Two years of foreign language is on the low end, but will meet the minimum requirements of most colleges.
Three years of history/social science is also low, but likely adequate for most/all colleges. Four years of writing/English is sufficient for all colleges.
Half year of fine arts is likely fine at the majority of schools, although not sufficient for UCs which require a full year.
So, again, this will depend on what schools you are targeting.
I’d like to list off a bunch of top schools when people ask me this. After all ,who wouldn’t want to go to MIT, Harvard, or Yale.
I think it depends more on the opportunities the school gives vs their financial aid. Even though Harvard is much better than my state school, I still wouldn’t choose full pay Harvard over full ride state university, but I would take half pay Harvard over full ride state university.
I’m not sure exactly which colleges I’ll apply to, but I’ll be applying to T50 engineering schools that I match with and schools likely to give me significant financial aid. If the humanities work I’ve done would qualify me for at least 70 percent of the schools in those two categories, I’d accept it and move on. Any lower than that and I could be at a significant disadvantage.
For the most selective colleges and universities, it’s preferable to have a strong core curriculum including
The most selective colleges and universities also like to see that you are challenging yourself by taking relatively rigorous courses in all subject areas (including those subject areas that aren’t your specialty), depending on what is available at your high school.
Additional electives such as computer science and engineering courses are just that: electives. They show that you’re interested in a subject and have explored it in high school, but having a large number of these electives on your transcript doesn’t necessarily give you a great advantage over other applicants.
If you’re targeting less selective institutions, you wouldn’t be expected to have as strong of a core curriculum, but you’ll still want to make sure that you at least meet the minimum requirements, and preferably go beyond that to meet all of their recommended number of years in each subject.
There are several state schools that are “better” than Harvard for engineering.
It’s only an example. But for my specific case, living in the Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri region of the US, I am not sure that I would trust their universities to do better than Harvard or MIT.
I guess I’ll have to hope that the senior undergrad and graduate level STEM classes compensate for the 1 year of social science and the two years of foreign language missed because neither of my options will make that work.
It would be ideal if I could take the electives and the extra humanities, but since I can’t, feedback on how I could maximize the two options I do have would be helpful.
If you’re targeting highly selective schools, it seems that the second option would be preferable. It comes closer to a full core curriculum, and it sounds like they have a track record of getting students into selective schools.
If you’d like advice optimizing your schedule beyond that, I think it might also help to list the specific courses you’ve taken in your first two years of high school.
Typically, 1 semester in college = 1 year in HS.
If you complete US history this summer, you would need 1 semester of history, 2 semesters of English/Humanities (Philosophy, comp lit, composition..), 2 semesters of foreign language above what you’ve already taken (typically College level 2&3), and if aiming for UCs/California, 1 semester of art.
So, the first option would have to look like this:
11th 1st Semester
Programming Paradigms
Electric Circuits I + Lab
Calculus III
Composition I
Foreign language level 2
11th 2nd Semester
Linear Algebra
Electric Circuits II + Lab
Elementary Differential Equations
History
Foreign Languages level 3
12th 1st semester
Discrete Math
Software Engineering
System and Signal Analysis
Composition II
Social science
12th 2nd semester
Computer Organization
Embedded Systems
Computer Networks
Art or Art/Music appreciation
This would be more balanced than what you showed for Option 1.
That being said, is your goal attending your flagship&honors college? Or is it attending MIT, HarveyMudd, Cornell, etc?
Suitable for what? A top engineering school? Probably not.
Unless I missed it, you haven’t mentioned if you’ve taken at least a year each of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Have you done so?
All I’m trying to say here is that if you follow one of these paths, you may have some holes in your overall application. If you’re ok with that, go for it. I agree with your parents the the second option is better.
OP- you are following a depth strategy-- when most of the “highly rejective” schools prefer breadth. So pursuing a personal interest (whether robotics or high level math or whatever) is fantastic- as long as you’ve covered off the traditional HS curriculum.
You do you- it seems that you do NOT want to pivot to incorporate a traditional curriculum at this point, which of course is your decision to make. But prepared with a college list which is comprised of schools and programs that won’t expect the traditional curriculum.
You can’t swap out depth for breadth if that means missing the basics. This isn’t Mr. Potato Head with interchangeable parts. But if you want a narrowly focused HS experience-- you do you. There will be colleges that will be happy to accept your acceleration in some areas and gaps in others- perhaps not the ones you are thinking about right now, but perfectly fine institutions!
A lot of students think that they would like to attend MIT or Harvard or Yale.
However, these schools are not perfect. They are not a good fit for every very strong student. They are probably not a good fit for the large majority of average students.
This depends upon multiple issues, including but not limited to what you want to study and what you want in a university.
A wild thought: I think that you should look at the general institute requirements to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from MIT. While there are a number of science / math / technology requirements, there are also quite a few humanities requirements (more that I would have preferred).
Looking at your proposed pathways in the original post, they are way more focused on technology than anything I saw until I got to graduate school. I do not think that this level of specialization is normal for a high school student.
Attending a public school in your state for a bachelor’s degree, graduating early, and then getting a master’s at a top ranked university is one option to consider. To get accepted to a master’s degree at a highly ranked university you would need to do very well as an undergraduate student and good work / internship / research experience can help a lot, but what you do will be way more important than where you do it.
@bakedUni : are you perhaps hoping to attend your state flagship for two years before attending a more highly ranked graduate school?
Or attending a university in the UK (though they wouldn’t be able to take your acceleration into account, you would be dedicating 24/7 to your main subject at English unis such as Imperial, and 2/3 at Scottish unis with 1/3 in other STEM fields)?
