For HYPSM, do humanities kids need 4 years of science?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely yes you do.

I got into MIT with 3 years and no physics

How old are you? Your anecdata is only relevant if you started college within the last ten years and, more specifically, the last five.

I'm glad that there are so many people that are clueless about what it takes to get to a top school. Literally on the E3 admissions card for MIT there is no box for took 4 years of science. In order to make it to the table for review you have to be in the top 25% of the SAT scores and GPA. Then you have to impress them with your file. In my case, I had numerous local, state and national awards- gasp - not in science.

I also had a friend that got into Stanford and he didn't take the most rigorous courses at our school but had 4.0 and 1600 SAT score.

Sh*t happens. What can we say? But it doesn't happen to everyone because most folks applying don't have "numerous local, state and national awards- gasp - not science." (I kept your typo and lack of Oxford comma [still use it cuz it's not like we are typesetting this stuff by hand]).

If a candidate has something truly compelling then it might happen, but the reality is what is compelling about most applicants is that they have simply cranked and cranked for years. That's it.

^^ LOL, I ended up not keeping your hyphen typo as too many years as a copy editing just overrode it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely yes you do.

I got into MIT with 3 years and no physics

How old are you? Your anecdata is only relevant if you started college within the last ten years and, more specifically, the last five.

I'm glad that there are so many people that are clueless about what it takes to get to a top school. Literally on the E3 admissions card for MIT there is no box for took 4 years of science. In order to make it to the table for review you have to be in the top 25% of the SAT scores and GPA. Then you have to impress them with your file. In my case, I had numerous local, state and national awards- gasp - not in science.

I also had a friend that got into Stanford and he didn't take the most rigorous courses at our school but had 4.0 and 1600 SAT score.

What is an E3 admissions card? Is that CDS or something else?

Also you still didn't say how many years ago that was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely yes you do.

I got into MIT with 3 years and no physics

How old are you? Your anecdata is only relevant if you started college within the last ten years and, more specifically, the last five.

I'm glad that there are so many people that are clueless about what it takes to get to a top school. Literally on the E3 admissions card for MIT there is no box for took 4 years of science. In order to make it to the table for review you have to be in the top 25% of the SAT scores and GPA. Then you have to impress them with your file. In my case, I had numerous local, state and national awards- gasp - not in science.

I also had a friend that got into Stanford and he didn't take the most rigorous courses at our school but had 4.0 and 1600 SAT score.

Sh*t happens. What can we say? But it doesn't happen to everyone because most folks applying don't have "numerous local, state and national awards- gasp - not science." (I kept your typo and lack of Oxford comma [still use it cuz it's not like we are typesetting this stuff by hand]).

If a candidate has something truly compelling then it might happen, but the reality is what is compelling about most applicants is that they have simply cranked and cranked for years. That's it.

^^ LOL, I ended up not keeping your hyphen typo as too many years as a copy editing just overrode it.

cool story bro

[Anonymous]

Non-Oxford comma usage is a perfectly valid choice and only pedants get flustered about it. That said, the rest of the post was dumb, uninformative and idiotic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine was rejected at Harvard, accepted to Princeton and Yale (didn't apply to Stanford or MIT).

Like another poster, did the IB programme and science was one of her SL subjects. So she had honors bio 9th, honors chem 10th, IB Envrio SL 11th (and she also took the AP Enviro exam).

For IB, her SLs were Enviro/Maths/Philosophy and her HLs were English/History/French. She sat for the AP exams for almost every IB class she took, and then also took some actual AP classes as a freshman and sophomore. 4.0 UW, 1540 SAT, URM, classical musician, otherwise unhooked.

URM with a 4.0 and 1540 is hooked. Surely you know this.

That's what "otherwise" means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:vs. 4 years of history, vs. 4 years of a foreign language? What is this fascination with science? Add another history or foreign language course instead.

This won’t be why there’s an HYPSM rejection: “darn it, a humanities kid, and we need way more, but no 4 years of science. Into the circular file!” There will be 100 other reasons kid is rejected; not that.

The flip side is also true: “5 years of science. Fantastic candidate. We need more STEM majors. Admit!”

What do you mean "versus"? There are 5 core subjects and 2 electives. The 5th, World Languages, is sometimes half a subject in HS, because students can start early and finish AP befe senior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:that's an interesting observation. I would say I'm pro 4 years of science, but I do in fact know kids who apply as Classic etc majors who have no intention of majoring in that.

me again - it's funny but I'm not sure that college readers are smart enough to read it this way. I'm pretty much always suprised by how colleges spend and dont spend money: I've seen so many terrible tour guides and I know they have a lot of 24 year old readers with 1 year experience.

I was very surprised by this too. Had a Williams guide who you could not hear at all, and could not get around him in a semi-circle because of snow. DC said the college was “lame.” Couldn’t disagree with his assessment, even though I am a Williams fan.

Then there is Haverford, which actually made half the parents and students at an info session wait 1/2 hour more for a tour — because the tour guide could not handle more than 20.

Then we have Bard, where the student tour guide actually rocked it with 50 people.

This kind of stuff is small change and is just implementing basic principles of event planning. The most professional operations I saw in this regard were Vassar and (surprisingly) Georgetown.

