为了指导学生和家长选择高中的课程，哈佛大学的教职委员会制作了《为大学准备的高中选课指导》。它给学生提供了最好的建议，帮助他们为未来有高学术要求的大学博雅教育做好准备。

当然，这本册子并不是为进入哈佛提供模式。我们不期待所有学生都遵循同一条学习道路，但我们知道高中的课程是能够帮助未来的学习的。我们希望这本册子能在你们做选择的时候有所帮助，让你们成为成功的大学生。

提纲：为大学准备的高中选课指导
鸣谢 Acknowledgements
寄学生语To the student
如何为读哈佛做最好的准备 How can you best prepare for Harvard?
结语 Conclusion

寄学生语
好的高中学习不应该只是为你下阶段的学习和未来的就业做准备，更应该让你学会利用未来各种学习机会。因此，高中的一个专业应该教给你特定的技能和知识，同时给你认识世界和未来机会的广泛视野。

在这本册子里，我们会在你选择高中课程时为你和你的家人提供一些建议。明智地选课能提高被大学录取的机会，提升你在大学前几年的表现。在整理我们的建议时，我们依靠实践中的证据，特别采用了成功拿到哈佛文科学士学位和理科学士学位的学生为例，看他们在中学时是如何准备的。我们一直认为，家长和学校应该知道什么样的准备能有效地帮助学生优秀地完成课业。因为每个高中的课程都不相同，我们试着辨别重要的知识点，技能，思维方式而不是具体的课程。

我们最主要的建议是，你应该选择你能找到的对学术要求最高的课程。当然你和你的家人要考虑到你的个人情况。正如每个学生有不同的才智和兴趣，每个学校也有不同的教学优势。当有机会和一个好老师学习时，你可以多考虑。因为资源有限，也许学生并不能选到我们建议的课程。我们的建议也只是一个理想的模型，它能帮助学生为哈佛的博雅教育做好准备。当然这本册子不应被看成进入哈佛和其他大学的公式，我们只希望以下内容能在你们做选择的时候帮到你们。

如何为读哈佛作最好的准备？
英国文学 外语 历史 研究及写作 数学 自然科学

英语文学
你们中的绝大多数一定每年中学都学“英语”。但是英文课的内容多样，你们将会遇见不同的选择。究竟该怎么选择？我们建议你们选那些能教你们如何辩证分析地阅读，并且包含主要的小说家，诗人和剧作家的课程。

我们希望当你进入大学时，有时你会超过规定阅读的范围而为自己的兴趣读书，例如科幻小说，传记，散文或者诗歌，然后你会开始注意作品的风格和主题。在阅读小说时，除了看作者在特点时代和环境下讲的故事，你也要留意作者是如何看待不同的问题和不同作者看待同一问题的不同方式。在探究不同的社会阶层，创造人物类型和叙事方法中作者的写作角度都会变化。你在阅读中应该对这些差异有所反思。

至少在一个领域中，让你的阅读尽可能地深入。例如，阅读一个作家的5本小说，看在作者的创作生涯中小说里对虚构可能的探索是如何变化的。或者，你对某一类型感兴趣（如女性作家），可以看一两个国家在几世纪里你所关乎的话题是如何变化的，如看作家简奥斯丁和莫里森是如何面对社会的。
最重要的是，尽可能多读，找到你喜欢的作家，研究他们的作品，流连图书馆和书店去挑你喜欢的新书，辩证地思考你喜欢的作家们之间在内容和形式上的不同。如果你喜欢诗歌，背诵它们直到滚瓜烂熟。当它们成为你的一部分时，你对它们的思考将截然不同。一个被阅读充实的大脑是你能带入大学的最宝贵财富。正如说模仿听，写作也同样模仿阅读。任何一个好的作家一开始肯定是一个好的读者。
外语学习
当离开中学的时候，你至少掌握一种外语，能够轻松阅读，正确地发音。学习一门外语能够让你进入另一种文化，理解它的理念和价值。语言学习的关键是掌握单词和句法，它们能让你阅读小说，戏剧，诗歌和杂志，并且让你尽可能地像母语一样理解其内涵。我们发现那些在进入哈佛前就掌握一门外语的学生比没有基础的学生选了更多的外语课。确实，这些学生是自己开始外语学习的，美国中学里通常没有这些课。

