AFAIK, OP isn’t speaking of Michigan etc, but of generous meet need universities (assuming Dartmouth, Princeton, MIT..) where net costs are lower than at the flagship before merit. If “flagship before merit” is the budget then it’d be worthwhile to try to get into those affordable colleges even if they’re highly selective, since OPs son clearly has a superstar resume.
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Exactly, he’ll probably apply to some schools where he has a chance at big merit, which will include some of the big state flagships, but when I was thinking of schools like Princeton or JHU which have pledged no tuition below a certain level of income. He was thinking they would be unaffordable, but the NPC’s say otherwise.
He’s got a strong profile, but so do a lot of kids. At least it seems that way here on CC.
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Yes I realized when they noted meets need…In asking for clarification.
Thx
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Yes, you’re right, lots of kids do.
Highly selective universities will look for differentiators.
Theater Tech can be one. Well-roundedness is another one. It’s a gamble.
In most cases it’d be important to make sure he has 4 units of Social Science but in your son’s case the specifics matter more and I don’t think the decision will hinge on that.
(However you can insure he does take some social science classes in college.)
In addition, it seems the private school covers 1 year of a typical HS class as one semester (ie., covering Calc 2&3 over one year) so that some colleges may actually count the units differently than Carnegie units, ie , the way they would for block or A/B scheduling where 4 courses a semester = full time equivalent to 8 Carnegie Units.
I found a school that says “4 years of social science!”
This is from the JHU website:
”A broad base of courses will best prepare you for the liberal arts foundation at Hopkins, which consists of the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.
We generally recommend taking courses across academic areas. This could include:
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4 years of English (e.g. courses in literature, poetry, creative writing)
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4 years of math* (e.g. courses in data science, mathematical modeling, statistics, linear algebra, trigonometry, calculus, and other advanced mathematics classes)
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4 years of laboratory sciences (e.g. courses in biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, engineering design)
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4 years of social sciences (e.g. courses in history, macro or microeconomics, government, psychology)”
But then immediately underneath it says:
Please note these are not requirements. You may choose to substitute one academic area to double up in another, and that’s perfectly fine!
I am seeing a lot of schools that say 4 years of math, although some say that middle school counts, or that it’s 4 years or through the highest math offered at your school.
I think that colleges recognize that schools are different. Kids from his school do well in college admissions, at least based on the data I see, so clearly colleges are understand that they don’t have as many courses, or weighted GPA’s, or AP or DE.
The school would say that colleges recognize that their courses have a lot more rigor. I don’t know that colleges are counting units directly, but I do think that they know that if you can only choose 20 core classes, your transcript will look different than a kid from public who can choose 24 or 25 (that’s what it would be in our public school), and thus can double up without giving up another subject.
I’m going to have him bring this up with his counselor when they meet. We’ve got a year to make a plan for senior year classes.
At this point, he only needs to choose this year’s classes. Right now, he’s planning to go to that meeting to propose:
English III (will take AP Lang exam)
Linear Algebra
Biology (will take AP Bio Exam)
US History (will take APUSH Exam)
An advanced Computer Science class
Tech Theater
He’s planning to take a year off Spanish and rejoin for senior year for Level 7. His teacher told him this isn’t a problem.
He might take a college Calc III course this summer, when he’s got more availability. I’m still unclear if a class taken this early will count as # 4? We can tackle that later.
Any thoughts on this particular schedule?
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Yes a summer DE course ‘counts’ as a 4th math (or whatever subject.)
Do note that DE/college calc 3 taken in the summer will be accelerated and therefore may take more time/may be more difficult than he is expecting.
It’s easy to make the case he should take Calc 3 as close as possible to this year’s calc class (which sounds like is preparing him for the AP BC test.) So that’s something else to consider if he does wait a full year before he takes more calc (wrt to accelerated DE Calc 3 may be challenging)…many students take Calc 3 immediately after calc 2 and take LA later.
I don’t think overall that a lot of kids have the academic profile that yours does. Based on the ECs and all you’ve described - and I think that about the top schools too - they have your typical strong rigor but not 6 years of math and language and all that - some but not in most, etc.
Assuming strong SAT, ECs, essays, and LORs, your student is set up well for pretty much any school in the country. Doesn’t mean they get in of course - but they’re certainly worthy of applying, even to the most selective.