It it is so easy to get this right. Amazing.

Do Bard then. Williams doesn't need to crush it, Bard does.

Exactly. DC said, “it’s like they don’t care.”

Not sure Georgetown or Vassar needed to crush it, either. For the Williams prestige-obsessed, it won’t matter; but it matters to some. Depends who you want to attract, I guess.

[Anonymous]

As an aside, since there are IB posters without 4 years of science: there are lots of international school systems where less than 4 years of science (or another core subject) is more or less the norm. International enrollment is going up significantly in the next decade to counteract the demographic cliff, even at elite schools. Maybe this will encourage AOs to become more flexible with these “requirements.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine was rejected at Harvard, accepted to Princeton and Yale (didn't apply to Stanford or MIT).

Like another poster, did the IB programme and science was one of her SL subjects. So she had honors bio 9th, honors chem 10th, IB Envrio SL 11th (and she also took the AP Enviro exam).

For IB, her SLs were Enviro/Maths/Philosophy and her HLs were English/History/French. She sat for the AP exams for almost every IB class she took, and then also took some actual AP classes as a freshman and sophomore. 4.0 UW, 1540 SAT, URM, classical musician, otherwise unhooked.

URM with a 4.0 and 1540 is hooked. Surely you know this.

That's what "otherwise" means.

You can’t be “otherwise” unhooked if you are, in fact, hooked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Non-Oxford comma usage is a perfectly valid choice and only pedants get flustered about it. That said, the rest of the post was dumb, uninformative and idiotic.

Trying to determine whether this was a sequence of 3 or 2. At first I figured it must be 3, but then I realized it could be a sequence of 2: dumb and idiotic are redundant. This begs the question: did you mean to use the Oxford comma? Well, did ya, “idiot punk?” Do you remember? Were there 2 shots or 3?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an aside, since there are IB posters without 4 years of science: there are lots of international school systems where less than 4 years of science (or another core subject) is more or less the norm. International enrollment is going up significantly in the next decade to counteract the demographic cliff, even at elite schools. Maybe this will encourage AOs to become more flexible with these “requirements.”

Which is true and MIT recommends 3 years of science: https://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/highschool/

Of all the institutes on this list I can't imagine anyone other than them and maybe Princeton caring. Yale/Harvard aren't exactly strong in STEM. Hell Harvard didn't have an engineering department until recently and I absolutely wouldn't go there for engineering.

[Anonymous]

You need Calc and Physics. Doing Adv Chem senior year or Ave bio as a humanities kid isn't meaningful as long as the class you're replacing it with is substantial. Econ, Linguistics, History of XYZ. Something like this. Can't be a free period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine was rejected at Harvard, accepted to Princeton and Yale (didn't apply to Stanford or MIT).

Like another poster, did the IB programme and science was one of her SL subjects. So she had honors bio 9th, honors chem 10th, IB Envrio SL 11th (and she also took the AP Enviro exam).

For IB, her SLs were Enviro/Maths/Philosophy and her HLs were English/History/French. She sat for the AP exams for almost every IB class she took, and then also took some actual AP classes as a freshman and sophomore. 4.0 UW, 1540 SAT, URM, classical musician, otherwise unhooked.

URM with a 4.0 and 1540 is hooked. Surely you know this.

That's what "otherwise" means.

You can’t be “otherwise” unhooked if you are, in fact, hooked.

Except not all hooks are created equal (legacy barely hooked) and there is such a thing as double and triple hooks. If a single hook guaranteed admission, you would be correct. But it doesn’t; it’s not like being pregnant — so you’re wrong.

[Anonymous]

AI response on this q for Harvard:

Yes, Harvard recommends that prospective students study science for four years in high school. The ideal preparatory program also includes four years of English, math, and a foreign language, as well as three years of history. Harvard encourages students to take the most challenging courses available at their school, but they won't count against applicants if their school doesn't offer certain subjects. Students can also take supplemental courses at a local community college or university to make up for what their school might lack

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine was rejected at Harvard, accepted to Princeton and Yale (didn't apply to Stanford or MIT).

Like another poster, did the IB programme and science was one of her SL subjects. So she had honors bio 9th, honors chem 10th, IB Envrio SL 11th (and she also took the AP Enviro exam).

For IB, her SLs were Enviro/Maths/Philosophy and her HLs were English/History/French. She sat for the AP exams for almost every IB class she took, and then also took some actual AP classes as a freshman and sophomore. 4.0 UW, 1540 SAT, URM, classical musician, otherwise unhooked.

URM with a 4.0 and 1540 is hooked. Surely you know this.

That's what "otherwise" means.

You can’t be “otherwise” unhooked if you are, in fact, hooked.

Except not all hooks are created equal (legacy barely hooked) and there is such a thing as double and triple hooks. If a single hook guaranteed admission, you would be correct. But it doesn’t; it’s not like being pregnant — so you’re wrong.

DP. Multiple hooks is better than one. But if you’re hooked, you’re hooked. All those stats the PP quoted about their DD cannot be taken out of the context of the student being hooked. If the OP is not similarly hooked, the information is significantly less useful to them.