<p>Hi! I was looking through the Amherst website when I realized that I couldn’t find any ‘required high school courses’ sort of information, so I was wondering if anybody had a list of required/recommended courses for Amherst?
Thank you!</p>
<p>I don’t have an official list, but I have a friend who will be attending next semester as a freshman and his courses were as follows (the number of credits obtained being in parenthesis): science (6), mathematics (5), English (4), history (3), government/economics (1), foreign language (2), electives/other (8). </p>
<p>However, most applicants probably aim to have 3/4 years of a foreign language; he was already fluent in two languages so they may have not held him to that standard…</p>
<p>Thank you!
And another question~ Is 3~4 years of foreign language required? Because my school only has Mandarin I, Mandarin II, and AP Mandarin, and I’m really iffy on the AP Mandarin… is it okay if I’m already fluent in two languages, just like your friend?</p>
<p>In my experience, Amherst and peer institutions never have “requirements,” but rather recommendations. Most top schools recommend 4 years of math, history, English, science, and language, but they aren’t going to toss your application to the trash if you don’t have these. They leave room for students with special circumstances (i.e. school doesn’t offer 4 years of a certain subject).</p>
<p>I’m not an Amherst official, affiliate, student or anything else, so I really can’t say. But he only took two years of French and it clearly didn’t affect his admissions. Come to think of it, though, he self-studied another language to about intermediate proficiency and mentioned it on his application. If you’re bilingual perhaps it would be good to do the same and not sweat taking Mandarin! :)</p>