpful.

By Rhonda63 (Rhonda63) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 05:45 pm: Edit

I just noticed you also asked for universities -- Tufts was on my D's list, I recall someone telling me later they may have scholarships specifically for classics majors. But she had not visited it, and I don't think she would have wanted to go there, based on what I've heard about it. Frankly, I think it's one of those overrated schools (jmo, please don't flame me!).

JHU also has a good classics dept, among universities, and maybe would be a match for you?? Chicago's is excellent, maybe close to a match??

By Mini (Mini) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 05:55 pm: Edit

I remember thinking that Bryn Mawr and Wellesley looked robust. You might also work backwards, and see what schools have connections to the American Classical Studies (ACS) program in Rome. And, yes, UChicago (visit first.)

By Mackinaw (Mackinaw) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 06:02 pm: Edit

Classics: Reed College has a superb classics department (also, Reed is about as unholy as an American college can get). University of Michigan is excellent. Also very good are UCLA, Chicago, and UTexas-Austin.

By Encomium (Encomium) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 06:11 pm: Edit

Thanks Rhonda. I didn't like Tufts at all.

I don't have the largest background in Latin since Latin only starts at the high school level here, but I've done a lot of research into it, I love my Latin class, and want to pursue greek and modern languages as well (esp. Spanish Literature)

anyway-I'm not a girl, sorry haha


I'll put down Wesleyan as a good match. Do you know if Bowdoin or Colby have good programs?

Also I don't like Middlebury either.

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 07:03 pm: Edit

Id look at Colgate as well, not really a safety but proobably a pretty good shot.

By Scma (Scma) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 07:09 pm: Edit

Boston University has a good department. They offer merit scholarships for classics majors.

By Coureur (Coureur) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 07:44 pm: Edit

Consider St. Olaf (Minn.) It would probably be a safety for you.

I don't know how highly its Classics program is ranked, but I know a Classics grad from there who won a Rhodes scholarship, so the department must be doing something right

By Frazzled_One (Frazzled_One) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 09:41 pm: Edit

Mini, is the American Classical Studies program related to the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (which is, I believe, a Duke program that several other universities participate in?), or is it something else? Any info appreciated - my daughter is also a prospective classics major.

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 09:57 pm: Edit

Kenyon has a very good classics department that is much larger and broad in its offerings than most LACs of similiar size.

If you don't want a "holy" school, I'd strike out St. Olaf - although an excellent school it has a very strong Lutheran affiliation that permeates the campus culture.

By Mini (Mini) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 10:32 pm: Edit

" Mini, is the American Classical Studies program related to the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (which is, I believe, a Duke program that several other universities participate in?), or is it something else? Any info appreciated - my daughter is also a prospective classics major."

One and the same (when I was in school, it was still ACS, or maybe it is ACS at the Intercollegiate Center). It was supposed to be the premier place!

By Frazzled_One (Frazzled_One) on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 10:48 pm: Edit

Thanks - she's checked it out and is very interested, as several schools on her list participate. I'm actually surprised at the number of kids I know who are considering a classics major - and there are more than a few CC posters pursuing classics, as well. Something that intrigues my d about UMich is the size of the department - 150-plus majors!

By Rhonda63 (Rhonda63) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 08:40 am: Edit

I don't really know anything about Bowdoin and Colby, sorry.

By Rhonda63 (Rhonda63) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 08:43 am: Edit

Also, if you liked Wesleyan, have you thought about Brown? It has one of the best classics depts in the country, and classics is probably Brown's strongest dept.

By Alexandre (Alexandre) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 08:48 am: Edit

How about St. Johns in Maryland. Aren't they supposed to be excellent in the Classics?

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 09:25 am: Edit

St johns in Maryland/New Mexico ( they encourage you to experience both) is a total Great Books program, very different from most other LACS. Definitely a place to visit if interested
http://www.sjca.edu/asp/main.aspx?page=1101

By Rhonda63 (Rhonda63) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 09:43 am: Edit

Here's the list of member institutions for the Inter Collegiate Center mentioned above.

http://www.aas.duke.edu/study_abroad/iccs/members.html

By Encomium (Encomium) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 09:46 am: Edit

You guys are being so helpful! Thank you!

By Pattykk (Pattykk) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 10:09 am: Edit

How about Carleton and Skidomore? By the way, has anyone had any experience with the American Academy of Rome?

By Cangel (Cangel) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 10:34 am: Edit

"They" say Vassar is looking for guys, maybe that makes it more of a match and/or safety for you.
After our college visits this summer, my husband wants to go back to school and study classics - he is a "language able" person, speaks French and Italian, self taught Latin, starting Greek, but it's harder. He's very envious of all these kids.

