Luckymama Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 We're planning on doing a few college visits this summer for dd to get a feel of other campuses. She visited the schools dd20 was interested in and is very familiar with the state flagship university ;) Dd's latest "thing" is an interest in unusual-for-the-US yet potentially very important languages (she is studying Arabic now)----languages like Hindi, Turkish, Persian, etc. The State Department calls these, and others, "critical languages", and the government provides a lot of free study abroad opportunities such as NSLI-Y. Right now she also has a slight interest in Russian but no interest at all in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. We've been looking at the language offerings of many colleges and universities over the past week. So far we've only found "lottery" schools such as Yale and UChicago or super-large state schools such as Wisconsin-Madison and UCLA with wide (and deep!) language choices. Can anyone suggest other not-quite-as-competitive schools known for this type of language learning? Bonus points if the school is within four hours driving of Philly or Baltimore so we could make a day visit :D She does not want to attend a school under 2000 students unless it is in or very near a metropolitan area. She is comfortable with up to about 15,000 undergraduates. Dd's other interests: math (still, thankfully), how people think and what makes them do what they do (so perhaps psychology or poli sci or international relations), with a strong desire to work for the government. I know we're early, but this kid keeps me on my toes :lol: I already have a list going for engineering schools, one for comp sci, and one for pure maths. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 George Mason University?https://newsdesk.gmu.edu/2014/06/mason-students-travel-globe-critical-language-immersion-scholarships/ They have a Global Affairs degree that may fit the bill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 George Mason University?https://newsdesk.gmu.edu/2014/06/mason-students-travel-globe-critical-language-immersion-scholarships/ They have a Global Affairs degree that may fit the bill. Thank you! They have a nice selection of Arabic classes and elementary/intermediate Persian and Turkish (for anyone else reading who doesn't want to chase down the course catalog :)) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 My oldest is starting there this fall. It's a large school with a very diverse student body. He's very excited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Luckymama, I wish our dd's could meet each other. Everyone she knows looks at her like she has 2 heads when she talks about her interests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 Luckymama, I wish our dd's could meet each other. Everyone she knows looks at her like she has 2 heads when she talks about her interests. Seriously. I am simultaneously glad and stressed that dd is able to explore out-of-the-norm ideas as a high school student! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barbara H Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 If she hasn't found it already she may want to look at the Language Flagship program. It is offered at 20+ schools in the US and has a program that integrates study in less common languages along with potential for study abroad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 If she hasn't found it already she may want to look at the Language Flagship program. It is offered at 20+ schools in the US and has a program that integrates study in less common languages along with potential for study abroad. We found that yesterday, following links from a thread on College Confidential :) University of Maryland has a really interesting summer program in Arabic, Persian, and Chinese. It's on our list of potential visits this summer. I wish medium-sized schools had interesting language programs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Medium sized but only an hour from Cincinnati. Miami University. http://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/gramelac/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 It is definitely on the large end of the spectrum but... University of Michigan offers a wide variety of languages-including a multitude of dead languages. They have fairly strong programs in many of the other areas you mentioned as well. It is a common place to have studied for folks in foreign service-along with schools like Georgetown, Tufts, and Harvard. To make a large school seem small-be on the look out for honors programs and special "colleges" within the university. Also look for housing themed to your area of interest. Another option would be to attend a small LAC that would allow you to design a major and then take courses in the desired language from a nearby (larger) school that they have an agreement with or are in a consortium with. One could complement those with history, art, religion, government, or philosophy courses to create a "[name of language/country] Studies" major. Add in an honors thesis and wow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 The University of North Georgia meets your requirements, except for the driving distance. Majors: Arabic, Chinese, French, French w/Business Emphasis, Spanish, Spanish w/Business Emphasis Minors: Arabic, Chinese , French, German, Korean, Russian, Spanish Coursework available in: Italian, Japanese, Latin Certification Program: Latin American Studies The Chinese Language Flagship Program: for ROTC students, sponsored by the National Security Education Program (NSEP) and the U.S. Department of Defense Project GO (Global Officer): ROTC scholarship program for domestic & study abroad; sponsored by the Defense Language and National Security Education Office; administered by the Institute of International Education (IIE) Summer Language Institute: summer residential program; earn 8 hours in Arabic, Chinese, Korean or Russian True Confession: This is my Alma Mater & I love this place! