College Admissions Requirements Revisited

A handful of admissions officers were interviewed orally by Portage Administration officials, and they all said they will accept the new semester courses, as reported on the PortagePS web site. One of those contacted by PPS was Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and according to PPS, the Associate Director of Admissions told them freshman and sophomore courses have “no impact at all” on admission to MIT. She stated that courses do not drive their decisions because almost everyone that applies has a strong academic background. They want to see advanced coursework such as IB/AP and the honors component of the curriculum would only be favorable to the applicant. MIT likes students to have a broad and deep background in the sciences. When asked about semester courses versus yearlong courses she indicated that “time” was irrelevant. It's clear that they look for and expect a very rigorous high school experience. According to the MIT web site at http://web.mit.edu/admissions/www/undergrad/freshman/faq/hsprep.html, the recommended preparation is: one year of physics, one year of chemistry, and one year of biology. While they do say "you may still apply if you don't meet every detail in the recommended preparation", if there are two students with similar test scores, similar GPA, and a similar resume except one took the full year courses MIT recommends and the other only had a semester of Physics and a semester of Chemistry, with three or even five semesters of Biology, which student are they going to pick? It's one thing for an associate director of admissions to answer questions that may have been asked in a leading manner over the telephone, and it's quite another for whoever is actually processing the student's application to make a decision that will affect that student's future so directly. Portage Public Schools should not implement a curriculum that puts our students at a disadvantage in the highly competitive admissions process.

Several other colleges were looked at and their admissions requirements are listed below. Click on the school name to see the web page that gives all the details. This list is by no means exhaustive.

Arizona State University: Three years of high school laboratory science, one YEAR each from three of the following: Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, or Physics.

University of Arizona: Three years of science. While they list integrated science and earth science as choices for the three years required, they list the "UA preferred preparation" as simply "biology, chemistry, physics", which obviously would be a year of each.

California Institute of Technology: One YEAR of chemistry and one YEAR of physics.

Colorado University: For engineering and applied science- three years including one YEAR of Chemistry and one YEAR of Physics

University of Delaware: Three years plus one lab science. Prospective majors in engineering and other science fields strongly urged to take one YEAR of physics, one YEAR of chemistry, and one YEAR of biology.

Iowa State University: Three years of science, including one YEAR each of courses from two of the following fields: biology, chemistry, and physics .

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Recommended preparation is one YEAR of physics, one YEAR of chemistry, and one YEAR of biology

University of Minnesota: Three years of science. The College of Biological Sciences and Institute of Technology require three years of science to include one YEAR each of biological science, chemistry, and physics.

Purdue University: a full YEAR of Chemistry is required to major in Engineering

Rose Hulman Institute of Technology: they require applicants to have one YEAR of Chemistry and one YEAR of Physics.

Honors students who take semesters in 9th and 10th grade followed by IB-HL in 11th/12th will graduate with five semesters in one field and only one semester in the others, which does not meet the listed requirement of a full year in many cases. While many schools are happy as long as you have the "seat time" in any type of science (especially if it's challenging), others require a full year of some disciplines. Furthermore, college "flunk-out" classes assume students have had a full year of the material in high school and those who have not will be at quite a disadvantage.

College bound students should be allowed to take full-year courses so they meet the admissions requirements of all mainstream colleges. It seems PPS is too focused on what it takes to be accepted (though even there they're misguided) and their semester plan doesn't account for what it takes to succeed in college.

The Portage curriculum development staff and the Board of Education keep telling us this change is not an experiment. If not, we're left wondering what kind of change would be considered an experiment.

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