Classics and poli sci/international relations/psych
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.975
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.48 (slightly different weighting system, but very similar)
Class Rank: school doesn’t rank
ACT/SAT Scores: haven’t taken the SAT yet, but PSAT is 1460
Coursework
Will have taken at least 10 APs by the end of high school (CSP, HUG, Latin, APUSH, AP Lang, AP Calc BC, AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Lit, AP Psych), but possibly more depending on what fits in my schedule
Took all honors classes available (my school doesn’t have honors science)
Will take multivariable calc senior year
Will take two years of post-AP Latin
Awards (I don’t know which of these I should put so I’m listing everything here that’s remotely important)
National Latin Exam book award (4 gold medals and 2 perfect papers so far)
Overall achievement and overall academics awards at my state’s Latin convention (first place out of 1,000+ students)
2x first place in this other state Latin tournament
Eta Sigma Phi bronze and silver medals (given to strong Latin students at my school, notable because I was the only student to medal as a freshman)
Latin Honor Society (not that important, given to anyone with an A- or above in Latin)
A lot of random JCL awards from state and national conventions
Bronze Presidential Service Award (should’ve been silver but the service coordinator didn’t approve my hours in time)
Extracurriculars
State JCL vice president: planned and hosted two virtual events, helped run a couple of service projects, wrote a bunch of proposals that aren’t worth getting into here
Latin Club vice president (9th, 10th) and president (11th)
Captain of my school’s Certamen (Latin quiz bowl) team: we’ve won a few awards including 3rd at states two years in a row
Also played Certamen for my state’s team at Nationals for 4 years
Varsity rock climbing team (everyone is on varsity lol)
Girl Scouts for 10 years, working on my Gold Award now
Cost Constraints / Budget
I’m definitely not getting financial aid, but for now, no particular budget
Schools
I’m looking for schools that somewhat meet this criteria, but it doesn’t have to be perfect:
Strong Classics program, ideally with the ability to double major
Midsize (like 4,000-10,000 students)
Cooler weather (not too important, but ideally not somewhere like Florida)
Driving distance from the East Coast
Not too focused on sports (school spirit is good, but not a school where athletics is the main focus)
I’m not particularly into Greek life–I’m looking for a place where it’s more low-key and you don’t have to join a sorority to have a social life
I’m looking for an academic/intellectual vibe without it being cutthroat (that may be a unicorn, I know)
Most (all?) Ivies have strong classics programs and poli sci. These would obviously be reaches for anyone but you are solid and have a chance. Providence College could be a good likely and you would likely get merit (though they are not that generous).
I think Classics is tough. You might find a program - but the offerings might be slight.
Many on here tout UMASS as an example - but - it’s more than 4-10K kids.
Three years ago Mary Washington (really a local, VA school) rated #1 in this survey in Classics. I bring it up because its student population is a bit under 4000.
When you say no budget - is your family willing to spend $400K on a degree that likely won’t bring a high outcome - whether classics or your other majors??
If not, then you need a budget - or all the time now is wasted.
You’ve got a great background - and can apply anywhere - but at a cost. So you need to suss that out now - because 200K, 400K, etc. is a lot of money and you need to know where the family stands.
You’ll hear all the Vandy, WUSTL, Rice types - but looking levels underneath - you might check out a W&M, U of Kansas (too big but a great Honors College), Holy Cross, and also too big but Pitt.
Make sure you check out the curriculums at each school - but first and foremost - make sure you find that budget.
Talk to your family. Figuring out the budget is one of the first steps in the college search process. Some schools (like those in the Ivy League) don’t offer merit-based aid, only need-based aid. Your family will want to run the Net Price Calculator (NPC) at schools like Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. If the NPC does not bring back an affordable price, then no need-based school will be affordable and you will need to depend on schools that provide merit aid and/or have a lower sticker price than $85+k/year.
Some schools you may want to investigate include:
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
College of Charleston (SC): About 10k undergrads. There’s Greek life here, but @tsbna44 has a kid who is in the honors program and a special fellows program for international policy interests. So though the entire college may not have the academic/intellectual vibe you’re seeking, I suspect that that special programs here, do.
Hofstra (NY): About 6100 undergrads
Seton Hall (NJ): About 6k undergrads
U. of Mary Washington (VA): About 3500 undergrads
U. of New Hampshire: About 11k undergrads
Likely (60-79%)
Toss-Up (40-59%)
Fordham (NY): About 10k undergrads
Lower Probability (20-39%)
College of the Holy Cross (MA): About 3200 undergrads
For this criterion, you may benefit from researching colleges with notably flexible curricula, such as Brown and, if you were to consider smaller schools, Amherst and Hamilton.
My daughter is a Charleston Fellow and International Scholar. They have Classics but I’m not sure the depth of the department.
