Commonly Asked Questions

Admission to the Program

Consult your Major Advisor and the Graduate Advisor once a professor who has taught you suggests that you might be qualified for the B.A./M.A. program. You must have an average of 3.7 in the French major and a 3.4 GPA to be eligible. The admission procedure begins by your filling out a plan of study, which you submit to Special Cases after approval from the French Major Advisor and the French Chair. Once approved, you then fill out an application for the Graduate School. At its next meeting, the Graduate Council will vote on your admission. The optimum time for going through these admissions procedures varies according to individual profiles; it may be as early as semester II of sophomore year or more usually semester I of junior year.

Once you are admitted to the program and the graduate school, you must register for your courses each semester with your Undergraduate and Graduate Advisors in French. When you register for a graduate seminar or the 300-level flexi-credit courses (i.e., those that count for undergraduate and graduate credit), you must take the completed registration form to the Graduate School office. This must be done in the first week of the semester involved, at the latest, or, preferably, at the end of the preceding semester.

According to Bryn Mawr College rules, 32 units of credit are required for the B.A., 36 for students taking the B.A./M.A. This means that you must have four additional units of credit to receive the joint degree. Two of these four come from summer study at the Avignon Institut. In the cases of past students, the two additional credits usually come from A.P. credits awarded at admission or during freshman year or from summer school courses or, occasionally, from overload courses taken during the freshman and sophomore years. Please note that once admitted to the program, you may not take more than four courses/semester by Bryn Mawr College rules. Exceptions are not easily granted by the Special Cases Committee, which will not approve applications planning on overloads. You may go on Junior Year Abroad programs; some programs offer more 300-level courses with extra work than others. Please consult your Major Advisor and Graduate Advisor to discuss which programs allow advanced study. It is most useful to go abroad for semester II of junior year, and then remain in France for the Avignon Institut.

Since 1982 when the joint degree program was instituted, 45 undergraduate French majors have received the B.A./M.A.. Several of them were recognized during their senior year (or the first year after receiving the joint degree) by prestigious national awards and fellowships:

• Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Humanistic Study:
  ​​Amy Ogden '92
  Julia Tebbets '95
  Elisa Mader '96

• Fulbright Teaching Assistantships in France
  Amy Ogden '92
  Mary Teresa Doud '92
  Priya Wadhera '94
  Megan Jenness '95
  Elisa Mader '96
  Faith Todisco '97
  Sophie Davidson, '98 (declined)
  Nicole Calandra '01
  Kathryn Kleppinger '04
  Meera Seth '09

• Jacob Javits Fellowship:
  Julia Tebbets '95
  Sara Gibson '01/'02
  Erin Tremblay '04

• Mary Isabel Sibley Phi Beta Kappa Fellowship:
  Alexandra Murray '92