<p>I have an oppurtunity to participate in a 2-period a day countywide program for future teachers. It combines a college level class in education theory with internship experience in local schools.</p>
<p>It is a program that I personaly would greatly enjoy participating in, but I am not sure is it is a good move from a college admissions perspective. (I will be a senior this fall).</p>
<p>In order to participate, I would have to take Honors instead of AP US Government. Also, I would not take be able to take AP Stat, but I don’t see this to be a problem, as I have already taken Calc BC and Linear Algebra. All of my courses, except for spanish, are currently at the AP level.</p>
<p>What would be the best move for me?
I’m looking at Brandeis, Brown, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, MIT, UNC, Penn and Villanova as a Physics/Education double major.</p>
<p>OK – I’ll go out on a little limb here. You’re applying to really competitive schools, half of which can take or reject anyone they want. If they get 15,000 applications, 14,000 of them will have taken AP US History, and maybe 9 or 10 will have done the kind of program you’re talking about. Plus, you say the magic words “I would greatly enjoy” it. Plus, it’s oriented towards your current career goals. So I would say: Go for it. You shouldn’t let college applications make all your decisions for you, but even if you are thinking about that it will make you stand out from the pack in a positive way.</p>
<p>But. The same highly competitive schools in the top half of your list don’t offer Education as a major (at least I don’t think they do), because they don’t see training future K-12 teachers as part of their mission. (Maybe training the trainers of future K-12 teachers, though.) There is at least some risk that people at MIT will look at this and think that your career goals don’t match up with their institution. (And – unfortunately – the fact that you are a woman may play into that a bit. If you were a boy, it would be more unique.) So I would also be planning to address that in one of your application essays – why does a science teacher need MIT (or Brown, or Penn)? I would also discuss this with your guidance counselor – both to get his/her more informed views, and to make certain that his/her ultimate recommendation letter highlights what a principled, intelligent decision you made about this.</p>
<p>On the whole, if you tie this in to a passion for teaching science, I think people at MIT etc. will be sympathetic, and you will be different from the 10,000 future doctors/cancer researchers/Stephen Hawkings. (And, if they do mark you down for this, you may take some comfort in the notion that you really didn’t want to go to a school that didn’t respect what you want to do anyway.)</p>
<p>It certainly won’t hurt you a bit at Villanova or UNC, and I suspect that it will affirmatively help you at Vassar, Bryn Mawr, and maybe even Brown. Either way, though, at the end of the day you are probably better served – both as a person, and as a competitive applicant – by following your heart, and by setting yourself apart from the crowd, than by doing something just because everybody else is.</p>
<p>wow, thanks so much for such a detailed response, JHS. i think i’m going to go into school and talk with my counselor before i decide tomorrow like you suggest.</p>
<p>any additional oppinions would be extremely valuable.</p>
<p>Kudos for having already taken Calc BC and Linear Algebra. You don’t need AP-stats on top of that at all. And since you will also be taking other AP classes, taking Honors US history will not hurt you. You will certainly stand out by taking the college class.</p>
<p>Many top colleges have programs for undergraduates who plan to go into teaching (I think they’re called UTEP). Check out their requirements as they differ slightly from the more conventional ones.</p>
<p>I don’t think I could have said it better than JHS. Good luck, it sounds like a great program. You might look into the possiblity of taking the honors government class, but arranging to do the extra work and getting it counted as an AP. Worth asking anyway.</p>
<p>Not a parent, but I agree with what JHS and marite said. The program sounds like something you would enjoy, plus it would make you unique from an admissions perspective - how many people even come in saying they want to teach, and of those, how many of them have educational internships?. </p>
<p>Like Marite said, lots of schools, including [url=<a href=“http://education.mit.edu/tep/]MIT[/url”>http://education.mit.edu/tep/]MIT[/url</a>] have Teacher Education Programs, so that’s something you could discuss in your essays (“I want to go to XYZ university b/c of its quality science programs as well as the teaching education opportunities”)</p>