Choosing senior year classes with hopes for GA Tech -- help

Colleges & Universities Georgia Institute of Technology
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I’ve posted several times asking about art schools and various other options, but my D26 has been evolving in what she wants to study. Latest plan is something UX/UI or game design-related. Thus, she’s eyeing the computational media major at Tech.

We are in state, and her small private school sends a good handful of people to Tech every year. She’s had honors or AP for the core classes – BUT, she decided to forgo a social science junior year (current) to make room for Honors Architecture/Engineering. And then, she’ll take a standard semester each of the required Gov and Econ next year.

She’s also a band kid, has marched since 7th grade (small school), has been section captain for two years and is auditioning for drum major. She’s taken symphonic band class for three years, and it’s unthinkable to not take it senior year. (Band instructor requires it to be considered for leadership in marching band, actually.)

Her school requires six semesters of religion classes as well.

Anyhow. Next year she really wants to take a STEM capstone class, in which she creates a product or solves a problem – it’s a year-long project, sort of like AP Research, but it’s building/creating instead of writing a paper. The class is weighted 8 extra points like other AP classes at her school, and it involves fairly high-level research. She has a fantastic idea for a project that relates directly to the UX/UI/game design that she wants, and she’s working on her application for the class now – she’s very likely to get in.

BUT, to fit it in, she has to forgo a fourth year of language. She’s in Honors Latin 4 this year and doing very well, and she’s not opposed to taking AP Latin next year (she’d be the only student in the class if she does, as the only other kid in her current class is not planning to take it) – but she is FAR more interested in the STEM capstone class.

Her college counselor told us today, however, that skipping AP Latin for the STEM class may not look the best on her transcript. In fact, she said it might hurt her chances at GA Tech specifically – because Tech has told the school, “Let us teach them the STEM. You teach them the core subjects.”

So, ooof. She’s already missing a year of social science, and this advice makes me nervous. Thoughts?

The child, however, has dug in her heels and is determined to take the STEM class, and it’s going to take some serious finesse to get her to change her mind. And frankly, I agree with her – the STEM class would make her much happier. Oh, and another bit of info – she was selected to apply for a prestigious Georgia summer program, and she chose to do so in Latin, because she knew she didn’t have room for it in her schedule next year. (We won’t find out for some time whether she’s gotten into that, though.)

What would you advise?

Some quick stats –

GPA – UW 95.89, W 99.11
SAT – 1560

Classes (including planned classes through senior year. Her school limits to six total APs):

English – honors 9th, honors 10th, honors 11th, AP Lit
Math – honors Alg 2, honors pre-calc, AP Calc AB, AP Calc BC
Science – honors Physics, honors Chem, AP Physics, AP Bio
History – honors modern world history, APUSH, standard Gov, standard Econ
Language – Latin 2 honors, Latin 3 honors, Latin 4 honors, (AP Latin???)
Electives – four years of symphonic band, intro to engineering design, honors construction/engineering/architecture, digital design

ECs are nothing crazy, lots of marching band and theatre with leadership in both, plus a couple service organizations. District honor band, various honor societies, various school-level awards (outstanding all-around sophomore student, woodwind player of the year, etc), several gold medals on the national Latin exam.

I realize she sounds “average” compared to some of the rock stars applying to Tech, but compared to other kids in her school getting in, I thought she had at least a decent shot. Will she ruin that if she chooses to take this capstone STEM class instead of AP Latin?

Also, will this be an issue for other selective schools as well?

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She has Latin 4. I’m not a GA Tech expert… but foreign language through level 4 usually is fine.

Perhaps the GA folks will be able to give you correct guidance on this.

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Your daughter sounds wonderful! If she has completed Latin to level 4 then she should be set for every college. If there is any doubt about a college’s recommended/required HS coursework she can google that school’s common data set and look at section C. Here is the most recent common data set I see for GT (based on a two second search). https://irp.gatech.edu/files/CDS/CDS_2023-2024_V3.pdf

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I would let her take what she wants and the capstone project will show fit to major. Concur that Latin 4 = 4 years of language at least as many colleges see it.

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Academic Preparation | Undergraduate Admission lists GT’s high school preparation requirements, which are the University System of Georgia requirements:

  • English - 4 Units has this
  • Math - 4 Units has this including calculus
  • Science - 4 Units has this, including all three of biology, chemistry, physics
  • Social Science - 3 Units has this, even if government and economics are semester each
  • Foreign Language or American Sign Language or Computer Science - 2 Units has this with Latin 4 which is considered equivalent to 4 years by many colleges

And it looks like she has plenty of performing arts (3 years of band).

But would it help if she took some kind of visual art or animation course (if available) to confirm her interest in computational media and perhaps help with her project?

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I wish she had room. That’s partly why she took digital design last semester. But she still has two more semesters of religion to complete next year. If she doesn’t get into the governor’s honors program for this summer in Latin (which is a residential four-week program), it opens up some time to focus on art – especially because she will need portfolios for several of the programs she’s considering.

Thank you all for your thoughts! Her college counselor said she would look at the data from school, to see if any previous students didn’t take four years of all five core subjects and were still admitted to GA Tech, or vice versa.

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I have two thoughts on this, but they both point in the same direction.

