@spayurpets my PSAT/SAT is right in the middle of those colleges’ averages, and I do have prior programming experience. I’m head of software for my school robotics club, will take a post-AP CS class next year that focuses only on completing projects, and will do an internship at a software company next summer. Also, what is your source for how good MIT’s foreign language departments are.
As a whole I’m more interested in learning German than French, as it would allow me to speak it with my friend, which is somewhat of a dream of mine. I’m not sure, however, if that would be better accomplished by taking courses in college, or something along the lines of getting a master’s degree in Germany (I’m fairly sure they’re free) or spending a year with my friend there.
Is there really a point to getting a minor or major in a language? I’m more motivated to learn languages for the beauty of the culture/literature than employment opportunities.
And can someone explain what “fifth semester advanced instruction” means?
http://gsd.umn.edu/ugrad/germanCourses.php
1001, 1002, 1003, 1004 would be the first four semesters of German language courses, while 3011 would be the fifth semester course (it lists German 1004 as the prerequisite).
http://guide.berkeley.edu/courses/german/
1, 2, 3, 4 would be the first four semesters of German language courses, while any of 101, 102A, 102B, 102D would be fifth semester courses (these have German 4 as the prerequisite).
Of course, a student with some knowledge of German may start in a course higher than the beginner course (1001 or 1 in the examples above).
Your estimated SAT is above average for most of the schools mentioned in this thread.
You will not need to pursue a minor in a language for your expressed goals. The availability of a minor in a field such as linguitics can be used to as an indicator of the breadth of courses available, however.
There is no firm definition – other than the obvious literal one – for what “fifth-semester” language instruction entails. Commonly, though, the fourth and fifth semesters of college language are taught in the corresponding language. Reaching this level of classroom proficiency will fully prepare a student for an immersion experience.
Not to discourage you, but just a reality check: if you’re referring to top schools like Stanford, Chicago, MIT or CMU’s CS department, don’t take your score averages to mean that you might get in. Pretty much everyone who is applying has a score as good as yours (or better), and the college can only take 5%-8% of those - so that’s your % chance irrespective of scores. (CMU’s overall average acceptance rate isn’t that low, but it’s CS acceptance rate is as low or lower than Stanford’s, around 5%) Your ECs will definitely increase your chances (and you have some good ones in CS already, congratulations). But even then don’t count on them. Shoot for your dream school but have some solid second options (which could be equally good, a school like Grinnell for example, is excellent). (For example, my D’s scores were above the average for every top-10 school she applied to, and she didn’t get accepted to any.)
Also if you already plan to go to grad school, then which undergrad school you go to won’t matter as much as what you do during your undergrad.
You will not achieve fluency with courses in college, unless its your major and you really focus on it. But if you want to do a masters in Germany, for example, then take some German in college, and live in Germany for a couple of years where you can study the language in an immersive environment (much, much better) as you do your masters (Germany has some excellent masters courses, in English, and yes, they’re almost free). (My D’s hoping to do a masters/PhD program in Germany as well.)
No. And in fact you might find fulfilling the specific requirements of a minor too restrictive or difficult due to course scheduling conflicts. What I would suggest you do though is to take the AP German or French test – whichever one you want to study in college - and get a 5, so you can skip right to a more advanced level and then if you do want to get a minor you won’t have to take as many courses. My D is doing this right now, she’s a engineering major but will probably get a minor in another language (Chinese) because she was able to use her AP classes to get ahead and the requirements are easy to fulfill. She was originally going to minor in psychology but found that it was too difficult to schedule the particular courses she needed (her required engineering coursework is heavy and doesn’t have much flexibility), so she’ll just take the psych courses she’s interested in and won’t get a minor. You could use the same approach for language.
I think the Bachelor in Science Degree at the Unviersity of Michigan LSA is a good fit. At Michigan, you can get a computer science degree either through LSA or engineering. If you do it through LSA, there is no need to take those Chemistry and Physics Classes- and you are REQUIRED to complete four semesters or equivalent of a foreign language. The CS program here is very well known and heavily recruited from, and foreign language/math is also highly regarded from what I have heard.
As to why fifth-term language instruction was introduced into your thread, its availability is simply another indicator you can use to determine whether a school is strong in your particular languages of interest. If your interest were in, for example, Latin, then perhaps third-term instruction would have been discussed. If the distinctions appear arbitrary, it’s because they are somewhat.
“some highly regarded smaller colleges have small CS departments with relatively fewer course offerings” (post 2)
However, some colleges with about 2000 students or less have a greater range of CS offerings than 6000+ student universities such as Emory, Tulane and WUStL.
I took 3 semesters of German in college and spent four weeks one summer as well in an immersion program. That gave me enough German to spend part of the summer before my senior year doing research on German housing for my thesis. I’m not even particularly gifted at languages.
As for trying to figure the odds, I would never assume your odds are better than the acceptance rate for highly selective universities. My older son’s scores and GPA were in the top 25% (easily) of all the (8) colleges he applied to. He got into half of them (and two were safeties.)
Good for you and no offense intended. It’s just that anything less than a 750 on SAT I is almost disqualitying for the people who state a CS or math interest in Stanford or CMU CS. You can’t just compare yourself to the 25-75 or medians when you’re looking at this cross-section of applicants. And anyone is going to be a longshot for either of those schools with a 5% acceptance rate. My D’s class had over 5 top students apply to Stanford REA this year, including three NMSFs and one 1600 CR/M and every single one was rejected, not even deferred. The year before, a girl who had the highest GPA at the school in the last decade and a 2390 SAT was rejected REA by Stanford (though four others with humanities focused applications got in).
I recall reading or hearing it somewhere, but honestly I can’t find anything like that by googling so maybe I’m misremembering. But I do think it’s important to note that schools like MIT have underrated humanities departments. MIT can recruit some of the best humanities faculty in the world just because it is in Cambridge. Some professors are spouses of other professors at Harvard or MIT, and MIT pays extremely well. A top flight French PhD faculty candidate might be more likely to take a position at MIT than a Swarthmore or a Duke or some other more highly rated department because of the location or spousal issues.
Based on your suggestions on some of my own research, here is a list of school I’ll consider applying to. Please note, I certainly don’t think I’ll apply to all of them, and I definitely do not think I will get into all of them.
Bowdoin
Caltech
Carleton College
Carnegie Mellon
Columbia
Cornell
Harvard
Harvey Mudd
Middlebury
MIT
Princeton
Rice
Stanford
Swarthmore
Berkley
University of Chicago
University of Michigan
University of Washington (state resident)
If any of these seem like a poor option for my goals, please point them out and explain why. And yes, I know that a large number of those schools would be reaches.
Berkeley L&S CS requires a 3.3 GPA in the prerequisites to enter (all L&S frosh enter undeclared): http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/csugrad/#petitioning . You can also study CS through the EECS major, which admits frosh directly to the major (more selective, though), but may have less schedule space for studying two foreign languages outside the major.
Be sure to talk to your parents about what they will contribute to your college costs, and run net price calculators on the college web sites to see what financial aid and net price may look like.
Also, your list of colleges in #30 has no possible safeties (note: considering Washington for direct admission to the CS major, not just to the school).