I don’t really care much about prestige, but do want to be challenged academically. More important is a place that has the programs I’m interested in a good social/campus life where I’ll feel welcome as a trans student, lots of theater/music to get involved with. I don’t think I’m interested in huge (30k+) schools, but at this stage don’t want to discount anything too soon. Any advice would be great!
PS. Some schools I keep running across are:
Western Washington University
US Santa Cruz
Macalester
Brandeis
I haven’t take the PSAT or ACT yet. Two AP classes, with scores of 4.
Tagging @dfbdfb
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Thank you! I thought of NYU but have heard most people live off campus? I definitely want an on-campus experience for larger schools in particular, so I can get a community feel.
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NYU doesn’t have a traditional college campus. Its Washington Square campus (in Manhattan) is integrated into the city, with university buildings, residence halls, and facilities spread throughout the surrounding city streets.
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ok, thanks!
Wanting to be challenged academically without regard to prestige: Congratulations! You can pick pretty much any of the top thousand or so colleges (however one defines that) in the country and get that, no matter the narratives you often get here and elsewhere. (And if you’re still worried about going to the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople and being academically challenged, honors programs exist for suitably motivated students.)
Linguistics (which would be why @DadOfJerseyGirl called me in—I’m a linguistics professor): If you’re casting that broad of a net, then since linguistics is a relatively infrequently-offered major, you’re in good shape, since places that offer linguistics are nearly guaranteed to be well-resourced enough to fall within that vaguely-defined top thousand or so, and you can safely simply thin the list further with places that offer studio art/costume design, and move on with a manageable initial list from there. The difficulty with linguistics, though one you don’t really need to worry about til later, is that there are different models of linguistics majors out there—some places the linguistics major is actually a language (often English) major with a couple extra linguistics courses slotted in place of literature courses, other places it’s a solid focus on linguistics itself without language courses, some places it’s intensive study of linguistics itself with coursework in the structure of a specific language or language family. But all of them are valid! If you want linguistics as linguistics then you want to avoid the first of those, but if you’re actually interested in the use and learning of languages then any of them work (since you can take language courses as electives no matter what).
You want to feel welcome as a trans student: This one’s trickier. To a slight extent it matters if you’re a transman or a transwoman (because the latter is way more salient to anti-trans voices), but in general, I’d look at the state scorecards put together by organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign and the Movement Advancement Project. (Just look beyond the overall state grades—a state that shows up as decent on LGBTQ issues generally may be trans-unfriendly, and it’s rarer, but a state that’s generally LGBTQ-unfriendly may actually have decent policies toward transfolk.) And state policies matter, especially for public universities—so even though Austin is a bright-blue welcoming island in the middle of Texas, the social and political lean of Texas as a whole means that attending the U of Texas at Austin would be a bit difficult no matter how welcoming Austin generally and the students and faculty at UTA specifically might be.
A few specifics on institutions and locations: NYU was mentioned by someone, and I’d broaden that to anything in or near NYC that has the majors you’re interested in. And that’s not just NYC specifically—anything in a major metro area (to give you a good chance at a solid hardcore scene) in a state that does okay by transfolk should be on your radar, so for New York not just NYC but also Buffalo, the Boston metro area (and possibly also Worcester) in Massachusetts, in Maryland the Baltimore and DC areas (for the latter, also DC itself and Northern Virginia), Denver/Boulder in Colorado, Chicago in Illinois, Minneapolis/St Paul in Minnesota (you mentioned Macalester upthread, tough to get into but may be a very good fit), any of the Pacific Coast metro area in California/Oregon/Washington, maybe Albuquerque in New Mexico, maybe Reno in Nevada, maybe Madison or Milwaukee in Wisconsin, maybe Philadelphia or Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and so on.
So you’ve got a lot of options—but now we get to where the rubber meets the road: What is your family’s budget, and where would you be in-state for public university tuition? Because if your budget is highly constrained, the recommendations change.
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Deleted.
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Most of the freshman residences at nyu are around Washington square park. The dorms work hard to build a community feel. The upperclassmen dorms in Manhattan are a bit more spread out but all within walking distance. A lot of the off-campus students live in the same area.
