Liberal Arts Gen Ed?

I know it likely depends on the school, but on average, do liberal arts colleges abide by the same general education requirements that public schools mandate their students take? For example, would a History major need to take a higher level math class in college? (even if they’ve already taken high level classes in high school like calculus?)

  1. As you suggested, every college or university sets its individual requirements and policies in this arena.
  2. I will presume your term "public schools" means public secondary schools, not undergraduate schools?
  3. Most liberal arts majors/curricula, including those at major universities as well as at LACs, mandate "distribution requirements" be successfully completed to earn a Bachelor's Degree. However, these requirements often are "grouped;" to illustrate, college X may require four science and/or mathematics courses (probably with several other, more specific, conditions) be passed. This would allow, for example, a student who is "severely allergic" to math to take two biology and two geology courses -- and no math -- while completing his degree in History or in English Literature.
  4. Please understand that the foregoing points/example are only generalizations.

Probably not. I was a psychology major, and I took AP Calculus in high school and scored a 4. The AP credits counted as my college-level math requirement, and therefore I wasn’t required to take any more math. (I did by choice, but I didn’t have to.)

If you don’t get credit from high-school level math, you can probably take a math placement test that will exempt you from math.