<p>S is a junior and trying to figure out his schedule for next year. </p>
<p>He is an artsy kid, and reach schools might be along the lines of Brown, Vassar, Wesleyan. (will definitely apply to our state flagship and an assortment of small Liberal Arts schools also)</p>
<p>He wants to take 2 Social Studies next year and no math. That would make his schedule look like:</p>
<p>AP English
AP Gov
AP Bio
Honors Senior Seminar- Political Science
Italian 4 (no honors or Ap is offered for this language)
Band/Gym</p>
<p>Even though his application will emphasize his artistic side, I think he should probably do a 4th year of math. Math is a really basic requirement isn't it?</p>
<p>He is in Honors pre-calc and getting a B. Math is fairly easy for him, but it isn't a subject he is enjoying, thus the B.</p>
<p>If he sticks with math his schedule would be the same except in place of Italian 4 it would be:</p>
<p>Ap Stats or Ap Calc</p>
<p>My questions are:
1. Is it a big mistake not to do 4 years of math and 4 years of a foreign language?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Is it better to drop math or foreign language in senior year?</p></li>
<li><p>Does AP stats look like he is being lazy? He has no desire to take Ap Calc, and he is not going in an engineering direction.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Admissions HS curriculum requirements vary from school to school and state system to state system, but many, if not most top schools will require 4 math and 4 language. Yes, he would be constraining his options if he did fewer. I appreciate his enthusiasm for pursuing coursework that’s personally meaningful to him, but sometimes you need to take what’s required to position yourself for the future.</p>
<p>You need to check EACH school’s requirements for admission. My son went to a major university and was a music major. To be accepted, he had to fulfill the admission requirements of the UNIVERSITY…it didn’t matter that his major was in the arts. In his case, he took statistics as his fourth year of math (he would NOT have done well in precalc). Because he took Spanish in middle school, he completed honors Spanish 4 in 10th grade which fulfilled the foreign language requirements for all of his schools.</p>
<p>If any of your son’s colleges REQUIRE 4 years of foreign language or math, he will need to fulfill that requirement to be accepted. Check to see…many don’t require that…but they do recommend those courses.</p>
<p>My D went to a school that would only permit the kids to take 2APs as juniors, 3 as seniors. When she didn’t want to take a math class they tried to get her to to take calc in place of her AP Spanish. She said no. I called several highly selected colleges to ask their opinion. Only one (Kenyon) had a problem. So she never took calc until college. She had acceptances at NU, Carleton, Haverford, CMC, etc. I would say it didn’t hurt.</p>
<p>I would go to collegeboard.org to do a quick check of requirements for the schools he’s interested in. I’d be surprised if any didn’t require 4 years of math. My daughter had a similar issue with foreign language and ended up taking an intensive summer class at our local university to meet the requirement. Your son could do the same thing if he has time in the summer and would rather keep his high school schedule to things that he’s more interested in.</p>
<p>My daughter took AP Stats and never took calculus (older sister wants to teach college level calc). She was accepted at every school she applied to with selective major, for which only about one quarter of the applicants are accepted. Since she’s in a medical major, she thought that stats would be more useful than calc.</p>
<p>Check with the schools your son is thinking of applying to for their requirements. But if math is required, go for stats.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the comments. You are all so helpful and I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>When I look on the websites, the colleges he is interested in seem to say they require 3 years of math and recommend 4. Same with foreign language. I tend to think that skipping math would be more of a mistake though.</p>
<p>I guess I am kind of weary of trying to make him “fit” the requirements, and for his senior year I feel like letting him be himself. But of course, I don’t want there to be regrets later.</p>
<p>Make sure you also know your state requirements. In our school 4 years of math are now required for all kids. It’s caused some malcontent but it is what it is. That said my oldest took Algebra in middle school before the new requirements were in place, and opted for Stats as a senior and ended up dropping it the first week of senior year so yes, some kids apply without 4 years. Number two substituted AP Econ (which for some reason is categorized as “math” in our system. One and two are not mathy kids. Number three loves math so no problem with him, he’ll take as much as he can fit in.</p>
<p>I insisted on 4 years of language for all the boys just because I’m a mean mom.</p>
<p>Thanks again for your experiences and advice.</p>