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawyer&Mom Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 I wouldn't necessarily rule out a bigger school. Trust me, if you are studying a less commonly taught language, that big state university is going to seem really cozy really quickly. I knew most of the German majors at Berkeley. I can't imagine if I was studying Turkish. Foreign language is a great way to find a niche at a big school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura in CA Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 To make a large school seem small-be on the look out for honors programs and special "colleges" within the university. Also look for housing themed to your area of interest. I wouldn't necessarily rule out a bigger school. Trust me, if you are studying a less commonly taught language, that big state university is going to seem really cozy really quickly. I knew most of the German majors at Berkeley. I can't imagine if I was studying Turkish. Foreign language is a great way to find a niche at a big school. This thread title caught my eye, because I was thinking of posting on the big school/small school thread about my son and his languages. I've posted this before, but during our campus tour of UC Berkeley, the student leading the tour said, several times, "You can make a big school smaller, but you can't make a small school bigger." (I suppose an exception would be a consortium of schools as mentioned earlier.) The tour guide was a German major (!), played in the marching band, etc., and had found several niches in which he felt at home. I've been thinking it may be easier to find one's "tribe" at a larger school ... (I myself opted for a medium-sized college -- 6,000 undergraduates -- but both of my boys wanted large schools, with 18-25,000 students.) Anyway, back to my son -- he started college saying he wanted to minor in German and also take Yiddish. Now, a few months in, he's talking about taking Korean and maybe Chinese. I'm not sure there are many colleges that offer both Yiddish and Korean, along with 55 other languages, but Berkeley does! :) I'm not necessarily recommending Berkeley (or UCLA, which you mentioned) for your daughter, b/c OOS tuition makes the cost as high as a private uni. Just wanted to mention the funny Yiddish/Korean thing. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timbers6 Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Quick reply here... Defense language school (DoD) in Monterey, ca (post naval academy) My BIL went there. Yep, it's west coast but it's phenomenal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodGrief Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 University of Washington in Seattle; my daughter is studying Turkish there currently. I know they have Arabic, not sure about the other options. Great school, beautiful campus. Expensive if one is coming from out-of-state though :-) Editing to add that my daughter was not thrilled with the idea of a large campus...in fact, her other top choice was Bryn Mawr, and she made her choice just the day before the deadline, because she was worried about size. We come from a small town in Alaska. It has turned out to be a non-issue. Lots of ways to find one's place, even at a larger school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 Medium sized but only an hour from Cincinnati. Miami University. http://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/gramelac/ Thanks! I actually spent a summer there doing research when I was in college (on what would now be called an REU) :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 Editing to add that my daughter was not thrilled with the idea of a large campus...in fact, her other top choice was Bryn Mawr, and she made her choice just the day before the deadline, because she was worried about size. We come from a small town in Alaska. It has turned out to be a non-issue. Lots of ways to find one's place, even at a larger school. Bryn Mawr is on our summer visit list! It's quite small, but might work with the other consortium (or whatever term they use) schools in the area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 Thanks for all the suggestions. You have given dd much to read and ponder :) It looks like I'll have to investigate how big state schools handle OOS students and merit aid. We will not qualify for any sort of need-based aid from the majority of schools. We do not wish to pay our EFC because :lol: yeah, craziness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Thanks for all the suggestions. You have given dd much to read and ponder :) It looks like I'll have to investigate how big state schools handle OOS students and merit aid. We will not qualify for any sort of need-based aid from the majority of schools. We do not wish to pay our EFC because :lol: yeah, craziness. One reason Miami Uni caught our eye (besides a family connection) is that if you get to the scholarship level where the merit grants are a percentage of tuition (half or full) then it is calculated relative to the tuition cost. IOW, a half scholarship is half off in state or out of state, not just a $5,000 grant that goes farther in one situation than the other. Now that still leaves the other half. