<p>All right. I was surfing Collegeboard.com a couple days ago, and I noticed under "high school preparations" that a lot of the colleges I want to apply to require 4 years of social studies/history.</p>
<p>Now, I'm not particularly interested in history, and I don't think I'll be doing anything history-related in my future. There're also many courses out there that I'd rather take than AP Euro. So in its stead, I was thinking of taking either sociology or psychology, both of which are half-year courses. When colleges say 4 years, do they mean a full 4 years, or are 3.5 years okay, too? Furthermore, for colleges that say they want 4 years of -history-, does that mean that psychology and sociology don't count?</p>
<p>The colleges in question are Columbia (4 years of history), NYU (4 years of social studies), and JHU (4 years ss).</p>
<p>Or should I be asking this question in the specific college subforums?</p>
<p>when they say history, they mean history or other humanities. The 'ologies' are considered social science, as is econ.</p>
<p>Columbia should be particularly interested in history, since it has a Core curriculum, but Hopkins probably less so. </p>
<p>btw: AP Psych is not considered as rigorous as AP Euro or APUSH by adcoms. (Remember, just as in NCAA b-ball, strength of schedule counts when the invites to the Big Dance are handed out.)</p>
<p>Our school doesn't even offer AP Pysch. It only offers a non-honors level one-semester psychology course. Same goes for sociology. I'm thinking that these might not look very good, since they're neither full-year nor honors level (or above). I might take a look at some VHS courses and see if they have any other options.</p>
<p>Maybe I'll just take AP Euro...</p>
<p>By the way, thanks for the help. (: On the actual websites, they say 3-4 years, so I guess if I do end up just taking psychology, 3.5 years of social studies will be acceptable.</p>
<p>Your GC should be able to help advise you about this, but at the HS my kids attend, AP Economics is considered "Social Studies," as are many other non-history courses. My son is taking & enjoying AP Econ, which he thought would be more interesting than some of the AP history courses (since he feels he already knows that material in the AP history courses). The GC said the colleges he's applying to (including ivies) will be fine with this. Still, your GC should give you advice applying to your situation & schools, particularly as you schedule your courses for next year.</p>
<p>Demeter,
Do you go to a religious school? Sometimes theology courses are named 'History of ...(Old Testament, Islam, Judiasm, New Testament,etc.) and can count as the 4th even if not in the actual history department!</p>