Do High School Graduation Requirements Meet College Admissions Requirements?

Last Updated on May 27, 2021 by Jill Schwitzgebel

The question in the title is one that many students don’t even know they should ask. And the answer is often, “No.” Sadly, students frequently don’t realize until late in high school that simply fulfilling the basic high school graduation requirements is often not going to be enough to get into the college of their dreams.

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The easiest example of this are foreign language requirements. High schools commonly require two years of foreign language to graduate. And some do not even have that requirement. Often, high schools don’t require that those two years are of the same language – they could take a year of Spanish and a year of French.

But many colleges prefer three or four years of just one language in order for a student to be a real contender for admission. Too often, students don’t realize this situation until their junior or senior year of high school, when it’s too late to squeeze it into their schedule.

Choosing Curriculum

High schools have begun to offer more and more choices to students when it comes to scheduling. But, there are signs that all that choice may be doing students a disservice at college application time. The Center for American Progress completed a study that showed “that in most states, in at least one subject area, students must exceed their state’s high school graduation requirements in order to cross the threshold of the public four-year institutions in their state.” In other words, meeting graduation requirements wouldn’t be enough to meet the basic admissions requirements for their state universities.

Due to the choices in core curriculum, students may actually choose a schedule that does not prepare them well for college. There are two scenarios that commonly cause students not to meet admissions requirements:

1. They may opt out of a subject that they don’t enjoy for their senior year. For instance, if a student completed Algebra II, Geometry and even Precalculus in high school, it may be tempting for them to think they took a rigorous schedule according to their high school, and then opt out of taking any math class their senior year. However, colleges usually prefer to see four years of math on the transcript – in many cases it’s required. And not all colleges will count math taken in 8th grade as a high school math class, regardless of how the high school counts it.
2. More often, students do fulfill the number of years of a subject that is required for college, but they don’t choose classes that colleges want to see on their transcript. For instance, most colleges want to see that students took Algebra I and II and Geometry at a bare minimum. (And truthfully, colleges would like to see that a student also took Pre-Calculus.) But, often high schools will offer other integrated math courses that will allow students to fulfill their required high school math requirements.

Sometimes, students make those choices because there are other classes that they would prefer to take. More often, they make those choices because it’s a subject that they really don’t enjoy or it’s a subject that they don’t excel in. But, they need to keep in mind that colleges are always looking to see whether a student took classes of increasing academic rigor. If a student quit taking math after completing Algebra II their junior year, a college admissions office will assume that the student chose a less rigorous path for their senior year.

Finding the Admission Requirements

This can be tricky. There is a section on the Common Data Set where institutions can list how many units of each subject area that they require for admission consideration. However, not all colleges have filled in that information on the CDS.

I find it is generally better to just go to the college’s own website to check to see what they require, or “recommend.” Please remember that in college admissions, if a course is “recommended” and your high school offers it, then it should be considered to be a requirement. Also, remember that the college is listing only the minimum requirements that they expect to see on a student’s transcript.

Here are a couple of examples of what you might see on a college’s admissions requirements page.

The first is from a 4-year state university:

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One thing that is notable at this particular university is that they want students to complete three lab science classes. More often, colleges will require just two. But, that’s why it’s always worthwhile to check the college website.

Additionally, note that students applying as engineering or business majors must take an advanced math class. This is common and is frequently overlooked by high school students, putting them at a disadvantage.

This next example is from a competitive private university:

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This particular college breaks down admissions requirements separately for each college. This example shows the requirements for students applying as business and hotel administration majors.

You can see that they actually require three years of one foreign language for hotel administration, but require fewer science courses for those students than for students applying to their School of Management.

Students who apply to a college without meeting the application requirements risk being required to take remedial coursework when they get to college. Or worse, they risk not even receiving serious consideration for admission. Don’t assume that meeting high school graduation requirements is enough for college admission.

See also: Calculating High School GPA for College Admissions

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