Anonymous wrote:DC took Spanish (in MS), Arabic, and Latin, had only one CS course (and lots of EC theater interest, since someone mentioned that) and got into every CS school applied to; they like to see both sides of the brain in action as much as they like to see pointy kids. Engineering schools all have programs in the arts, and they are filled with ... engineering students.

Encourage him to be genuine and explore interests. Don't try to cultivate what you think today some college four years from now might want to see in what he thinks he wants to do now. A lot can change in four years.

So, if he wants to do robotics and dual language, figure out which is easier to do as an EC. My vote would be robotics as the EC, as it is much harder to learn a language on your own and show a measurable result to a college, whereas many people learn robotics initially on their own, and there are all sorts of ways to show what you've accomplished.

I think that is where we are at since he has genuine interest in both. That's why we moved to the more tangible side of the pros & cons to evaluate it as a tie breaker. We're coming from public where the tracks are more defined. We chose private for the breadth of courses and now we are having a difficult time choosing. So many opportunities available, how do you choose? It's a great problem to have!

DC took Spanish (in MS), Arabic, and Latin, had only one CS course (and lots of EC theater interest, since someone mentioned that) and got into every CS school applied to; they like to see both sides of the brain in action as much as they like to see pointy kids. Engineering schools all have programs in the arts, and they are filled with ... engineering students.

Encourage him to be genuine and explore interests. Don't try to cultivate what you think today some college four years from now might want to see in what he thinks he wants to do now. A lot can change in four years.

So, if he wants to do robotics and dual language, figure out which is easier to do as an EC. My vote would be robotics as the EC, as it is much harder to learn a language on your own and show a measurable result to a college, whereas many people learn robotics initially on their own, and there are all sorts of ways to show what you've accomplished.

I am not sure that I would encourage Latin and French for a dual language program. I am not sure that dual romance languages is all that impressive on a transcript because of the similarities. I would aim for two languages out of different families. If someone where to choose two romance languages, Spanish would be at the top of my list, only because it is spoken by far more people globally and is more commonly used in the US then French, Italian, or the like.

Robotics is something that can be pursued outside of school hours reasonably easily. There are teams across the area that kids can join. It sounds like there is a club at his school. You don't have to take a robotics class to demonstrate interest in robotics.

Taking multiple human languages is not a negative for a STEM kid’s application to Engineering School, or for CS, or for Bio/Chem/Physics degrees.

That said, E Schools (and separately CS programs) do have extremely competitive admissions at present. It seems like many many many students want to get a degree in CS or ECE. For those programs, “demonstrated interest” both via STEM courses at school and also via ECs absolutely will matter at E School (or CS) admissions time. E Schools will only see STEM-oriented applicants. They will have their own very distinct admissions/applications pool at any broad university (e.g., UMCP, UVa, Princeton, wherever).

For degrees in Biology, Chemistry, or Physics which are offered in a mixed Arts & Sciences college (trivial example of this is UVa), then the demonstrated interest in STEM matters a lot less for admissions - simply because that admissions pool is mixed between arts, humanities, and sciences.