High school students are solidifying their course selections for next year, and (rising seniors especially) often wonder about the impact of dropping a foreign language or lab science.
College admissions officers are most impressed with students who have taken 4 years of 5 “academic solids” – English, Math, Social Studies, Science (with Lab) and Foreign Language. An admissions officer might summarize an applicant’s coursework to his colleagues at a committee meeting as “5-5-5-5”; this means that the student has taken all 5 academic solids in each of Grades 9-12. This is basically a prerequisite for highly selective colleges, although there can be more flexibility among the majority of colleges that are less selective. Colleges typically outline their minimum requirements on their Admissions pages of their website. Among selective colleges, however, successful applicants often exceed the minimum requirements.
It takes under an hour to check out a few college websites in the early high school years to determine their admission requirements. This can prevent you from making a high school curriculum decision that you will regret later.
For example, the University of Vermont reports these admission requirements:
UVM – Minimum entrance requirements
four years of English
three years of mathematics (Algebra I, Algebra II and geometry (or equivalents)
two years of the same foreign language (American sign language meets this requirement)
three years of a natural or physical science, including a laboratory science
three years of social sciences
In contrast, minimum entrance requirements for Dartmouth College look like this:
“Most applicants to Dartmouth present strong secondary school transcripts that include the following courses:
4 years of English
4 years of mathematics (often through calculus, if available)
4 years of social science
4 years of laboratory science
4 years of a foreign language”
As you can see, Dartmouth is looking for 5-5-5-5. Exceeding the minimum requirements and striving for the 5-5-5-5 benchmark is a sound admissions strategy for many colleges, not just the ultra-selective.
Want more? This article dissects the admissions-speak of discussions surrounding an applicant’s high school curriculum.