Charleston Fellows is a sub group in Honors…invitation only…but why not you? You are amazing. It’s definitely more “academic” than the school as a whole.
I missed it in my list - but it seems a fine suggestion (as always) from @AustenNut .
According to this source, College of Charleston tied for producing the 5th highest number of classics majors (first or second major) in the country in 2022.
My daughter is a Classical and Medieval Studies at Bates, double majoring in Environmental Studies. In fact, she had no intention of majoring in CMS, but she took one class and was hooked! The program has depth and breadth. The Bates core curriculum is pretty open and makes it easy to double-major, and if your son already has a leg up in Latin, that would reduce the number of courses required for the major (all students need Latin or Greek). The college also has excellent poli sci and psych departments.
Anyhow – Bates checks almost all of your boxes besides school size, so if that’s negotiable, you may want to look further.
It sounds like Holy Cross would be ideal. Notre Dame is also strong in Classics, though obviously pretty sports-y. You might look at U of Cincinnati - bigger than you had in mind, but very deep and broad offerings in Classics due to a large grad program.
So my S24 was considering Classics and we looked at a lot of options. Some of these were mentioned already but here are some additional thoughts/links:
For a school fitting pretty much all your criteria that is not Ivy-level selective, I would definitely look at William & Mary:
I note Classics is one of the six majors you can do as part of their joint program with St Andrews, which could be super cool:
They are also really good for Poli Sci and IR, so really a pretty perfect option it would seem.
Then to get a lot more options, it would help to bend a bit. One thing that would open up a lot more schools is to go smaller. If you are at all interested in women’s colleges, Bryn Mawr has a great program that also works closely with Haverford’s, and to some extent Swarthmore and Penn (of course you could also apply to any or all of those):
As many have mentioned, Holy Cross also has a very well-regarded Classics program:
Or you could look a bit bigger. Like Pitt has a very well-regarded Classics program, and also a lot of interdisciplinary interactions with other very good departments like History and (especially) Philosophy. Obviously some sports culture but I don’t think people find it overwhelming:
Congrats on a great record so far.
Classics varies at different schools: read each department website and make sure there are enough course offerings and professors.
In general the departments will be small, considering you are looking for 4k-10k students and not large schools.
Do you have a particular interest within Classics? School may matter for this.
One of mine is studying archaeology as an undergrad, which is housed under Classics at some schools (including hers, Duke) and under Anthropology in others. It is rarely a “major” itself at schools the size she wanted (same as yours). She had to do a lot of deep dives to find the details for each school.
Her school has very few Classics majors each year(but there are more who chose it as a second major), but it has outstanding faculty who love to have undergrads come do research with them, a museum on campus (internship opportunities), and its small number of undergrads has meant innumerable opportunities to interact with and get to know professors and grad students. One of the faculty is the lead for a prestigious study abroad program that attracts Classics students from all over, yet Duke students seem to have a much easier time with acceptance given the small number of students competing for spots from Duke. In other words, if it is a top school with known faculty (and a phD program if it is not a LAC), do not let a small number of undergrads in the major dissuade you from applying.
Other schools besides Duke that she toured/investigated and/or applied, 6 of which she was accepted:
Brown, Davidson, Vanderbilt, Emory, Wake, William&Mary, Boston College, Georgetown, Tufts, Dickinson, Pomona, Fordham, Rhodes.
She did not want midwest or too far north or too big of a city setting, but many if not all ivies have great Classics, as do WashU , Notre Dame, Amherst, Williams &Bowdoin. I know the LACs are smaller than you want but you should investigate them as options anyway.
By government information, however, Macalester reported just two graduating “first majors” in classics in a recent year: College Navigator - Macalester College. If the OP would like an active classics community, she may benefit from seeking a figure of six or greater for this statistic. Holy Cross, for example, recently reported nine graduating classics majors: College Navigator - College of the Holy Cross.
I’m just repeating @NiceUnparticularMan and a few others, but William & Mary seems like it would be an absolutely excellent fit for you. I’d encourage you to give it a really good look.
The schools on the list from @2Devils looked solid as well.
I think a bigger question is what does one hope to do with a Classics major? Perhaps major in something more practical (for employment/career), and minor in Classics? I think humanities are okay as a hobby (they certainly are a great hobby of mine), but unclear as to skills valued by the marketplace…
A major doesn’t need to offer training for a specific job. Most history majors, for example, don’t end up teaching history, and most don’t end up in history-adjacent fields (i.e., archival work, museums, etc.). But these kinds of majors can develop skills (language, writing, research, communication, etc.) highly valued in a wide range of professions. It’s kind of insulting to those of us who’ve built careers on a humanities-centered foundation to call them a “hobby.”
