<p>Tufts seems like a great choice for my daughter – she wants East Coast, challenging academics, great variety of classes, chance to study communications, great Latin department, etc. But she hates History with a fiery passion and intends not to take any History class her senior year (she’ll take extra science courses instead). She’ll also only take regular US Hist. next year and not AP, even though the rest of her classes will be AP or Honors. Will Tufts care that she didn’t take History her senior year (or advanced History her Junior year) and, if she gets in to Tufts, how much History will she have to take to graduate?</p>
<p>Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it. </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Loves Latin but hates history? Sounds like she has a story to tell. </p>
<p>Here are the general requirements for graduation:</p>
<p>The foundation of a Tufts liberal arts education rests on the ability to communicate effectively and to use a foreign language. Students are expected to complete two freshman writing courses and study at least one foreign language/foreign culture during their time at Tufts. In addition, students take one semester-long course in World Civilizations. These courses are intentionally included in the Liberal Arts curriculum to offer students a global perspective and deepen their understanding of their role as citizens of the world. </p>
<p>In addition to the six-course requirement in foreign language/foreign culture, Liberal Arts students must fulfill a set of distribution requirements before being awarded a diploma. Distribution requirements, which can be completed at any time between freshman and senior year, fall within the following areas: </p>
<p>Arts
Humanities
Mathematics
Natural Science
Social Science. </p>
<p>Two courses in each discipline are required so that students can understand the breadth and depth of human knowledge as it has developed over the centuries. Since the requirements are “distribution” and not part of a core curriculum, students are permitted to choose among many courses, including those in the Experimental College, that will fulfill the credit.</p>
<p>So, she doesn’t have to take History at Tufts - to fill the Humanities requirement she can take English, Philosophy, etc</p>
<p>But you still have to take that World Civilizations course, so that’s a deal breaker. Santayana notwithstanding, my D’s had all the history she ever wants.</p>
<p>“World Civilizations” is not history. You can take culture classes and be fine. I took a literature course taught by a Chinese and a German professor, and it counts as my world civ credit. No history required.
Though I think she’s just been taking the wrong history classes. I hate wars, dates, and presidents, but I’ve managed to find history classes that I really love.</p>
<p>sam, Thanks for that info!! I’m glad that Tufts doesn’t have to be scratched off the list after all!! You’re probably right about her taking the wrong history classes, but in high school there are no choices till junior year and then it’s just APUSH or regular.</p>
<p>The answer to your question, absolutely not!</p>
<p>What does she hate about history? The reading? The facts? The dates? It’s kind of odd that she hates because academic history permeates probably every single field you can think of. I would question her on why she has such a disdain for it. Maybe she had some really boring teachers and associates the subject with those teachers? This won’t be the case in college. </p>
<p>I had a teacher who always told me that studying history is like looking at the past to better understand ourselves and maybe even change the future. And Tufts is a school that emphasizes public service, more specifically, how we can make a difference and learning how to by studying liberal arts. So I would suggest that your daughter make it very clear on her application that she wants to make a difference and that she is ready to handle that we learn to do so through reading.</p>
<p>Any class about Asia or the Middle East or Latin America or Africa basically counts as a World Civ. My World Civ was Democracy and Capitalism in Japan, a Political Science class that counts towards my IR major.</p>
<p>you don’t have to take history to complete world civ: TONS of classes complete world civ, as others have pointed out. A course on African dance, Chinese culture, African-American literature, or Japanese postmodernist literature would all fulfill world civ equally well. Indeed you could spend an entire career at Tufts and never take a history course.</p>
<p>[Tufts</a> University - Distribution Requirements](<a href=“Tufts User Authentication - Stale Request”>Tufts User Authentication - Stale Request)
A list of what courses satisfy what distribution reqs. for your perusal</p>