Help with Senior Courses

Applying to College
1

So I am currently thinking of going to college for some sort of engineering (Most likely bio or electrical), so I am having trouble picking my senior year classes. I am debating whether I should take AP French or AP Biology. I know most colleges like seeing 4 years of a Foreign Language, but my school doesn’t have enough funding towards French, so the teacher is not very good. On the other hand, I love the sciences and I want to take biology, but I am unsure if this is a good switch.

I am planning on applying to UIUC, Purdue, MIT, CalTech, UCB, and a few other Engineering schools. My grades are pretty good (Only a few B’s), and I do lots of sports and volunteering outside of school.

Please let me know what a better decision would be for me.

Thanks,
Kush Patel

2

Normally I’m the big language nag on these threads, but since you are not targeting Ivies, but rather state flagships and engineering schools, you should be fine with only three years of French.

3

Go to the admissions requirements for each of the schools you are targeting. They tell you explicitly what they want to see. For example, from MIT:

"A strong academic foundation in high school both improves your odds of getting into MIT and will help you make the most of the Institute when you’re here. We recommend (please note that these are not “requirements”) that your high school years include the following:

One year of high school physics
One year of high school chemistry
One year of high school biology
Math, through calculus
Two years of a foreign language
Four years of English
Two years of history and/or social sciences"

Note that they recommend 2 years of a foreign language. You can check the other schools’ web sites and they will be equally clear.

4

I would say do AP Bio. As long as you have 2-3 years of French, you’ll be good to go.

5

Yeah. I’m leaning towards Biology since I already did three. Any more input would be extremely helpful.

6

AP Biology and list that you will be taking the AP French exam at the end of the year (if you complete the level before AP, you know all the grammar/vocab that you need to know, AP French test is just passaged based reading/audios and answering mc questions on that).

Also for UCB and UIUC it will make literally no difference on which one you take.