The engineers I know are actually prejudiced against “elite” schools. I think they’d hesitate to hire anyone from MIT.
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This sums up exactly what we found, stated with variable levels of clarity on all the tours and info sessions, by that group of top privates who have robust cs/engineering. They (top10 type AOs) want it all. The kids who thrive there like it all. The number of fellow engineers in D’s college who also have extensive “other” is impressive: national level debater, high level orchestra, professional performance art experience, awards and in depth experience in NON stem in HS(in addition to all the stem/engineering top stats , research etc). These schools are serious about the liberal arts component of the education, and seek interdisciplinary thinkers.
It is way too early to worry about Engineering for an 8th grader, and once you dig in to the differences in more traditional public Engineering programs, they may be a much better fit for your kid than one of the T10 options! Keep an open mind and have your kid do that too. And talk to the counselor to get all the information before narrowing the curriculum/bumping a core course.
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Best path to top univ from all I can see (I do alum interviews for an ivy) but everyone will (and has) given you slightly different advice.
- Get the HS profile that college’s review along with transcript (usually on counseling website). Understand what is on it. If your school publicizes rank or percentiles of GPAs (hopefully not) you need to be at the tippy top and “play” the game of rank.
- Take highest level available all 4 years in all 5 core subjects with superior grades. (If you run out of language classes in sequence then no language sr year is ok). They want to see you challenging yourself in all areas and many have language requirements! Skipping years makes that harder. Taking AP CS in lieu of an AP History or AP French (e.g) will not be an advantage in many cases. CS is an elective. That said if you want to do CS and AP CS (either or both) is offered do it as an elective whatever year makes sense. That would quite possibly be easier to “add on” as 9th or 10th grade (if allowed) than do doing 2 lab sciences (which is almost always a bad idea). Talk to parents of older kids what is norm locally though, which can vary dramatically and colleges know it. (e.g. APUSH as a senior and AP govt as a jr is a very unusual progression you don’t often see but I am guessing you think normal there?).
EDIT: if you are 100% sure they are only doing engineering at a separately-applied-to school (which seems impossible to me know w/ an 8th grader) then 4th year of language is much less important… - Above is necessary, but not sufficient. You need demonstrate that the applicant is nice, curious, collaborative and does lots of things outside of class that are interesting, show leadership and/or show responsibility. An unweighted 4.0 in all hardest classes is no guarantee.
ALSO your kid is young, one of mine was 100% into CS his whole elementary / middle school years. Self-directed coding projects, camps, etc. We picked a HS with a strong CS selection. Now he is has zero interest in majoring in CS.
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Honestly, the working engineers I know mostly border on ANTI-elitist. The list varies from person to person, but they all seem to have one or more “elite” colleges where their opinion is it doesn’t actually do a good job training working engineers.
And talk about a “what have you done for me lately?” career path! ALL the engineers I know form very strong opinions about individuals based on what they see at work. This person is a smart, good engineer. This person is an idiot I would not trust to design a control knob. And so on. It is a very uncompromising meritocratic attitude, I think coming out of a field where if you do something wrong, things can blow up, people can die, and so on.
So, yes, engineering of all fields is not one I associate with carrying about college “prestige”. It may help get your foot in the door if working engineers believe your college does a good job actually training engineers, which is not the same thing to begin with. And then you actually have to quickly show you are a good engineer.
I think that’s what I said.
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It 100% is! I responded to the other post before reading yours, but obviously I agree with you.
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Please move on from discussions of elitism in engineering and focus on advice for the OP’s 8th grader. Thank you for your understanding.
My advice for your 8th grader to take the five core classes every year. Our school has seen kids acceptance chances suffer when they try to specialize or skip core classes. Generally good schools want broad academic exposure.
So in case you are wondering…
4 years each of:
English
Math
Science (usually 3 must be lab sciences)
Social Studies
Foreign Language
For foreign language, top colleges want to see through level 4 of a foreign language. My kids hit that mark in grade 10…(because they did the same FL starting in elementary school…so middle school was FL 1, 2).
This left them with elective periods junior and senior year.
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Just a few random thoughts in no particular order: I wasn’t aware that colleges view AP CSA as a science, nor do I think they would care what category it fits into.
I am a little skeptical of what has been the standard advice since forever, to have 4 years, including an AP, in all five core subject areas to be competitive for top schools. I don’t think these decisions make-or-break apps to highly selective schools. I think colleges are a lot more flexible in how they view transcript rigor.
If the student really wants to squeeze in an additional course in anything, and there doesn’t seem to be a way in the schedule with however the high school organizes courses, one alternative would be to take a dual enrollment course over the summer at some point, or satisfy some other graduation requirement with summer courses. If OP’s high school is this tight with requirements that band excludes all else, this can’t be the first time this question has come up. See if something else can be done over the summer - check the high school’s website for summer offerings.
One other observation, a local private high school requires 3 yrs social studies and many students take just that, as the schedule is tight with other graduation requirements. Freshmen only take one semester of social studies. The high school doesn’t seem to have a problem with highly selective college admissions.
Our high school does not offer AP foreign language at all. So no way a student can take an AP in FL at our school. Still…kids get accepted at top schools.
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It’s all in context.
As I’ve mentioned before on other threads, at my high school it was physically impossible to do 4 years in 5 core subjects given additional requirements for art, music, PE, and religion. I didn’t have issues with college admissions, nor did my classmates. But, full disclosure, this is also a top HS
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Agree with the context point. If it isn’t available, then colleges aren’t going to hold it against you. If you’re taking an extra CS class instead of social studies, it’s probably fine - if you are keen on CS, but I would hesitate to make that decision for an 8th grader.
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My D17 did exactly what you describe, opting out of 9th grade geography to make space for other priorities. Her guidance counselor was the one to suggest this. I can’t speak to T10 admissions, because she didn’t end up aiming quite that high. (In 8th grade, you can’t possibly know whether aiming for a T10 will be realistic for your son; and putting in his head now that you’ll be disappointed with anything less could be really harmful.) But her admissions results were well-aligned with what I expected for her stats and rigor; and she attended a “T30 LAC” with a nice scholarship. I saw nothing to indicate that the presence or absence of freshman geography made any difference. FWIW, my older daughter did take that class (not realizing it was even an option not to) and actually enjoyed it; but at our high school, it was more of a study skills class that happened to use geography as its context, vs a true component of the social science core. It was easy but not without its benefits - mostly because the teacher was good. (The same class with a mediocre-or-worse teacher could have been deadly.) Anyway, it’s probably okay to deprioritize this class… but I agree that the focus on “top 10” - especially this early, but really ever - is worrisome. There are so many fantastic colleges, many of which may be better for your son’s interests, goals, and qualifications than a “T10,” when the time comes.
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