许多中学生略修几门外语，例如：拉丁语两年，法语一年，西班牙语一年。当太晚才开始学习时，学生会发现他们不能很好地阅读和说其中任意一种语言。我们鼓励学生至少用4年学习一门语言和它的文学。连续学习同样很重要，因为任何一年的中断都会导致后退。一旦你能流利自然的表达，你就掌彻底握了这种语言，并且能更好地欣赏它的文化。

历史
你会发现历史对于博雅教育十分关键，它为人文和社会学提供了核心框架结构。美国历史无疑在美国高中里占有特殊的地位。因为历史能帮助解释美国社会的特点和成就，它与大多数美国学生的经历和志向有特别的关联，当然也包括那些刚刚来到美国的学生。我们希望你们能学习发现新大陆时代，独立前的北美和美国的崛起。

美国历史也许是你毕业唯一要考到的历史，但它远远不够。如果你要欣赏历史遗产和了解我们时代的不同，你就必须对现代社会有更长远的认识而不是局限在对美国的认识。因此，我们强烈推荐欧洲历史的学习。

为什么推荐欧洲呢？因为欧洲曾是重大思想和制度的来源，而这些精神财富勾勒出了我们所居住的世界。为了能使我们多元化的社会更有效地运转，我们每一个人都需要理解政治、社会和经济体制下的前提。通过对欧洲的学习，你将会学到多元化的思想和体制，例如自由和奴隶，殖民主义和主权，代议制民主和极权政治，公司和政府管制，以及一系列的思想体系，包括民族主义，资本主义和社会主义。

带着历史观学习这些思想和制度，你将逐步学会如何分析这问题，更深地理解这些事件的起因和发展。

如果可能的话，大三再修历史——可以用一年学习古代历史，或是拉丁美洲，亚洲，非洲或中东地区。多学一年美国或欧洲的历史，将会非常有价值。你了解的历史越多，你就越能理解人类事件的复杂性以及其他文化——这种理解在当今的多元化世界里是极其重要的。

时间和地点，人名和事件，对于历史来说并不是毫无意义的。他们展现了鲜活的历史。如果没有后备信息的支持，单纯的“概念”是毫无意义的。如果你不知道火药的发明影响到了战争，那么你就不会完全理解国家从城市形态下的崛起。如果你忽略了佩里准将到达日本，你将不会了解东亚现代化的推动力。如果你对轧棉机的发明不了解，你就不会理解美国奴隶制向国土西边的延展。

缜密而严谨的历史学科，比起经济学、政治学、心理学、社会学和人类学，为大学学习提供了更多基本的知识储备。而这些学科，都可以在大学之后再开始接触。

研究和写作
大学课程要求分析性写作。无论你是写文学作品，历史或科学难题，还是哲学上的思辨，你的总结、辨析能力都是很重要的。在论文里，就像是辩论陈述一样，分析要注意推理的逻辑性、听众或读者的背景以及论述的说服力。

在撰写学术研究论文时，你通常依赖于来自权威学者的信息。要尝试着思考一些常识性的问题。例如，在写关于1776年迁出美国殖民地的移民时，你或许会问：“那些在美国独立革命开始时逃离到加拿大的的人是谁？他们去了加拿大的什么地方？为什么？他们成为了什么人？他们有没有去英国？”

