To the extent that you will be using IPEDS for this information, note that this source is updated annually (and is likely to be updated soon).
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It may be worth looking at Randolph-Macon College https://www.rmc.edu/ near Richmond, VA. It hosts the annual summer Governor’s Latin Academy for high school students. It’s a private school, but as you know, so many private schools offer merit scholarships that can make the cost much more reasonable.
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This site lets you look up how many students majored in a particular major in 2022 (based off IPEDS data). When looking at Classics (General), these were the schools with the most graduating seniors (smaller and/or liberal-artsy colleges were bolded):
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22: U. of Florida
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18: UC-Boulder, U. of Chicago, College of the Holy Cross
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17: Brown
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16: Stanford
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15: UNC-Chapel Hill, Harvard, College of Charleston
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14: William & Mary, U. of Pennsylvania, UC-Santa Barbara, Macalester, Florida State
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13: U. of Pittsburgh, U. of Hawaii, U. of Georgia, U. of Arizona
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12: U. of Tennessee, Hope College
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11: Tulane, UT-Austin, Penn State, CUNY-Hunter
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10: Ohio State, Columbia, Bucknell
The smaller colleges further down the list are Williams (9), U. of Dallas & Gustavus Adolphus (8), Trinity U., Trinity C., Oberlin, & Dickinson (7) Washington & Lee, U. of Mary Washington, Skidmore, Rhodes, Kenyon, Grinnell, and Carleton (6), and there are more further down the list, including Randolph-Macon with (5).
Depending on what your budget is and how strong of a student your D is, I think the schools that are likely to get closeest to UMD’s in-state pricing are Hope, U. of Dallas, Gusavus Adolphus, U. of Mary Washington, and Rhodes, as well as Randolph-Macon.
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Great list. Note that Hope is very Christian.
Didn’t realize about Charleston…depending on student stats, if they’re spectacular, they could potentially become a Charleston Fellow and tap into endowed money. My daughter’s merit is more than tuition - although she’s got a service scholarship as well.
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I note there are a bunch of different majors one might look for, three in Classics and then Latin and Ancient Greek, and also Ancient Studies. Different schools have their main major on different lists, and some have a balance between multiple lists.
So, for example, Cal and UCLA are at the top of a different list (Classical, Ancient Mediterranean, etc.) with 17 each. That is also where Kalamazoo shows up with 4 (not bad considering it is less than 1/20th their size).
St Olaf is second on the Latin list with 5, and has another 5 in Ancient Studies, and has 4 on that list above too. They also offer an Ancient Greek major but it looks like it had no takers in that database, and Medieval Studies is the fifth major run out of that department but that is getting a little outside the scope of Classics:
https://wp.stolaf.edu/classics/read-more/
Finally, I’d also again just emphasize sometimes consortiums and such might make a difference, depending on exactly what a student wants out of their experience.
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I thought it might be interesting to look at a sample faculty page at Haverford:
I think if you look around, the actual permanent Classics faculty at small colleges tends to be a very short list, similar to this one. They often fill in a bit with visiting professors, but that is still going to be a short list.
So I think the ways they can expand faculty resources further beyond that short list are worth considering. Haverford’s page repeatedly references the BiCo with Bryn Mawr, starting with the core Classics faculty there. But then they also list all the different faculty at both colleges with intersecting interests.
Of course many larger research universities will have way more such people in other departments that intersect with Classics. But I think for at least some smaller colleges, this becomes a critical distinction. In this case, for example, Bryn Mawr’s distinct Archaeology Department is a very important resource, for Bryn Mawr of course but also by extension Haverford.
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OK, and here is Pitt–again interesting that the core full time faculty is not a large list, but they expand out with part time, adjuncts, and also a lot of affiliates (as I mentioned before, drawing most notably on their strong History and Philosophy departments):
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Precisely. Bigger classics departments often offer more than one major — one of several reasons I find comparing numbers of majors quite unhelpful.