And if your student was less a stud than they are by a good notch or two, I’d say the same.
From a rigor POV, your student is probably in the top .5%.
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That is to give their admission readers discretion for situations like high schools with limited offerings, very important recruited athletes, etc..
Math and foreign language in high school are mostly leveled, so many colleges will see the level achieved as more important than counting the number of years. For example, three years of foreign language to the year 4 course is likely to look better to a college admission reader than four years of four different year 1 foreign language courses.
But most colleges are not very specific about how they handle leveled subjects in terms of requirements or recommendations for high school students who want to apply to them, even though it is not all that rare for students to enter high school advanced in those leveled subjects.
However, other subjects like English, history and social studies, science, and arts are not generally considered leveled, except in specific cases (e.g. regular high school chemistry and AP chemistry).
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FYI re the “is the theater tech appropriate for a stem kid” discussion - an anecdote: someone at C26’s school got into JHU for chemistry today. He did jazz band all 4 years of high school. Clearly didn’t hurt him. I know other kids from the school who’ve done VPA electives all four years and got good outcomes too.
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Does everyone think that taking a year off Spanish for Comp Sci is OK?
Since the plan is to skip Spanish 6 and go to Spanish 7 after a year gap in Spanish, will he be practicing Spanish in some way out of formal courses in order to advance his skill to be ready for Spanish 7?
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Apparently, skipping Spanish 6 is relatively common at his school? Spanish 7 has a Spanish 5 prerequisite.
He uses his Spanish outside of school a lot. His summer job most of the commumication is in Spanish, and we have some relatives and close friends who are bilingual, and he pretty consistently chooses to use Spanish with them.
His teacher thinks he’ll be fine. People had just been insistent on 4 years of all 5 core subjects, and this would mean he just has 3.
World language is probably the most forgiving subject for taking only 3 years in HS, since many schools will look at the level he has reached rather than the sheer number of years taken in HS.
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This suggests that Spanish 6 and 7 are not really additional levels like 1 through 5, but are more topical. Is that the case, based on the course descriptions? If so, then the choice between them would mainly be by topics of interest in each course.
Since Spanish is leveled, and he has year 4 (with AP 5 in Spanish language) and year 5 (intending to take AP in Spanish literature), it is hard to see a college admission reader saying that his “two years of Spanish” in high school is somehow inadequate, whether he takes no more foreign language, one more year of Spanish, or switches to Mandarin.
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I think they’re pretty different courses. 6’s course description talks about vocabulary and grammatical structure. 7’s says it’s about “learning in Spanish” rather than learning Spanish. 6’s prereq is 5. 7’s prerequisite is 6 or 5 with permission of the department chair.
“learning in Spanish” is better then. It’s called CLIL or FLAC and follows the same principles as immersion, where students have to DO things IN the language - learn about Crime& punishment in the UK, build model lunar bases, etc (<- real examples).
You can even look into colleges that offer FLAC units (typically, 1 credit in the subject taught in the foreign language in parallel to a similar course.)
For Math and Foreign Language, “4 years” (or “4 units”) means “through Precalculus or Calculus” and “through Foreign Language 4 or AP”. So he’s already completed “4 years” by the typical definition AND has extra units in both subjects.
Yes bcuz he’s done Spanish 6, not Spanish 2. And because he’s got another language.
I don’t think AP CS matters and I’d rather continue Spanish without a break.
But if he’s using CS to see if there’s an actual interest, then I think it’s good.
Of course, he might decide not to go back to Spanish after all which should be ok if he’s done 6 years vs Spanish 4 - if I’m understanding correctly.
I don’t like breaks in math or language but it won’t hurt.
You might also consider a program for him after 11th like Purdue STEP, Rose Hulman Operation Catapult or somewhere he can sample engineering - those may not have civil but maybe there is one local.
However, he practices Spanish outside of school, so it is not really a complete break.
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I think he knows enough CS, and enough about CS to know that he doesn’t want to major in it, or be a programmer, but he also sees it as a useful tool, and something it’s good to know about. On the robotics team he’s an engineer, not a programmer, but he still needs to know what the programmers do, so he can understand what’s possible if they work together.
So, he’s somewhat interested in the class, because he thinks it will be useful, but also because it’s got a teacher he likes and a reputation for being challenging, plus this particular course uses a lot of math.
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