如果你带着好奇心和目的性去读文献，你将会更有效地做笔记，衡量一位作者与另一位作者的不同观点，并将研究按问题归类，以及获得自己的观察，从而确定论点。

在大学，你应当知道如何引用他人观点，以及如何引述信息来源。如果缺乏了这些能力，你的大学学习将面临很大的劣势。

大量的写作练习往往是写出好文章的关键。几乎所有的日常写作练习，例如记日记，都能让你写得更加流畅。此外，把你的文章给朋友、父母或者老师批阅，也是大有裨益的，因为他们会指出你是否准确清晰的在文章中表达了你的观点。通过这种方法，你会以更加批判性的眼光去看待自己写过的文章，从而有能力去修改自己的文章。为表达自我的写作，可以给你带来深切的喜悦；为思考和思维的写作，也能够带来同等深刻的回报。

数学
无论你的兴趣是什么，数学总是接受更高级教育的关键。这如同伽利略所说，是自然创造的语言。当今来看，数学是阐述科学前沿的新发现、经济学预测以及气象模式变化的共同的语言。

为了具备在哈佛需要的数学背景，你每年都应当在高中学习数学。但是，只是单纯的修数学课是不够的。你应当具备思考复杂的数学关系的习惯。当已知一个公式，问问自己为什么这是对的，以及你是否懂得怎样去应用它。当你学到一个定义，问问自己这个定义是怎么得出的。

这种思考的习惯将会让你理解数学，而不仅仅是记忆数学，这也是大学课程的要求。具体来说，你应当选修那些解决应用性难题的数学科目。挑战解决难题的能力远远比单纯知道很多公式和数学关系重要得多。

当你进入大学，对于函数的概念，以及函数的各种表达方式：公式、图像、图表，应当成为你的第二天性。举例来讲，你应当有能力画出一个显示从波士顿到纽约的时间和平均速度的函数图像；或者在一个菌群里细菌的数量和时间关系的函数图像。这与用散点画图法是一样重要的。

具体而言，你应当彻底熟悉指数函数和对数函数的图像，包括幂次的翻倍以及百分比增长率。三角函数图像，对于振幅以及周期的概念也很重要。数学符号和订单数量级数评估是常用的。对于概率统计的掌握，例如平均数，中位数，众数和标准差也要熟练掌握。

如果你精通代数，函数和曲线图，中学学的微积分会让你能够听懂大学里教授的更高深的数学，物理和化学的导论课。但先不必急于学习微积分。因为它会让你惊觉，大学第一年数学课的成功与否更大程度上取决于你有没有通过在中学学习微积分，从而对代数，函数和曲线图达到更熟练的掌握。自然和社会科学的课程通常更依赖于你对各种不同函数的反应的真正理解，而不是你使用微积分的能力。

然而，最后的分析结果是，不在于你选了什么课，而在于你有没有思考数学问题。比一个特定的数学知识更重要的，是解决新问题的意愿。

科学
自然科学能解释，预言，有时还能控制我们所观察的现象所导致的过程。它们设立了对每一个人都极为重要的大量并不断发展的人类知识。纵然你没有成为科学家，工程师，物理学家的意向，你都应该在中学期间学习自然科学。

学习科学的动机并不仅仅在于对知识的渴求。通过发展科技，对抗疾病，控制地球环境来拓宽人类的活动也激励着科学家和工程师去发明与探索。宇宙是如何开始的？它存在的背后有什么规律？什么是生命？生命是无生命体化学反应的结果吗？有这个可能吗？一个受精卵如何变成一个婴儿？什么是记忆和意识？人类的大脑是不是一大部分由大脑里的相互作用的神经细胞组成的？科学的学习始于问问题的习惯。这些问题本身非常有趣，它们的回答也同样的吸引人。为了回答这些问题，科学家们进行实验，测量，得出理论来解释和预言他们观察到的现象。像这样的实验和观察都是学习科学的关键，也是中学和大学科学教育的一个重要部分。

