“The Haverford School is committed to preparing boys for life. Our college-preparatory educational program comprises academic, athletic, and community aspects that offers students both a broad exposure and grounding in several disciplines and the opportunity to pursue and develop more in-depth interests…The goal is to develop a course of study that: develops one’s talents and aptitudes through a varied curriculum, underscores talents, and strengthens areas of relative weakness.”
This is an excerpt from Haverford’s Upper School Course Catalog, describing the goals of the upper school curriculum. But does the upper school curriculum, specifically in science, math, English, and history really encourage students to underscore their talents and strengthen areas of weakness?
Or, do the course offerings, particularly at the honors level, when coupled with expectations of the college admissions process, create an environment where students seeking admission to competitive colleges are pushed into STEM classes at Haverford?
For the purposes of this article, “STEM” is defined as science and math classes. “Humanities” is defined as English and History classes.
Among other graduation requirements, Haverford students must complete 4 years (4.0 credit hours) of English, and 3 years (3.0 credit hours) each of history, science, and math. However, most students applying to competitive colleges will take four years of each of these “core” subjects.
For most students, the first two years of both STEM and humanities classes are prescribed. The only “choice” is in STEM classes, which start offering an honors level option in core classes in Third Form. There are no honors-level humanities core classes available until Fifth Form.
Haverford offers a total of 39 STEM courses and 18 humanities courses
Haverford offers a total of 39 STEM courses and 18 humanities courses; these numbers include both core and elective courses.
There are some reasons the disparity in these numbers makes sense. In math, each “core” class (Algebra, Geometry, Precalculus) has a standard and honors level offering, which logically makes the total number of Math course offerings higher. This is also true for core science classes (Biology, Chemistry).
For the core English classes, however, there is only a .5 credit (half-year) honors class offered, in the first semester of Sixth Form. All other core English classes offered are at the standard level. And for history, only one core class—U.S. History—is offered at both the standard and honors-level.
Students can take advantage of 29 STEM-related electives
Students can take advantage of 29 STEM-related electives in biology, chemistry, economics, and computer science, of which 11 are honors-level. There are ten humanities elective options, of which four are at the honors-level and none are in the English Department.
For students, yearly course selection includes not just picking classes but also taking into account the added layer of the college admission process. For students seeking admission to competitive colleges, expectations of those colleges must be taken into account when selecting courses.
What do colleges want? Academic rigor.
Rigor refers to the strength of a school curriculum, the most challenging classes available. At Haverford, the “most rigorous” classes are at the honors level.
The Common Data Set is created annually for most colleges in the U.S. to provide basic, quality, accurate, and uniform data about the college admissions process. One component of the CDS is a listing of what each college considers important in their admissions process.
Looking at colleges in Pennsylvania as an example, a sizable number rank the “academic rigor of secondary school record” as “very important,” which is the highest ranking level available on the CDS.
Schools that list academic rigor as very important include Lehigh University, Dickinson College, Villanova University, University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, Haverford College, Bucknell University, Temple University, University of Pittsburgh, St. Joseph’s University, and Drexel University. Penn State-University Park lists academic rigor as “important,” the second highest ranking available.
Throughout the college admissions process, students are told the rigor of one’s course load is most important. Translation: take as many of the highest-level classes your school offers as you are successfully able to complete.
“I made sure to select the most challenging [courses] I could,” Sixth Former Mason Wiegand said, echoing the sentiments of most students.
Students are pressured to show colleges they are taking the “most rigorous” course load, and, because there are fewer honors-level core and elective options in humanities classes, are pushed to STEM electives.
According to English Department Chair Taylor Smith-Kan, there are valid reasons why there are no honors-level core English classes.
“English classes are unique because [they are] a discussion class, and discussion is hard to measure…it is collaborative…it is hard to identify what makes an honors student in an English class,” Ms. Smith-Kan said. “It is not like math where there are objective answers. Discussions can suffer when the kids in the room are more homogeneous, [and] having the most eclectic group of kids leads to better discussions. English is a class that can manage a lot of different skill bases in one class. In a writing-based class…you can have students writing at different levels and still meet the students at their individual levels.”
Ms. Smith-Kan shared there is ongoing consideration in the English Department about if or when students should be tracked.
When explaining why there are no English electives, Ms. Smith-Kan explained, “English is the one subject that students are required to take for all four years. We are not trying to attract English students [with electives] because [students] have to take English.”
She concedes, however, that the lack of honors offerings for core English classes can lead to a perception issue.
“It kind of makes English feel, on the surface, less rigorous,” Ms. Smith-Kan said. “Kids [might] think, it’s not an honors class, so it’s not a priority.”
Smith-Kan also acknowledges that for some, English classes at the honors level could be valuable.
“When I was in high school, I started having an honors option as an 11th grader… It’s a great experience as an Honors English student to be in a room with others who are passionate about [the course],” Ms. Smith-Kan said.
Entering junior year, students selecting electives have six honors-level elective options in STEM, and none in humanities. All of the honors-level humanities electives offered at Haverford are only available senior year. The course choices a student makes can impact college admissions and GPA (which also has implications for school awards, class ranking and scholarships.) The course offering limitations can push students into STEM classes.
Sixth Former Milan Varma considered his course selections through the lens of college admissions.
“I tended to choose an honors STEM first because it showed dedication to school in a time when I knew colleges would skim my apps, but now I am taking more standard humanities because they are more of an interest to me,” Varma said.
Another compounding factor highlighting the imbalance in Haverford course offerings: colleges expect students to take high school coursework that reflects interest in their future major.
Students planning on a STEM major have multiple honors-level elective options they can use to demonstrate both “passion” and “rigor” for their chosen major
Students planning on a STEM major have multiple honors-level elective options they can use to demonstrate both “passion” and “rigor” for their chosen major. Future humanities majors are limited in their ability to demonstrate both passion and rigor because there are fewer course offerings.
Does this matter? There is an argument that, given that the top highest-paid careers listed in the 2023 Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook are all STEM-based, STEM should be prioritized.
Yet research published by The New York Times shows that “The [salary] advantage of the STEM majors fades steadily after their first jobs, and by age 40 the earnings of people who major in fields like social science and history have caught up.”
Is future income even a reasonable metric for measuring the value of academic interest? Should there not be more course offerings in the Haverford humanities departments simply because humanities classes are as important as STEM classes?
According to Ms. Smith-Kan, “English is not about one thing. In English class you can be talking about something really minute, like comma rules, or you can find yourself talking about life and death… English class is about life, people, human emotions, how you relate to others. It’s about empathy.”
“We read poems at people’s funerals. We read poems at people’s marriages. Literature is the thing we turn to in society when we have these big moments in life”
Ms. taylor Smith-kan
“We read poems at people’s funerals. We read poems at people’s marriages. Literature is the thing we turn to in society when we have these big moments in life,” Ms. Smith-Kan said. “We look for interpretation in writing. It is the air we breathe.”
The current imbalance in Haverford’s course offerings highlights the deeper tension between the expectations of the college admissions process and broader education objectives of providing a varied curriculum. Haverford is the only independent school in the area not offering English electives, and comparing the Haverford curriculum to other independent schools in the Inter-Ac, like EA, Malvern, Baldwin and Agnes Irwin, and Germantown Academy, Haverford offers the fewest Humanities options. Haverford dominates the Inter-Ac athletically; perhaps it should dominate in academic offerings as well.
