Last minute scramble: Check college requirements!

<p>One bit of college admissions advice is to check the requirements on courses needed for admission. Seems straightforward enough, 4 years of English, etc. But you've got to check a little deeper than that. My son, who has MORE than four years of everything actually took English 2 his freshman year, English 3 his sophomore year, and English 4 his junior year, but did not want to do AP English this year. Instead, he took 1.5 units of other English Department classes: a full year of Journalism and a half unit of Creative Writing. Imagine his surprise when he was filling out one of his applications and it specifically excluded certain courses from the 4 units of English requirement, including Journalism. According to that school, he had only three and a half units of English that counted! He had to drop the second half of his newspaper class (which he LOVED!) and scramble to get into another acceptable half-unit English course. He also found out that another of his schools required a half-unit of Geography (!) for admissions, so that was added senior year as well. </p>

<p>Moral of the story: Don't assume that OF COURSE you meet the admissions requirements just because you've taken advanced courses and heavy loads. Check with the schools - in depth.</p>

<p>But don't the schools waive some of those requirements from time to time? I ask, because I looked at one state university list of expected high school courses, and next to some of them (geography specifically was an example) the list said that if an otherwise qualified applicant was just missing those few indicated courses, that wouldn't matter.</p>

<p>I think that depending on the rest of the academic resume and transcript that many times these things are waived. But you can't always count on it. The most inflexible place is the honors college or certain merit scholarship councils that refuse to budge an iota on these things. Particularly at large state schools. My son also tried to get out of English this year to focus on some other English type courses that were more in line with interests such as a Shakespeare course. Since he has already taken half the AP English test last year, and with the Shakespeare and Art History, he seems well set for taking the other AP English exam, I didn't see a problem, but his school refused to budge on that one--everyone has to take English 12 to graduate though it is not written anywhere. So he dropped his science course and is taking 2 English courses, something the counselor strenuously advised against doing. He is taking a German/Italian for Voice which is an elective course that is not at intense as the sequential language courses.</p>

<p>I think it's pretty well known that creative writing and journalism are electives and don't satisfy the english requirements, but the geography requirement is a puzzler! I didn't think most hs offered it.</p>

<p>That's weird, in my school journalism counts as an English credit not an elective.</p>

<p>I am more than 30 years out of this range, but I replaced a year of my English requirement with Journalism. And my highschool had a number of choices in English courses after freshman year if you made a certain standard. S's school also has some great looking English courses in the catalogue but they cannot replace the basic English courses required each year but need to be taken in addition. I don't know how kids take those courses and still get the full fledged academics in. My S is not taking many academics this year because he wants to take those courses and the college counselor was not happy about his choice, nor was I. But I guess it worked out all right. But Journalism is not among those English choices, I recall. The school publications are done on an EC basis.</p>

<p>Our school offeres nothing but straight English classes for English credit. Newspaper is a class, but it can't be used to replace English. And we have world geography which counts as a history class. I'm fascinated that your schools offer classes for English credit such as Shakespeare.</p>

<p>my daughters school offers film study, shakespeare, poetry. lit & philosophy, mythology,autobiography, college prep writing,and creative writing for seniors but none of the those classes are AP. They also have an AP lit class for seniors which is probably as popular.( they also have beginning journalism as an honors sophmore class) after 10th grade it is an occ ed class</p>

<p>I would check with admissions at the schools, don't base everything on the web site or application. My D found that there was some flexibility in "required" classes. She has gotten accepted into honors programs and given a full scholarship even though she was missing a foreign language. The rest of her application was sufficient. So it really makes sense to talk to admissions and make sure and do an interview!!</p>

<p>I don't think you need to scrap applications and change schedules over slight choice of class issues.</p>

<p>At my high school, English was fulfilled by English only. It might've been the only subject that actually required 4 years of work (history might have been another, not sure).</p>

<p>A student needs to read carefully. Sometimes HS classes listed are requirements and sometimes they are recommendations. And even if they are "required", it is not set in stone. I believe this is particularly true for foreign language. If the student gets to the AP level in 3 years, a 4th becomes moot. If the student gets to the third course, has done well but chooses to take an additional AP class, many universities waive this particular requirement. It probably will hurt him in the competition with other applicants but will not necessarily relegate his application to the circular file. He need to check with the admissions office however.</p>

<p>We had posters last year who were flabbergasted that their kid was denied admission to Engineering programs without all the pre-req's, or in one case that I recall, was accepted to Arts and Sciences (where he hadn't applied and had no interest) but denied in Engineering where he had applied, and was told he could fulfill the requirements as a Freshman and try to transfer. The parent was astonished.</p>

<p>Be careful. Don't assume that your intense preparation in one area will compensate for a shortfall in another, even if you know 10 people who pulled it off. Schools do not need to give a reason for rejecting you. If you come from a known high school with a rigorous curriculum, adcom's may cut you some slack, but if you're coming from a school which hasn't sent kids to a college you're interested in, better err on the side of caution. </p>

<p>There were also a few people last year who were indignant that their SATII in Literature couldn't substitute for Writing, where a college specified that the SAT II Writing was a requirement. IMHO, if a college decides that being able to read their website or application is a sifting mechanism, OK by me...</p>

<p>the classes that i took for english in high school were</p>

<p>humanities, shakesphere 1, shakesphere 2, research paper, mythology, american lit 1 , english lit 1, and american lit 2.</p>

<p>i really loved the mythology course :)</p>