由于化学和物理的基本规律一直很重要及有效，由于它们说明了科学知识是如果被获取的，由于它们必须被学习以理解最新的科学发展，因此在高中期间学习化学和物理是非常有必要的。你的大学课程会建立在这些学科的基础上。为了给读大学做准备，在中学你应该修四年的科学：一年化学，物理和生物，再一年修这其中一门的高阶课程。而心理，天文，地质和人类学并不能代替这些学科。

结语
我们相信，你应当为读大学而熟练掌握一些学科以及能力。SAT II的学科考试及AP课程考试，是展示你熟练掌握各种能力的机会。

总之，我们推荐：在这四年学习英语：专注且广泛的阅读世界经典文献；在这四年学习另一门外语；至少两年对历史的学习，以及学习三年为宜的课程（学习历史课程至少两年，最好三年）：美国历史，欧洲历史，以及另外一个高阶的历史课程；四年对数学的学习，包括所描述的各项课题；四年对自然学科的学习：物理、化学、生物学，最好将其中一个学精；以及时常练习说明性散文的写作。

诸多在高中阶段重要的课程，比如艺术和音乐，我们并不看重。这类学科的缺失并不影响我们对申请者的价值判断。那些大学学科里特别要求过要修的高中课程，在有数据证明的情况下，我们才会重点关注。

虽然我们相信这些结论也会符合其他优秀大学的期望，但是对哈佛大学而言，这些数据是结论里最基本的要求。这篇文章并不是提供一个确保进入哈佛大学的“公式”。我们的录取条款有着多重的标准。有学术方面的，也有课余生活方面的。我们的招生组所遴选的，是将来最能保证回报社会的申请学生。

并不是所有为读大学做好充分准备的学生都能够保证将来对社会有贡献，也并不是所有有前途的学生在学术上做好了充分的准备。然而，好的学术能力总是我们关注的核心。我们奖励有特殊天赋以及杰出个人素质的学生；我们也关注在课外活动中取得瞩目成就的学生;我们也希望有不同民族国家背景的学生入学。总之，我们寻找的学生是能够充分抓住和利用机遇和资源，并且把这样的能力沿用终身的人。

Intended to guide students and their families when selecting high school courses, Choosing Courses to Prepare for College was produced by a Faculty committee. Choosing Courses offers our best advice for students preparing for liberal arts colleges with high academic demands.

This pamphlet is not intended to provide a formula for admission to Harvard. While there is no single academic path we expect all students to follow, we know that the course work you undertake in secondary school can prepare you for your future liberal arts education. We hope you will find the piece helpful as you make the choices that will help you be a successful college student.

Choosing Courses to Prepare for College

Acknowledgements
To the student
How can you best prepare for Harvard?
Conclusion

Acknowledgements
Choosing Courses to Prepare for College was prepared under the auspices of three successive Deans of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences: A. Michael Spence, Henry Rosovsky, and Jeremy Knowles.
To the student:
A good high school education should do more than prepare you for the next level of education or for later employment – it should prepare you to take advantage of future learning opportunities of all kinds. To this end, an academic program in high school should equip you with particular skills and information and should also impart a broad perspective on the world and its possibilities.

In this pamphlet, we should like to offer some guidance for you and your family as you are deciding on your high school courses. By choosing courses wisely you can improve both your chance of admission to a selective college, and your performance during the first years of college. In developing this advice, we have relied on empirical evidence, specifically, the secondary school preparation of our own students who successfully completed certain requirements of the Harvard A.B. or S.B. degree. We have felt for some time that families (and schools) should know what preparation has been effective in equipping students to do well academically. Because the content of courses may vary from high school to high school, we have tried to identify important knowledge, skills or habits of thought, rather than naming specific courses.