By Voronwe (Voronwe) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 11:00 am: Edit

Hey! Eliminating a school because it has "Holy" in its name is counterproductive - you can get arguably among the best education of your life at a Jesuit school, and you should talk to the Jews, Buddhists, etc. etc. etc. who go to them and see if they feel compromised! The daughter of a dear friend - a very Catholic girl - went to BC and had NO Catholic room-mates - she kept bringing home Muslims!

And CERTAINLY you'd get a stellar classics education!

By Encomium (Encomium) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 12:05 pm: Edit

I know it's not the most logical thing in the world, but I don't want to go to a school that has any religious connections. (No schools with "St." or "Holy" in them, no Georgetown, no Fairfield, etc.) I'm an athiest and I want to go to a school that is completely secular. I also imagine that there'd be, proportionally, more relgiious people at those schools anyway.

By Voronwe (Voronwe) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 12:30 pm: Edit

OK, I totally see that. But even as an "atheist" (you should read Paul Holmer, retired fom Yale, on the spuriousness of the "atheist/theist" distinction, which is like all too many other dualities: mind/body, subject/object etc. There was an especially bad and embarrassing recent op-ed piece in which a psych professor fom Yale imagined that religious people believe in something that exists along the line of the Easter Bunny - an invisible entity. He thought the current Pope - with his doctorate in Philosophy - didn't believe anything different from his 6-year-old son. It was truly painful to read.

One needs to understand religion rightly - whether to understand almost all of world literature; much of anthropology and sociology; a LOT of how philosophy/theology actually work (what "religious language" really is; from whence do many of our philosophical arguments arise) not to mention history. Or the truncated view people have of social justice, as if it appeared like Venus from the foam, when every word of the Human Rights Documents of the UN are recognizable as beinglifted from papal encyclicals on social justice, down to the very philosophy that warrants those rights (not necessarily a "religious" philosophy, though originally developed religiously, based on what can transcend cultural relativism: namely, the dignity of human beings).

The above is NOT polemical but pedagogical - I was an Ivy trained college teacher of religion and religious themes in history,film, literature etc. etc. and the abysmal ignorance of most of the college population was appalling -not only to allusions and content, but also the fact that the vast majority of things they ojected to in religion were straw men anyway.

By Mini (Mini) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 12:53 pm: Edit

I think that is very well-put. I have often been amused that folks assume that "agnostics" believe that the truth about the Deity cannot be known. Many of the "agnostics" I know (lots of them in my Friends Meeting) believe it IS possible to be known, just that they haven't been gifted with the knowledge to know it.

By Rhonda63 (Rhonda63) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 12:53 pm: Edit

But Voronwe, what you're talking about is a study of religion and religious belief as an academic discipline, something most secular schools offer. You don't need a school with a reglious affiliation to get that.

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 01:00 pm: Edit

true my daughter has several friends who are majoring in religion at Reed, can't get much more secular than Reed although they do read the New &Old Testament in freshman humanities.

By Voronwe (Voronwe) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 01:04 pm: Edit

Yes, Rhonda,I agree -- I was just going off on a soapbox, responding to the implied wish to avoid religious people --- OF COURSE you can get religion as an academic study a lot of places... also religion as a practice (even the secular state school I volunteer at has religion courses AND Newman Center, Jewish Student Association, Muslim Assoc. etc). Sorry for the confused way I wrote!

By Encomium (Encomium) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Voronwe-

I realize what I wrote now maybe didn't come off quite as how I hoped. I don't want to completely ignore religion or religious people. I totally respect their beliefs just as much as I would expect them to respect mine. But for the same reason that a very religious person might want to go to a religiously affiliated school, I don't want to go to one. I'm not stupid and I realize that the study of religion is an important factor in the world's society, history, and culture. As a classics major clearly I would be studying a lot of religious-based texts, mythology, and the rise of early christianity. I even want to take a course on early christianity. I understand these in the context of education. But I feel that there's a pretty good chance that if you looked at the percent of religious people at say Holy Cross compared to say Yale, there'd be more at Holy Cross. And even if that weren't true, there'd at least be a higher concentration of one religion at a place like Holy Cross. And how weird would it be to be in a dorm of many religious people, at a school called Holy Cross, and talk openly about being an athiest? I think many would wonder--why did you even come here in the first place?

By Vadad (Vadad) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 03:40 pm: Edit

Davidson has a very rigorous Classics program. If that part of the country is of any interest to you, you should contact Dr. Neumann in the Classics Department. Very, very nice people. Lots of travel opportunities.

By Par72 (Par72) on Friday, October 01, 2004 - 09:01 pm: Edit

Might want to visit Holy Cross and see if student life appeals. The Catholic influence is more of a heritage as Brown, Harvard, Duke, UChicago can claim main-line Protestant heritage. Holy Cross does indeed have a very strong classics major with designated merit aid scholarships.