However, Ohio as a state is not trans-friendly.
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Do you have any cost constraints? If so, what is your state of residency?
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Note that the map at LGBTQ Equality Landing Page - Movement Advancement Project allows selecting for sexual orientation and gender identity separately (as well as the default overall policy rating). LGBTQ Equality Landing Page - Movement Advancement Project is the gender identity map that may be of particular interest to trans people.
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thank you so much, @dfbdfb. I really appreciate you taking the time to write all that!
To answer your questions/provide more info:
–I’m mostly interested in sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics, as opposed to, say, computational linguistics or the study of foreign languages. And i’ve noticed exactly what you’re saying about linguistics showing up in different ways, like in an English or Philosophy Dept. Again, I don’t want to shut out options too early, but i’m 90% sure i’d want to go somewhere that offers a standalone Linguistics major or minor, not just classes in the subject.
–As far as trans identity, I say trans but more precisely I identify as nonbinary. I use they/them pronouns but am basically female presenting. So it’s not so much an issue of safety as much as wanting to be in a place that is LGBTA+ welcoming and progressive. I live in Portland, Oregon, which is really trans-friendly, so…
–I’m at the beginning of the process (just about to start junior year) but I don’t think I’ll qualify for financial aid; i have a decent 529, though.
–I’m in Oregon, and U of O has a linguistics dept as far as in-state options, but I’d like to go out of state if possible. WUE schools also an option.
thanks again for your advice!
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That’s true. Living off campus can actually be less expensive for students.
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Maybe work backwards, starting with which cities have strong punk scenes:
- Seattle
- LA
- SF
- NY
- DC
- Chicago
Where else?
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Hi! Sorry I just saw this. Oregon is my state of residency and although my parents aren’t rich or anything, I do have a decent 529 and am hoping to get merit scholarships. I’m hoping to not limit myslef by cost at this stage of the search and then use that as a parameter to whittle down my options as I continue.
Could you please do the chance me/match me and answer all of the questions on the template. You really haven’t given us much info to go on.
I would suggest looking at University of Massachusetts. I have no idea whether the cost as an out of state student will be something your family can afford. But they have a top linguistics program, and Massachusetts is a great state for you.
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UMass Amherst has a very strong undergrad (and grad) linguistics department. It is relatively large, free-standing (not under the auspices of the English department), offers coursework in all subcategories of linguistics. They would probably offer you their highest OOS merit scholarship, which I think is 18K/yr now, bringing your cost down to about the mid 40’s/yr. They would probably also offer you honors status, whose main advantage is access to their lovely, newer honors campus (right in the middle of the rest of the campus), and I think priority course registration. They’d probably give you credit for all your AP and dual enrollment classes. And you’d have access to classes at Amherst, Smith, and Mt. Holyoke.
Campus is very LGBTQ tolerant. There is of course theater and music. Campus is large, green, peaceful, and the food in the dining halls is mostly excellent, with lots of variety. In my opinion, the biggest drawback is that you’re at least two hours from Boston, and three hours from NYC.
If you are already very interested in linguistics, so much so that you’re quite sure that is what you want to study, you definitely should look at UMass Amherst.
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Yes OP check out UMass Amherst! Incredible linguistics, safe state for LGBTQ+, and there’s definitely a punk/DIY/artsy scene in the college towns of Amherst and nearby Northampton. You’d also be day trip distance from Boston which (as I’m sure you already know!) has a major hardcore scene.
If you’re thinking about checking out a much smaller school, maybe Macalester in Minnesota? They have a linguistics minor, it’s a pretty artsy/alt school, MN is LGBTQ-friendly, and alum Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü gave the commencement address at graduation a few years ago.
Edit: Just saw you’ve already been looking into Macalester. Definitely an option worth researching! However, PLEASE run the Net Price Calculator for any school to determine if it is affordable before applying. Note that both UMass Amherst and Macalester could give you some nice merit.
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This could mean having to throw away most or all of your list and redo almost all of your search later.
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