One thought is that what your daughter wants to do sounds like it makes a lot of sense. To me it also seems to fit in very well with what I know about GT. I will admit that I do not know all that much about GT, but to me it sounds quite a bit like MIT which I did attend (GT of course has milder winters, hotter summers, and is a public school).

My other thought comes from the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. My understanding of this blog (and it does pretty much describe what I did) is that the best way to get accepted to MIT is to do whatever is right for your, and whatever you do, do it very well, and treat people well. The same approach seems to work for other top schools.

So to me what your daughter wants to do makes a lot of good sense.

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Completion of Level 4 Latin typically counts as having completed 4 years of Latin for college admissions. I’d encourage your D to take whatever class piques her interest – IMO she has earned that privilege.

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I’m glad to hear that. At this school, the kids take Latin 1 (or Spanish 1 or French 1) spread over 7th and 8th grade, so most kids go to level 2 as freshmen. I’ve always heard that anything taken in middle school doesn’t count – for instance, my daughter doesn’t get credit for Alg 1 and Geometry taken in 7th and 8th – so I wasn’t sure about the years of language.

But it’s true that all Georgia public colleges only require two years of language. I believe GA Tech, UGA and GCSU are the only holistic ones, so they may recommend more – although GA Tech doesn’t list it in the common data set.

Totally agree that she should take the classes she wants, and the ones that make sense for her.

(My older kiddo was the only student in her senior-year AP Latin class at the same school, but she loved it – and she is now a double major in linguistics and classics, so it clearly made sense!)

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That the school weighs the class higher doesn’t mean Ga Tech does.

But if she has at least this, she will be ok for full consideration. It looks like she does.

  • English - 4 Units
  • Math - 4 Units
  • Science - 4 Units
  • Social Science - 3 Units
  • Foreign Language or American Sign Language or Computer Science - 2 Units
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First off love your name. We all probably had many of those.

Secondly, your daughter is a rock star.

Let her guide her path. I am sure she will have many colleges acceptances.

You can also call the school admissions and ask the question. They are really nice there.

Might as well read Rick Clark’s blog on admissions and the school. It might offer some tips.

Good luck.

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I don’t agree with everything said here — colleges, especially highly selective ones, do want to see all five cores (including language and social studies) all four years of high school — but I agree with everyone’s recommendation for a different reason.

Your daughter seems to have the academic chops to succeed at GT, but without this capstone course she might not be able to answer GT’s supplemental essay question (a why us? why major? essay) with much evidence of interest or exploration into the major. The project should allow her to refine her interests, which is extremely useful to her regardless of where she goes, and also to far better communicate reasons why a school might want to add her to their class.

It does concern me that the counselor is recommending otherwise and before making a final decision, I would investigate more. Could she look at the last 2-4 senior classes and find out what the profiles of the students accepted to GT looked like? Did they all have 4 years of language? What else were they taking? Your daughter could also speak directly to an GT admissions officer and discuss her schedule. No AO is going to say anything definitely, but talking through how they would view each schedule is a readable conversation to have.

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Let her take the STEM class and explore her interests.

If she is in Latin 4 now the box is checked.

If she really wanted to cover all of the bases she could take Latin 101 for college credit over the summer or during the school year. But that is not needed.

My daughter made similar STEM focused choices with courses, including no social studies one year and - yikes - no English another year because she was already ahead and knew she could take AP or Dual Credit classes in her junior and senior years. She was accepted with excellent merit in colleges that offer merit and an ivy did not seem to mind the course selection because they recognized the challenging course work.

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I personally would not worry about the language stuff, other than AP Latin may let her place out of the humanities requirement at Tech which can be huge (my kid that took AP French placed out - you only need a 3 - and that freed up a few credit hours). My other GT kid stopped at Honors Spanish 4 in 11th grade and he got in early action.

The counselor comment is a little strange to me. It has been our observation that GT wants to see the highest rigor available in AP STEM (so don’t opt for AB Calc or Stats when BC Calc is offered, etc). I would think the STEM capstone would be a great addition and might actually distinguish her and give her some great material to use when crafting her essays.

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Thank you for your thoughts! I’ve been thinking that, too – it just makes so much more sense to take the STEM class.

The rigor thing makes me a little nervous, too. She was on the fastest math track from 7th grade and could have gone straight from honors pre-calc to AP Calc BC as a junior, then taken multivariable calculus her senior year. But the honors pre-calc teacher thought she didn’t work hard enough (she finished the class with a 96), so she didn’t recommend her for BC as a junior.

We weren’t too worried about it at the time – my older daughter did that path and took multivariable and hated every second of it (she’s a humanities major, lol), so we thought Calc BC senior year would be sufficient to max out for this one. She wasn’t thinking Georgia Tech at the time, and we weren’t looking at maximum rigor just for rigor’s sake. Hope Tech doesn’t ding her for it.

(I’m actually thankful her school limits to six total APs, and they say so specifically on their school profile. Students can petition to take more, but it’s granted on a very limited basis. I hate seeing kids not having one second to breathe in high school because they’re compelled to do so much. And yet, by all accounts the students from her school are very successful at Tech, so clearly 15 APs isn’t necessary!)

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