Wow! Thanks everyone! So many good suggestions. I didn’t expect this much of a response this quickly. So, if you have the time, here is a little more about my son.
He is a rising senior and has a unique story to tell as an applicant, which I think will help him compete with regard to some of the reach schools. Based on his academic record, Midd would be a reach and Mac would be a target. For the last 4 years, he has assumed he would be an Engineering/Computer Science Major. He does fine in the hard sciences but he has never shown true passion for those subjects. Like a lot of smartish boys, he has generally thought that engineering/tech was the route to a good job. A few months ago, he was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder. I don’t like the Disorder part of that term as the Autism really is a superpower for him. The ADHD, however, was a real problem academically the last few years. But, his current ADHD treatment has had an amazing impact. So his grades are a little lower than what he probably deserves (still As and Bs and he is taking the hardest classes he can…5-6 AP/Dual Enrollment classes a year). So, academically he is good and has a good story about how and why his grades are heading in the right direction.
When he got the Autism diagnosis, everything changed for the better. He absolutely embraced the diagnosis. Over the last few months he has slowly come around to the idea that he doesn’t have to go the engineering route. I have, for a while, been gently encouraging him to study what he is passionate about. He is passionate about two things (both of which are Autism related). The first is learning languages on his own or from friends (so far, he is really quite good at Chinese, Korean, and Russian). He also did 3 years of French and 2 years of Latin in school which were very easy for him. He tends to learn languages “by ear,” and his ability to mimic pronunciation is as good as I have ever heard for a novice. I think those two things in particular go back to the Autism. We live in Charlottesville, and he plans to take Chinese or Korean at UVA in both the fall and spring of his Senior year. His other passion is Speed Cubing. He spends 40-50 hours every week, 52 weeks a year practicing/training. He goes to competitions all around the country (15-20 a year). We will visit Mac in July when we are in the Twin Cities for the National Championships. His specialty is blindfold, and he is quite good for his age–currently 60th in the country/300th in the world in that category (his best time is 31 seconds). Cubing is also obviously Autism related.
So as he applies to college in the fall he has an interesting story to tell about how he come to the point where he wants to dedicate his college experience to learning languages.
We have a very good understanding of both Linguistics and what I think of as a more “humanities based” or “traditional” perspective on learning languages. My daughter is at Swarthmore where she is double majoring in Linguistics and Comparative Literature. She is an incredibly strong language kid. But unlike my son, she is focused on languages that will allow her to study the literature she loves (classical/ medieval/renaissance). She is proficient/fluent in Latin, Greek, German, Olde English, and Spanish but her proficiency is more in reading/writing rather than speaking.
My son is completely different, and I think he needs a different kind of school. He wants to learn as many languages as he can, and he wants to speak all of them. He is less focused on intricate details of grammar and cares more about communicating. He basically wants to become as close to a polyglot as he can, and he wants to start with languages that are particularly relevant in the modern world. So, schools that are traditionally good in languages (say Swat and Midd) may not actually be a great fit for what he is most interested in with regard to how he approaches languages. He has a very modern view of things.
Everything that I have seen tells me that Mac is a perfect fit. I visited two years ago with my daughter, and we both loved it…but it wasn’t a perfect fit for her. Too modern facing (if that makes sense). For my son, though, I think it is a really nice match.
To some specific points…
We are also very familiar with Middlebury. My daughter will be doing the Spanish immersion program there this summer. He will visit in August and he definitely plans to apply there.
Korean looks like it is just not an option at LACs. I think that is ok…he really is quite good at picking things up on his own. Some of the summer options that have been mentioned here are also really great options for Korean. The NSLI-Y program just sounds amazing! Thank you @spoonbender for this. This summer is filled with Cubing competitions but we may target that for next summer.
I will check out St. Olaf and the California schools. Thanks again everyone. At this point and from what I have read we think Mac will be his ED1 choice. Best,
DHD