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 One reason Miami Uni caught our eye (besides a family connection) is that if you get to the scholarship level where the merit grants are a percentage of tuition (half or full) then it is calculated relative to the tuition cost. IOW, a half scholarship is half off in state or out of state, not just a $5,000 grant that goes farther in one situation than the other. Now that still leaves the other half. Also, the Cincinnati area has interesting pockets of immigrants with less typical languages. I've seen cricket games in city parks. I know the former fire chief from a city near Cincinnati. They frequently had fire calls into areas with concentrations of Somali immigrants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald Stoker Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Also huge, but lots of languages--University of Toronto. University of Oklahoma seems to have some less common languages as well. ETA Turkish studies in the US: http://www.turkishstudies.org/turkish_in_the_us/studies.shtml EATA Wikipedia says Persian studies at Harvard, Ohio State, San Francisco State, UTX at Austin, U of MD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura in CA Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Quick reply here... Defense language school (DoD) in Monterey, ca (post naval academy) My BIL went there. Yep, it's west coast but it's phenomenal. Agreed! My brother went there, and also has taught there. Plus, it's in an unbelievably gorgeous location! :) Since I also love languages (I have taken classes in Spanish, Greek, and Hebrew just in the last two years, and I have co-workers from Ukraine (speaks Russian) and India (Telugu)), I was poking around the Berkeley language site I linked to above -- specifically, which languages Berkeley offers in addition to the "usual" :) Hindi. Here is what is being offered this semester in their Dept of South and Southeast Asian Studies: Bengali (intermediate) Hindi (intro & intermediate; lit) Urdu (intro through advanced) Punjabi (intro & intermediate) Sanskrit (intro, intermediate; lit) Tamil (intro & intermediate) Telugu (intro) Plus (in this dept.): Filipino (intro (3 sections) through advanced); Khmer (intro through advanced); Malay/Indonesian (intro & intermediate; lit); Vietnamese (intro (3 sections) through advanced); & Thai (intro through advanced). As a PP mentioned, a big school would immediately feel smaller to someone studying any of these languages! My point in listing all these language offerings is to show that a big school can accommodate exploration into different areas (like my son changing from Yiddish to Korean :) ). Oh, and that reminds me ... my mother studied both Thai and Korean at Berkeley in the 1950s :) I wish medium-sized schools had interesting language programs! One problem, of course, with smaller colleges is that during a budget crunch, languages are an easy target, especially when student enrollment in language classes is meager. For example, UC Santa Cruz cut Korean during a budget crisis; they now offer only 6 or so languages (fewer than some high schools!). The summer before the son of a friend of ours started at RPI, they eliminated all foreign languages (also a budget decision). This young man was very annoyed; he had spent summers in Switzerland with his uncle and aunt, and was looking forward to studying more German. Yes, he could take classes at other colleges in the area, but they're not that close, and commuting & scheduling were too much of a bother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 For Russian language consider Tech (Texas Tech University in Lubbock). A year or two ago, on the web site of AFROTC (?) I was surprised to see that Tech was one of their several preferred universities for Russian language. For other critical languages, I suggest you look on web sites like that of AFROTC, to see what their preferred schools are. Tech is not within 4 hours of Baltimore and they have approximately 30K students. Check out the swimming pool and take the photo tour of the campus... I doubt the students have much time to be in the pool... GL! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 12, 2015 Author Share Posted February 12, 2015 Thanks again for all the comments and suggestions :) I really appreciate how helpful this community is. And now for an update on my searching! I've had many free hours this week as dd has been fighting a fever virus. When I haven't been fighting with Excel over the transcript form (;)), I did some digging online. I decided to look at which schools undergrads attend who receive the very competitive Critical Language Scholarships http://www.clscholarship.org. I looked at the Arabic, Azerbaijani, Hindi, Persian, Punjabi, Turkish, and Urdu recipients for the past three years. I figured that schools with a high number of recipients have a strong language program (right?) and/or faculty members who know how to navigate the process. A very large number of the schools are on the east coast, and many are within a few hours of us. Of course, they are also schools that are very difficult to gain acceptance and/or ones that do not give much merit aid. But it's a start. I have a nice spreadsheet listing the schools and their language offerings. I'm into the next layer down, the schools with maybe one or two students accepted every year and that are in our area (ish). I've been checking their websites, seeing if they offer unusual language choices. When dd is feeling better, I'll point her to the CLS website so she can see the wide variety of majors represented. I hope that will help her explore more options. She's so familiar with math, pure sciences, engineering, economics, English, and so on as majors (because of her siblings and friends and all our foreign-born grad student friends) that she may not be thinking about public policy or international relations or whatever. For anyone playing at home, here is a very partial list of schools who have sent multiple