I am struggling to find a good safety for the kiddo. He is in denial but I am starting to be very concerned, especially after taking a close look at his current safety. After reading some student reviews and tapping into the mom network it’s becoming clear that he might not find his academic tribe at this school. It’s also very lacking in diversity and imo is Barbie Town but that apparently appeals to him.
Looking for medium sized schools with strong programs in econ, political economy and poly sci that offer Arabic and French. We are full pay, so merit would be very nice. He refuses to consider Mizzou due to recent campus events. He’s more west coast oriented but is open to expanding his horizons. Can’t be rural, needs to be close to an airport and a hospital.
We will be looking at Tulane, U of SC, Georgetown, Duke and American. Clearly Duke and Georgetown are lottery schools but he wants to visit. Thoughts?
Wow. Thanks for that, @dfbdfb. I guess we’ll mark down 2 for languages then! I remember looking up the requirements for ACTFL, but have since forgotten about it. I just shot an email to the contact in our state for more information.
I don’t see Klingon in the drop down, @Agentninetynine. I would call.
@dfbdfb Interesting post. I enjoyed reading it, even the rant.
I would not have considered listing dd as proficient in Russian, but she has passed the B1 level and that is the minimum required in order to enroll in Russian universities. (the TORFL equivalent of the TOEFL) So based on your post, I guess she could.
@Agentninetynine OK, does not fit either your West Coast or “medium sized”, but I’ll throw it out there only because I happened to stumble upon the Arabic major at Ohio State yesterday. Chance of merit there as well.
Thanks @2muchquan & @Mom2aphysicsgeek. I will check them out. To clarify, he’s never taken Arabic but he’s on his 4th year of French and does quite well. Tried to sign him up for a community college class when he was 14 but they wouldn’t take him. Even though he may possibly dry up and wither away at AZ, he may need to consider it.
@dfbdfb, I almost ‘collapsed from exhaustion’ but really enjoyed reading your in-depth analysis.
I feel better about declaring DD’s proficiency in Spanish now.
FWIW, my D, who when through 4th year Spanish in HS and thought it fun to read books in Spanish, put she was proficient on the CA. She actually tested out of all but 1 class for college (language is required there) and is considering Spanish as a second major. S, who completed 3 years of language in HS, is NOT proficient. He completed the 3rd year of Spanish grudgingly and was happy to forget most of what he learned. He put 1 language only on his CA.
The medium sized part makes it hard. I’ve not looked program strength wise for your S’s areas but what about options like Syracuse, Lehigh, Drexel, Ithaca?
Or, west coast jesuit. I seem to recall those were a no but ? Good for merit.
@Agentninetynine Our kids are in the same place. D will be starting from 0 for Arabic. The Arabic Flagships are designed to take those with no previous exposure to the language to the superior level of proficiency (~professional business level), though some do have some previous study. As @Mom2aphysicsgeek said, it does not get better than that. I can’t speak to the particular major combination your S is interested in. But here are some schools with strong Arabic programs that may be of interest to him: UMD, UT, Ole Miss, OU, OSU, UGA, NCSU, UC, USC, and MSU. They all offer merit scholarships as well. You can try the SuperMatch tool on here, punch in Arabic as the major and must have to get more schools and check those out. There are a number of others, but little to no merit awards at them (e.g., Georgetown, UCLA, Middlebury, etc.).
Just saw the UCLA news, this makes me heart hurt. There was a shooting at S11’s school a few years back. At the time we had no idea if he was on campus or not. I wouldn’t wish that feat on anyone.
I’m fascinated by linguistics @dfbdfb, so thanks for the post!
@eandesmom Spykid will most certainly melt in New Orleans and anywhere else in the south, but since he is a PNW slug, the humidity might revive him. Thus far he has been Arizona resistant. I keep gently suggesting he look at (any) school in Colorado since he’s outdoorsy and likes snow. He’s given Gonzaga a thumbs down. Mostly because it’s in Spokane. I’ve thought about Loyola Marymount in L.A. but I don’t see that as his cup of tea.
Syracuse isn’t a bad thought and they’ve been actively emailing him. I wonder how the no pants rule in the bitter cold would work out for him. :))
@Agentninetynine I didn’t know he was in the no pants club too! Lol. What about Santa Clara? I don’t think it’s as generous with merit due to location but…it’s not LA or Spokane! I wish E1 would consider it but he has the same reaction as spykid.
CSU would be very good on the merit side, as would U of Wyoming. Fort Collins is fabulous, it was SD’s safety and she’d have been happy there. What about Cal Poly? Not great in merit but for OOS it’s pretty reasonable and outside of engineering could maybe be a safety depending on the major.
Airport situation may not be ideal but SLO is big enough to have a decent hospital I would think. For that matter Laramie would not be great. Fort Collins though, I would definitely nudge that one if the programs fit.
On a much-needed lighter note, maybe I’ll start speaking Middle English regularly to my 15-year-old (I think I can pull that off) so that she can claim it’s spoken at home.
@dfbdfb – while I admit that my mind wandered in the middle of reading that long paragraph, I am intrigued nonetheless.
I assumed that the CA was attempting to determine if a language other than English was the spoken language at home. So even though my son has ended up in the Latin National Honor Society each year, I would have had him check one language, as my older son did.
About linguistics…I am still a bit hazy on what it is exactly. What does a linguist do?
My son participated in a National Linguistics competition this winter. No prior experience, and did not attend the practice session offered. (http://ling.yale.edu/naclo-yale) I thought little of it until Yale notified him that he had scored in the top 10% of test-takers nationwide and was invited to sit through another round of testing. This test was back in early March and he did not expect to hear that he had moved onto whatever the next round would have been.
He is not a language person but a math & coding person. Plans to study theoretical CS & applied mathematics in college. Is it just the code-breaking mindset that allows him to do ‘well’ at this linguistics competition? I say ‘well’ because I truly know nothing about this, and it is not something he plans to pursue as driving to Yale on a regular basis would be challenging. (Apparently the linguistics dept at Yale runs some sort of program for local students.)
Just curious, and figured you were the one to ask, @dfbdfb.
For west coasters thinking about Tulane…one small word to the wise though you likely already know. Not a lot of flight options, at least direct. Thanks to the fractured wrist, I changed to the red eye which was not direct (only 1 direct a day). Hit horrid storms, major delay in Dallas. Warm and humid here and there is some really really loud music playing outside my window that thankfully just stopped. I am operating on maybe 2 hours of sleep so could be hallucinating but it was like bad parade float/carnival music, pipe organ style…“you are my sunshine”. So out of context it makes me wonder what was in my iced tea at lunch.
it was one thing when I was here in Feb during Mardi Gras but this was just…odd. I am relieved that it isn’t the pool music as if it kept up, it could get ugly and make for bad dreams.
If I make loopy comments today, you all know why.
@dfbdfb good linguistic info (even if yes, my eyes did glaze over) you had a lot of fun with it! I am curious now if SD14 put down 2 languages, she likely should have. S19 may get there, we shall see. The rest of us…unless you count pig latin…not so much.
Even though he may possibly dry up and wither away at AZ, he may need to consider it.