<p>Honestly, I can’t see forcing him to take AP calc… so he should probably take AP stats and no foreign language if he REALLY wants both those social studies classes. </p>
<p>I will check into the summer Foreign Lang. class, but I don’t think his sched will permit it. Thanks for all the suggestions though!</p>
<p>Many schools will consider finishing pre-calc the same as “four years of math” since once upon a time the standard high school schedule was Alg 1, Alg 2, Geometry and Pre-calc. I don’t know of any colleges that require 4 years of a language though some will prefer it. He might get a little bit of a ding for not taking math, but I think it’s likely to be a wash. A B in math vs an A in an honors or AP class.</p>
<p>This really depends on the schools your student is applying to. Check requirements and recommendations for high school courses at target universities. Many want core classes all four years, regardless of classes taken in middle school. Schools vary on foreign language. Some top tier recommend five years, so having only three would be a distinct disadvantage here. This is true regardless of the intended course of study. You may find the specific schools your student is looking at is fine with the proposed schedule. By checking you can help your student make an informed decision.</p>
<p>S1 is artsy too. He did not take 4th year math–but took AP Econ instead. He only took 3 years of Latin. However, he took AP Art History, AP Studio Art, AP English Lit, AP Econ plus Genetics & Bioengineering and Psych. This was not a problem for admission into many top ranked Us (Duke, Wash U, USC, and Carnegie Mellon). </p>
<p>Is your HS known to be rigorous? Can the GC give you advice from previous kids on his path?</p>
<p>Mathmom is right about the pre-calc usually being counted as year 4. Calculus would be year 5. My D skipped a year of school (skipped grade 8) because she was quite advanced in English/History/Languages…but she was more average in math. So in what would have been her 8th grade year, she had Alg 1…and finished sr year w/ honors pre-calc. </p>
<p>All the schools she applied to admitted her, including several very selective LACs that required 4 years of math.</p>
<p>One thing to consider though, if math is not his strongest suit. D has been very glad she had no gap between taking high school math and then taking on her college requirements in math. She’s getting her required college math courses out of the way in her first year, and said it would have been harder if she’d waited, that she would have forgotten a lot.</p>
<p>I’m probably not qualified to have an opinion, given I’m most familiar with a very different curriculum (canadian) it seems a bit bizarre to me that the only way he could take a 4th year math class is if its AP calculus. </p>
<p>So is it really true that all college bound kids are supposed to already have what should be a college level math class? I mean really, what are colleges looking for then? I find it hard to believe it’s about ‘checking a box’ just to say you did (especially if half these kids who take “AP” don’t even score high enough on the subsequent exam to be exempt from the college level course by the same name). </p>
<p>I just don’t get it (not about you or your son, but the US curriculum). If he’s already mastered up to AP calculus, why would they expect more?</p>
Do you have any examples? I don’t know of any. Even Harvard only expects four: "An ideal four-year preparatory program includes four years of English, with extensive practice in writing; four years of math; four years of science: biology, chemistry, physics, and an advanced course in one of these subjects; three years of history, including American and European history; and four years of one foreign language. " (My emphasis)</p>
<p>My younger son was accepted at a number of “top tier” universities with only four years of Latin ending his junior year (and low B’s in it to boot.)</p>
<p>I would suggest picking the safety school your S would most like to attend, the match school on his list which he would most like to attend and the reach school he would most like to attend.</p>
<p>Go to the websites of those specific schools to see what they recommend/require. If any grey area, then contact the schools for advice (either S, his GC or parent). Many schools have admissions staff who are very helpful if approached.</p>
<p>I would make his final senior year choices this way, rather than on what is “typically” required/recommended or what the collegeboard website says.</p>
<p>Probably he doesn’t need the math–usually Pre-calc would be considered the fourth year of math. If he decides to major in something that requires stats, he’ll probably need to take the specific stat course required, such as stats for social science majors, or stats for business… If he needs calc for his major, unless he gets a 5 on Calc BC, he’ll probably be asked to start calculus at the university their way (engineering programs often do this). If he’s not that interested in math, I wouldn’t push it. I’ll bet it won’t make a difference with admissions. And if he loves that Italian, that will be one more A, vero? Ciao e buona fortuna.</p>