In addition to the ones you mentioned, some colleges offer both a “classics” (or “classical languages”) major and a “classical studies/civilizations” major, with the latter having few or no ancient language requirements.
Top of the list or not, this too does not really adequately reflect how strong and well-rounded Berkeley and UCLA are in ancient studies.
For example, UCLA is one of the three major powerhouses in Indo-European studies in the US (Harvard and Cornell are the others), which is nice for those interested in Greek and Latin linguistics. Few other universities and virtually no LACs offer classics majors the opportunity to take relevant IE languages like Hittite and Old Persian, or older stages of Greek like Mycenaean Greek.
That’s not to say there aren’t phenomenal scholars at LACs, of course, but most classics departments at LACs tend to have relatively small faculties and thus can only rarely offer the specialized courses that one finds in larger departments with PhD programs.
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All but Beloit are unfamiliar so thank you.
She’s familiar with St John’s but not interested. Thank you!
That would be a definite selling point for her.
Thank you! There are schools on here I wouldn’t expect to see.
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The program of study at Holy Cross is very appealing to her. She is already studying Latin, and would like to study Greek. She’s in general a very intellectually curious person who loves to learn. I think classics appeal to her because of its combination of languages, philosophy, history, literature & archaeology. Once she’s in a program, I’m sure her interests will become more focused (actually knowing her they might expand!)
She has mentioned wanting to go the PhD, college professor / researcher route, but we have discouraged that because we know from friends how difficult tenure track humanities positions have been to secure. She’s also mentioned teaching h.s., becoming a librarian. Careers are not yet set for her (which we’re okay with.)
These are all really helpful suggestions - thank you!
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Yes, I really think you have to know what you might be looking for out of a Classics major. If you are looking for an interdisciplinary major that you might find really interesting, that will naturally lend to cool study abroad programs, that will build fundamental reading and writing skills, and that will prepare you well for a variety of career fields like law, government, business, education, and so on, many SLACs might be good choices.
If you are looking for a career as an actual Classicist (a tough field), you need to make sure you are going to be competitive for top graduate programs. My understanding is usually at a minimum you need to make sure you can get the language training you typically need, which may narrow the field significantly. And if you want to get a jump on taking grad or other specific specialized advanced classes while still an undergrad, then it becomes a very short list.
That said, my two cents is most of the time that is getting ahead of yourself. Like, I thought it would be interesting to see where UCLA Classics grad students went for college, and fortunately they had the bios available, so this is what I found (in the alphabetical order of grad student last name):
Oregon (Honors)
UCLA
Haverford
Dallas
Princeton
Utah
Richmond
BYU
Kansas
Columbia
Renmin
Toronto
USC
Hobart and William Smith
St Olaf
Denison
Chicago
St Olaf (again)
Texas
Concordia
DePaul
Sun Yat-sen
As usual, quite a diverse list, with some non-US mixed in. And also a lot of SLAC representation, particularly when you account for relative size.
I note a lot of these people did not go straight from college to UCLA, they went through Masters programs and such other places first. That again is pretty common these days, and just indicative of how you don’t have to try to do it all at once because it is more a marathon than a sprint.
But at the end of the day, the vast majority of Classics majors will not end up Classicists anyway. It doesn’t make it a bad major, quite the contrary, but it is a reality for most.
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This can represent a point of differentiation among potential choices. A solid archaeology track may not be available even at schools with strong general classics programs. On the other hand, some of the more scientifically oriented colleges offer programs in archaeology and, more esoterically, geoarchaeology.
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Looking at recently available information, it appears that Amherst didn’t graduate any classics “first majors” in 2023: College Navigator - Amherst College.
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Thanks for sharing. FYI - my assessment was based on input from the classics faculty at S24’s school, and comparing faculty and course listings on the school websites. Unfortunately, very few students seem interested in classics at the NESCACs (and at most other schools) these days. When you have a couple of majors a year at best, it’s easy to have a year with none at all.
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