Columbia PhD language requirement

[MIA]

Hi all,

I was thinking about applying to Columbia's PhD program, but I was just reading their website and I saw this about their language requirement:

Successful applicants will usually have achieved a good reading ability in at least one language beyond English. We accept in our program any languages that students can show will be relevant for their scholarly work: examples are Continental languages in which much theoretical and scholarly discussion is carried on (French, German, Spanish), classical languages that English-language writers often cite (Greek, Hebrew, Latin), the other literary languages of the British Isles (Irish, Welsh), and languages of major colonial and post-colonial populations closely engaged with England or the U.S. (Arabic, Hindi, Vietnamese, Zulu). Any language may be offered, so long as it bears a clear relevance to the candidate's prospective work.

So does that mean you need to be proficient at the time of application, rather than gaining proficiency while doing your PhD? I just don't want to waste my time applying if I'm immediately going to be cut for not having a second language yet.

[joeygiraldo]

Hi, friend. If you only know English, I would advise you not to apply. If this were a lowerranked program and your stats were ace, I'd feel different, but any school in the top-tier most certainly wants to see second language training. There's no way around this... when a place like Columbia gets 600 apps, knowledge of languages serves not only as an asset but also as an unspoken, under-the-radar cutoff criteria... the idea being that they want to admit students w/ the highest amount of what I call ''success probability.'' In other words, they want students who can, at least on paper, go through all the hoops of their degree reqs. w/ the least amount of hitches.

[Phedre]

I think that most programs allow you to pick up proficiency as you go, but youshould have a good start already (ie a couple of semesters of a language). Don't let it deter you, though-- I didnt apply to some programs because I was afraid of the language requirements, but then my friend who had the exact same language background got into said programs. So you never know!

[MIA]

Thank you both for your kind and detailed replies :-) I did wonder if it would act like something of cut-off criteria for a place like Columbia, as I guess you need to have some when you have 700 apps to go through!

[greekdaph]

Though it's impossible to know what goes on during those adcomm deliberations, I don't know that language proficiency is used as a cut-off the way that, say, a GRE score might be. My only language experience upon applying to programs was being a heritage speaker (and weak reader) of a language that's unrelated to my research interests. (I also had two semesters of college coursework in that language.) My experience was that schools that were interested in me--even schools that have demanding language requirements--ignored my weakness in languages. In conversations with DGSs, the assumption was that if I could get into their program, I could also pick up the language skills I needed during my time in grad school (little did they know how weak I am in languages--the requirement seems more daunting to me than they might imagine). And some schools are more lenient about the language requirement in practice than they are in theory--when I expressed concerns about the requirement at a couple schools, the DGSs and current students were reassuring and offered advice about how to make it more manageable.

A couple more thoughts:

-How seriously programs look at your language proficiency depends on your research interests. Language proficiency is very important for Medievalists, for instance, and programs pay attention to it. My area of interest is 19th century American, so while language proficiency is a bonus, it's not as necessary for my work. That, I think, is why schools were forgiving in my case.

-The top programs are intimidating to apply to==and yes, when there are 700 applications, even the tiniest weakness can sink your app. But if Columbia is a great fit for you in every aspect other than the language requirement, apply anyway! Fit is really important here--my sense is that schools that give your application a thorough read won't turn you down on a technicality if they like everything else about how you present yourself.

[JennyFieldsOriginal]

I think you should definitely apply anyway! For what it's worth, I've been encouraged to apply to top tier programs without any knowledge of a foreign language. I'm planning on cramming in winter, spring, and summer sessions at a community college and I intend to include that as a little blurb in my statement of purpose but that's about it. There's a reason there are so many ways to fulfill the language requirement. When my grandfather was completing a PhD he picked up 2 languages all by himself before the days when so many classes and helpful options were around for students trying to get past requirement. It's do-able for sure.

There are not many candidates with perfect GPAs, perfect tests scores, stellar SOPs, brilliant writing samples, who are also fluent in 2 languages. Even out of a pool of 700+ applicants, if everything else is in order you have a fighting chance. I'm applying for Fall 2010 and when I was chatting with professors about my stats, they were only interested in my GPA and GRE scores. One (perhaps silly) reason for that is these types of figures contribute to the department's stats, while language proficiency doesn't.

So go for it! Best of luck to you...though I probably shouldn't wish you too much luck because I'm applying to Columbia as well