If you want to attend any US university other than your state flagship (if higher ranked in particular) you will need to include English, History/social science, foreign language, and art (btw, graphic design counts for Art and may work better for you than Drawing; music or art appreciation are among the classes most adults recognize as the most important they took, simply because it makes travelling so much more enjoyable when you know what you’re looking at or what to look for or simply for the impact that music can have. Another college-level class that’s quite worth taking is interpersonal communication as well as any class that includes field trips because they make you learn differently.)
In addition, at many highly selective universities other than your flagship, you must be ready to be asked to retake some of the upper level courses listed - they will be slightly different because professors always apply their own twist and expertise to the topic.
This could certainly be the case if you’re willing to attend your state flagship and do option 1.
Can you expand more on your job and the courses you have taken in 9th and 10th grade? Is your primary goal a highly prestigious university, like an Ivy, or a university with a particular strength in your major, like UIUC CS? I believe the latter are more likely to look favorably upon option one compared to option 2.
But OP should also keep in mind that these universities judge students in the context of their school’s opportunities. If their academic track does not make a certain course or courses possible to take, they won’t be penalized for not taking them.
I also know that Caltech really likes highly technically spiky rural kids, although it’s a big reach and a very unique social environment.
Indeed, Caltech would seem a good academic fit for OP, whether with a slightly modified Option 1 or Option 2, rather than Ivies. Whether it’s a personal fit is another matter but for OP to look into.
Yes, in many cases all the engineering/CS classes are “electives” and they want to see core courses
4 years of english is a must
3 years of social science/history (min)
3 years of one language (min)
Physics/Bio/Chem (at least 1 year each)
Someone who has ONLY taken stem classes is less interesting to AOs and honestly, long term, I would be really disappointed if I hired such a person out of that school..having little sense of history, analysis (of others sorts) etc is not great.
One of my kids goes to a school with co-enrolling at a university - many kids go to tippy top schools, they still follow above (with very few exceptions).
AND of course, there are exceptions to everything. It is always hard to give super specific advice without HS profile, full transcript and history of admissions from a specific HS.
So it looks like the first option has you specializing in EE to the exclusion of everything else, while the second option is heavily CS focused, with a few other courses in other subjects (but why organic chemistry?).
Given that you seem to have taken only the minimum amounts of other subjects like foreign language and history / social studies, that may look “too unbalanced” for highly selective universities that, although they favor seeing advanced course work to some extent, also want to see a strong base in varied subjects.
The first option seems like the one you would choose if you are committed to EE at your state flagship and want to graduate as soon as possible and/or take as many advanced EE courses as possible. The second option is slightly more balanced, but not really optimal for highly selective college admission.
My job is standard food service, I’m not leading a nonprofit or something. I do it part time 12-16 hours a week and make around 9-12k a year with my current position (hours + tips vary).
Below is what I’ve taken to date, but I am still going through the summer section currently (since its still summer). My previous school allows kids to take classes (except for English) in a single semester for a year’s credit.
| 9th 1st Semester | 9th 2nd Semester |
|---|---|
| Mandarin 1 | Mandarin II |
| 9th English | 9th English |
| Algebra II | Precalculus |
| Geometry | Chemistry |
| Biology | Programming II |
| 10th 1st Semester | 10th 2nd Semester | 10th Summer |
|---|---|---|
| Economics | AP Calc BC | Programming Foundations II |
| Civics | AP Chem | Health |
| 10th English | 10th English | Drawing |
| AP Calc AB | AP Physics C | |
| AP World | AP CSA |
EDIT:
And yes, I want to go to a university with a particular strength in my major. I do want the program to have a good reputation and be well regarded by employers (prestigious for me), but I’m not concerned if it isn’t prestigious/respected as a whole university in every program.
Or as an example, if the University of say Tulsa had a better CS program than MIT, then I’d go to the University of Tulsa. It wouldn’t matter that it isn’t impressive for mechanical engineering, finance, food science, or journalism.
Look at the sample schedule I suggested upthread. It combines advanced engineering classes with all the classes you’d need for the best tech schools in the country.
And yes you’re right MIT/Stanford/Cornell/Caltech/Olin are all better than your state flagship in the states you listed for CSE or EE, which is why you shouldn’t take so many advanced classes and wait to take these at MIT/Stanford/Cornell/Caltech/Olin.
Take the freshman/sophomore level EE major classes as well as Composition I&II, Art appreciation, interpersonal communication, a History class beside US history (could be history or science/technology!), Mandarin 002&003 or 102&201 (whatever is college level 2&3). For math, you’d need Calculus 3, Linear Algebra, Discrete Math total, Diff Eqs if you wish. Applied stats with business or social applications (like for Psychology - might require you to take Intro to Psych first) would be a nice touch. Strive to get As in all.
My assumption is that your flagship is your safety. Perhaps MUST, too? Tulsa’s good if you’re NMF.
Note that for college financial aid there’s a HUGE cut if you make more than 6k a year.
Run the NPC on MIT/Stanford/Cornell/Caltech/Olin - they each calculate differently so you do need to input the numbers at each. Are some/all affordable?
What about Cal Poly SLO? UIUC? GTech? Purdue? (You would likely be full pay there, OOS so running the NPC and checking with your parents is important).
What about ASU? U Arizona? Both have topnotch Honors Colleges and solid scholarships. Same thing at UAlabama, Honors college less comprehensive but solid Engineering scholarships and Engineering facilities.
My goal is to become the best engineer as quickly as possible, but from what I’m hearing the selective colleges don’t necessarily admit the best engineers, they admit the best applicants.
I think my best bet is applying to schools where those two are the most closely aligned, since I really don’t like the idea of altering my goals significantly to get into X school.
That leaves me with seven main questions (to all of you) so I can make a good choice: