Colleges that lean towards Humanities

[Anonymous]

Which top LACs and universities have the largest inclinations towards the Humanities? On tours, we’ve mostly been hearing about STEM, and it seems that most students are studying either STEM or Econ. We want somewhere with a strong humanities community and reputation.

[Anonymous]

I think this is generational.
—1990s History major

[Anonymous]

For flagships, look up the enrollment size of the liberal arts college. Compare it to the size of the engineering college and the size of the business college.

Look at humanities degrees awarded (and social sciences if you believe econ, psych, and poli sci major count to offset STEM-centricity).

I went to Penn State (Honors College) and transferred to Pitt after freshman year. Pitt was very humanities and social science focused, and I was happy there. At Penn State, Liberal Arts was the least prestigious college and there was little curriculum support for Honors College students in those majors.

My grad degree is in business from Michigan. Michigan has a large variety of majors in LSA. There are only a few graduates in some of them. But LSA is a great option for undergrads. My DC is there now and I'm envious every time I look through his course selection opportunities.

I would look at English major counts as a reasonable proxy for strength in the humanities. Also the number of foreign language majors summed across languages.

And then, consider the number of majors in your child's intended field.

I would use 30 to 50 degrees a year at a flagship as an indication of a somewhat intimate program. When there are only a handful, it's very important the school is a great fit and the faculty are a great fit. Online research usually gives faculty bios and links to publications.

[Anonymous]

PP: Should clarify that the Common Data Set provides all this information in the degrees awarded and you can pretty much tell by eyeballing how important the humanities are.

[Anonymous]

The Midwest LACs - Kenyon, Oberlin, Grinnell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP: Should clarify that the Common Data Set provides all this information in the degrees awarded and you can pretty much tell by eyeballing how important the humanities are.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Midwest LACs - Kenyon, Oberlin, Grinnell.

Oberlin is probably stronger in sciences than humanities (except music, of course).

Try Macalaster
Middlebury (exp languages)

[Anonymous]

St John's. Then a miscellaney of small Christian schools. Liberal arts elsewhere have the name, but very little of the substance. Autoethnography abounds.

[Anonymous]

Stay far away from top lacs. Almost all of them are VERY stem heavy- math/neuro/biology/CS programs have exploded in size and the classic humanities subjects are starting to slim in majors. DD’s college has even seen physics explode to 3x its size in the last 5 years. Large universities where there may be 50-100 majors in the humanities subjects of interests might be the best choice in the near future.

[Anonymous]

Yale
Princeton
Brown

[Anonymous]

William & Mary

[Anonymous]

Yale
Brown
Duke
UChicago
Dartmouth
Williams
Amherst
Davidson
Middlebury

[Anonymous]

Kenyon, Bard, Wesleyan, Vassar, Oberlin

[Anonymous]

William and Mary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kenyon, Bard, Wesleyan, Vassar, Oberlin

This plus Reed and Macalester — relatively higher humanities percentages at these schools.