<p>The title doesn’t really make sense, so here’s an elaboration. Our school does languages weird and gives us a chance to start a language, French, in my case early in middle school and get credits. So, at the end of junior year, I’ll finish French (there’s no French 6) with 6 credits. Don’t bother doing the math or questioning the logic, it’s just like that. The school has since changed it so it won’t happen to future classes, but the thing is I have 6 French credits.</p>
<p>Also, at the end of senior year, I’ll have 4 1/2 History credits and perhaps 5 credits of English (if they add an English credit to one of the classes I took).</p>
<p>These obviously exceed the graduation requirements, but my question is: do colleges look favorably on having these extra credits and how favorably? Rephrased: Can these credits aid my application a lot or a little?</p>
<p>PS: I can get why they might not mind my 6 years because not everybody had the same opportunity as I did, but those extra 2 years should mean something!</p>
<p>Most selective colleges will care that you are taking more/harder classes, but simply having lots of credits doesn’t mean much. Most top students at the public high school I attended had oodles more credits than the state government required for graduation.</p>
<p>Quality over quantity. What’s impressive is you took French 6, hopefully with a high grade, not the fact that you had six credits in a foreign language. </p>
<p>Three math credits with your last class being tensor analysis with an A is a lot more impressive than five math credits and the highest class being Algebra II with a C. If a large number of credits lead to high level classes and high grades, good for you, if it was just filling space on your schedule with little effort on your part, no go.</p>
<p>I would also like an answer to this, I have 7 math credits, 5 English credits, and 6 science credits, as well as a decent surplus of other credits. </p>
<p>Your school isn’t weird. This is very common. All our area middle schools offer languages starting in 6th grade. Out state’s public universities will count 7th/8th grade languages as one year total and any high school level maths taken in middle school. The upper tier private schools only care about the level you get to. You say you’ve completed to level 5 (as there was no 6.) What level is that? Is that AP French? Is it a college level past AP French? If it’s AP French then they won’t care a lick whether it took you 6 years to get to that level or 3. If it’s a post AP class then sure, it’ll be nice on your transcript.</p>
<p>The public colleges that count your semesters as part of their admittance formula are aided by having extra classes (which are marked as academic electives.) It will be nice with the lower and middle tier private schools. The top tiers will just expect it and will only make you even with all the other applicants.</p>
<p>Most top colleges want (many even say it explicitly) 4 years of English, 4 years of a foreign language (and/or to level 4 in that language), 3 years of math (at least to precalculus), 3 years of history, and 3 years of science (bio/chem/physics, and at least one should have a laboratory component). Some expect at least year of art as well.</p>
<p>That’s just the minimum to ensure you’re ready for college courses. Most students go well beyond that.</p>
<p>For math and foreign language, it is generally the highest level completed in high school that matters, since most high school students applying to selective colleges will be in the range of high school courses in those subjects where there is a straight line progression to the next level (as opposed to multiple options at very high levels more typically seen by college students).</p>
<p>English, history and social studies, science, and arts are areas where the various topics taught in high school are often able to be taken in different orders, so a specific number of years of those areas (or specific courses in those areas, such as biology, chemistry, and physics in the science area) in high school is required or recommended for applicants to selective colleges.</p>
<p>The top schools generally “recommend” 4 years in all core subjects along with a strong collection of “academic electives.” Their minimums are like what was described in previous posts. However, it’s a small percentage of schools where that is the norm in the applicant pool. </p>