undergrads to the non-Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Russian programs in the past three years (very much an East coast bias on my part--other schools include UT Austin, Wisconsin, Michigan, Berkeley, Stanford, etc.): Georgetown (16) University of Virginia (16) United States Naval Academy (14) Columbia (13) George Washington (12) Brown (12) American (12) Princeton (10) George Mason (9) UNC, Chapel Hill (9) University of Maryland, College Park (8) Alabama (6) Harvard (6) William and Mary (6, all Arabic) Pitt (7) City University of New York (5) NYU (5) Mount Holyoke (4) James Madison (4) Franklin and Marshall (3) Temple (3) Vassar (3) Barnard (3) And then other schools for us to check: Smith (2) Bucknell (2) Johns Hopkins (2) University of Delaware (2) Washington and Lee (2) Rowan (2) Boston University (2) Yale (2) Tufts (2) Howard University (2) Wellesley (2) Wesleyan (2) Dartmouth (2) Williams (2) Northeastern (2) University of Richmond (2) Virginia Commonwealth University (2) Rutgers (2) Rhodes College (1) Amherst (1) St. Mary's College of Maryland (1) Dickinson (1) Drew (1) Holy Cross (1) Boston College (1) Gettysburg (1) Haverford (1) Gettysburg (1) Elon (1) Middlebury (1) Swarthmore (1) Bryn Mawr (1) Lehigh (1) College of Charlestown (1) Fordham (1) Vanderbilt (1) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 What about Bard, since you will be in the 'hood if you visit Vassar? They have the two languages DS studies, French and Arabic, not sure about others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 Arizona State University has a critical languages institute. https://melikian.asu.edu/cli They have summer abroad and hybrid on-campus/abroad programs. A few languages are also offered as 200-level courses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 Luckymama, How did you find the information in your list about the schools and recipient winners? I tried searching the site and couldn't find it. I am curious if there is a way to determine which languages for specific schools. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 13, 2015 Author Share Posted February 13, 2015 Choose 'alumni' on the home page, and then click on the link for the 'CLS Alumni Database' about 1/3 of the way down the page. You can search by name, home institution, language, year, and field of study, but I couldn't get that to work on my ipad yesterday. I just scanned and made copious notes :D Never mind, it's working for me now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 Thanks! I found it. Quite an interesting list with a huge variant in institutions. I was startled to see Portland Community College multiple times. That is food for thought! ;) I started looking more closely and several schools listed do not have the languages listed as majors, only minors. (Honestly, I am more confused now than before! I think students pursuing the program are self-selecting in addition to the program selecting the students.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 13, 2015 Author Share Posted February 13, 2015 Thanks! I found it. Quite an interesting list with a huge variant in institutions. I was startled to see Portland Community College multiple times. That is food for thought! ;) I started looking more closely and several schools listed do not have the languages listed as majors, only minors. (Honestly, I am more confused now than before! I think students pursuing the program are self-selecting in addition to the program selecting the students.) There are a lot of community colleges and "directional" (to use CC-speak lol) state universities on the list, which is so cool. The students are definitely self-selected. I think schools with repeated recipients show an institutional knowledge of the program, which is kind of what I was looking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 There are a lot of community colleges and "directional" (to use CC-speak lol) state universities on the list, which is so cool. The students are definitely self-selected. I think schools with repeated recipients show an institutional knowledge of the program, which is kind of what I was looking for. Yes, I agree. It is the same with students winning national science awards like Goldwater, Hollings, etc. Are students assisted toward that goal? The list of majors was also quite diverse. Another avenue you might want to investigate is one I found through UA's website after reading through the link you shared. 2 students from UA were accepted for Hindi. I had never noticed that UA had a Hindi major. (They don't.) But what they do have is a Critical Language Program (never noticed it before). http://courseleaf.ua.edu/artssciences/modernlanguagesclassics/#clprogramtext Based on that link, CLPs must exist across the country via the National Association of Self-Instructional Language Programs (NASILP). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 13, 2015 Author Share Posted February 13, 2015 Whoa, thanks for that information! Today's reading after the gym! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cammie Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 I studied Telugu at the University of Wisconsin - Madison for my MA. I did get one of the government FLAS scholarships available to people who study languages that no one else in the US studies (there were a total of 2 people in my Telugu class!) The scholarship was very generous - paid for everything plus gave me a stipend! I did my undergrad at GWU but I did love Madison for the two years I was there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted February 18, 2015 Author Share Posted February 18, 2015 Thanks Cammie! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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