My cousin asked me to post this. Her S attends a specialized high school of sorts. Think of it as a Lycee Francais (where they learn French for a good part of the day starting in Kindergarten). In his case it is a heritage language for example a greek orthodox school (and less useful than French), but his family does not speak it, they start learning it in elementary school and continue in high school. So he will have 4 years of HS language when he graduates that he has been learning for years. He is not studying Chinese or Hindi and he is not an ORM or URM (in case anyone is wondering). They also normally take 2-3 years of Spanish in high school.
Cousin, who is male and in 9th (so no female STEM bump) is considering applying to take a two year STEM/Engineering program that they started at school last year. He would not be able to take Spanish so would only have the heritage language (which he learned entirely in school, no one could even help him with homework). Cousin has no idea what he wants to do but he naturally does well in English and language based science classes eg Bio. While he may one day be premed (cannot picture it right now, he would probably apply to college as an English major).
Her question is whether it will help or hurt him with college admissions to take STEM and not Spanish.
He does really well in Spanish and is likely to continue if he were to continue taking Spanish (A with honors). Does not love taking it but does well.
So far the new STEM teacher is good but he is a pretty hard grader and even the brightest math and science students are struggling to get an A- (I know only on CC but that is the reality) one or two are getting As. The less talented ones are mostly getting B-s. The program is competitive to enter, only the top of the class is admitted but it is not considered honors or anything and is designated as a regular class on the transcript (even though some parents have asked why this is the case). Cousin S is neutral on Engineering having no background in it.
The school do to all the heritage language classes is not particularly advanced, there is no research track, no one does Siemens or even Toshiba. Barely any APs until senior year. Although they send most of the class to near Ivies and state and OOS flagships every year.
First class is going through it now, so no graduates yet for Engineering class. Cousin seems to think this will give S an edge in admissions even if he ends up with two years of B+ or A- in class instead of a high A in Spanish. Thoughts?
Cousin who is male will apply to college as an English/social science major unless he falls in love with STEM due to this class (which cousin does not expect to happen but she does not have a crystal ball).
My guess - pretty neutral. He’ll have his FL covered with 4 years of Greek. Admittedly Spanish is more useful in the US, but that’s OK. As long as he has a solid foundation in the core subjects (English, math, science, social science, and foreign language) I don’t really see one path as being more advantageous than the other.
Cousin should follow the path that excites him and spurs his creativity. Those reasons are far better than deciding which program will look better for admissions.
It makes no difference to him, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. The school has made it seem like the STEM is an advantage but they do not know for sure since no one has applied with this, last year most of the top students applied for STEM. The only ones who did not were the ones that absolutely HATED math or science. The STEM is more work as they have to present a major project at the end of two years (it is not the type that will help them with Intel) and get tested on the material like in every other class. So they have to come in early and sometimes weekends to work on it. Spanish does not require anything more than class time.
There is no track record so we can only go on perceptions. The school perceives that they are offering something uniqe. I am not sure since it will lower his GPA and requires more work. Obviously if he were a real engineer from the time he could crawl, sure. Instead he is a reader. The issue is whether he is failing to take advantage of an opportunity his school is offering.
My answer will be a little more cynical/mechanical than skieurope’s.
The baseline is: the most competitive universities generally want to see four years of math, science, English, social studies AND foreign language.
Now, is the STEM class in addition to regular science classes? If so, he should feel free to take either STEM or Spanish, depending on his interests. He already has the language box checked with the heritage language and under this assumption science is taken care of as well, so either way, it’s just another elective. Absolutely free choice.
If that’s wrong, and the STEM class is his only option for science, he should take the STEM class.
You are correct, NavalTradition, this is in addition to the normal and very rigid program of science where they take
Biology, Chemistry, Physics with AP Chem in senior year.
I find these responses interesting because Cousin made it seem like such a great opportunity to learn programming and other advanced science and engineering and she almost felt like S would be disadvantaged by not taking this but no one really knows since there has been no one who has finished and graduated yet. S is ambivalent. Due to the Heritage language and related coursework there are few electives. S will have to pick Spanish or STEM and Spanish is not an elective except in this case.
Thank you both for your insight.
If your cousin is sure he will not want to major in engineering, I see little benefits considering he is NOT sold on it at all. Your cousin’s mother seems to be mostly concerned with prestige, but there’s little indication that prestige is anything but school-based. If the program is PLTW (project lead the way), it’s a national, demanding program designed for future engineers and it does advantage those who take it and go on to STEM fields. For students who want to major in humanities and social sciences, I would imagine that studying Spanish and beefing up social science and humanities courses would be more important.
Note: will the Heritage Language be externally certified in any way (by a cultural center, a program like Alliance Française or Deutsch Institute…)?
Thank you @MYOS1634. To answer your questions. First, there are almost no electives at this school, you are either on the honor/AP track or not. So the only difference is does he take 2 years of Spanish (which he does not care for but gets As) or does he take 2 years of Engineering which he may like or not but which is more work than Spanish and he will at best get an A-. There is nothing else to beef up, everything else is
The engineering program is funded by an outside agency. Cousin looked at PLTW and she seems to think the program is similar to the PLTW engineering and computer science (but is definitely not sponsored by PLTW). The one differene is PLTW has an outside orgaization grading the kids or their project or rating them (could not quite understand from the website). Although this program is also sponsored by the alliance of heritage schools and is supported with training programs, outside conferences, materials and testing supplies, the school does have some discretion in how it conducts the program. The only grading the kids are the individual teachers and the teacher is not any more accountable for the grades than is your basic physics or English teacher. The kids are required to do a major project which some kids from other schools (no one at this school) have patents pending on if it is really good.
How does PLTW help them for college admission? Would it help someone who just took it for the rigor but did well even though they do not want to be a scientist.
There is a state exam in the Heritage language which they take at the end of 10th grade (like they would American History). It is not otherwise extenally certified as there is no AP. However, the colleges with language requirements realize that many kids will place out of the Heritage language based on their years of learning it and are familiar with the language rigor. However, until recently every kid also had at least two years of Spanish and some had 3.
Does the school enjoy a good reputation for academic rigor, or is it considered unreliable for science (ie., no teaching of evolution, young-earth geology…)? If it’s got a solid reputation, then I don’t see why your cousin would have to go through a program he doesn’t sound all that interested in.
The state exam in the Heritage Language would count as “external examination”. I’m guessing this is a competitive school preparing students for competitive colleges - those are the ones who like to see a heritage language complemented by 3-4 years in a “real” foreign language. I understand that for your cousin it’s doubly “foreign” (in that he had to learn it since his parents didn’t speak it), so it’ll be a bonus for him if he explains it in the commonapp’s “additional info” box. Taking Spanish or the STEM program won’t matter, but if STEM won’t help him for his chosen field and he’s not interested, I’m not sure why he should take that class where he’ll be with future engineers who will leave him in the dust.