Our principal message is that you should choose the most academically demanding courses you can find. You and your family will of course take your individual situation into account. Just as each student has different talents and interests that need to be developed, schools vary considerably in their particular strengths. The chance to learn from a great teacher deserves consideration. Resource limitations may make it difficult or impossible to follow the recommended course of study. Our suggestions are simply offered as a kind of "ideal" model of preparation for the liberal arts program offered here. While nothing in this pamphlet should be interpreted as a formula for admission, to Harvard or to any other college, we hope that you find the following pages useful as you make choices to prepare yourself for a liberal arts college education.

How can you best prepare for Harvard?
English Literature Foreign Language History Research & Writing
Mathematics Science

English Literature
Most of you study "English" every year in secondary school. But the content of English courses varies widely, and some of you will have a choice among several offerings. How should you choose? We recommend that you look for courses that will teach you how to read critically, or analytically, the works of major novelists, poets, and playwrights.

We hope that by the time you arrive at college you will love reading for its own sake, and that you will have gone beyond the books you have been required to read into areas of your own interest – fiction, biography, essays, or poetry – and that you will come to care about manner, as well as matter. Besides reading novels for what they can tell you about life in times and places other than your own, you will notice how authors treat different problems or how they treat the same problems in different ways. Authors vary in the social classes they explore, in the sort of characters they invent, and in how they tell a story. Your reading should lead to reflections on these differences. In at least one area, let your reading be as deep as you can make it. For example, read five novels of one author and see how the formal explorations of fictional possibilities within the novels change in the course of the author's life. Or, if your particular interest is a topical one (say, women writers), range through a couple of countries and centuries to see how your topic changes over space and time, as writers like Jane Austen or Toni Morrison confront their societies. The important thing is to read as much as you can, to find authors that you enjoy and investigate their work, to browse in libraries and bookstores and pick up new books that interest you, and to think critically about how your favorite writers differ from each other in content and in form. If you enjoy poetry, memorize poems until you carry them around inside your head. You will think differently about them once they are truly yours. You can bring to college no more valuable a possession than a mind well-stocked from reading. Just as speaking is modeled on hearing, so writing is modeled on reading. Every good writer was a good reader first.

Foreign Language
You should leave secondary school knowing at least one foreign language well enough to read it easily and pronounce it acceptably. Knowing a foreign language enables you to enter another culture and to understand its ideas and its values. A fundamental aspect of language-learning must be a grasp of vocabulary and syntax that allows you to read novels, plays, poems, and magazines, with as much of a native speaker's comprehension as possible. We have found that students who have mastered a foreign language before they come to Harvard take more language courses here than those who have not. Indeed, these students often embark on the study of languages not commonly taught in American secondary schools.

Many secondary school students take a smattering of several languages – for example, Latin for two years, French for a year, and Spanish for a year. When it is too late, they realize that they cannot read or speak any of these languages well. We urge you to try to study at least one foreign language and its literature for four years. Continuity of study is important, too, because a "year off" from a language can be a real setback. Once you are comfortably fluent, you will possess that language – and better appreciate the culture it has shaped – for the rest of your life.

History
You will find that the study of history is fundamental to a liberal education, and provides you with an essential framework for much of the humanities and the social sciences. American History rightly occupies a special place in an American secondary school. It is particularly relevant to the experiences and aspirations of most American students, including those who recently arrived on our shores, since it helps to explain the character and achievements of our society. We urge you to study the age of discoveries, pre-Revolutionary North America, and the rise of the United States.

American History may be the only history required of you for graduation, but it is far from enough. You need a longer and broader perspective on the modern world than is possible by studying the United States alone if you are to appreciate both the legacy of the past and what is distinctive about our own time. We strongly recommend the study of European History.

Why Europe? Because Europe was the source of major ideas and institutions that have shaped the world in which we live. To function effectively in our heterogeneous society, all of us need to understand the assumptions underlying our political, social, and economic institutions. Through the study of Europe you will learn about ideas and institutions as diverse as freedom and slavery, colonialism and sovereignty, representative democracy and totalitarianism, the corporation and government regulation, and an array of ideologies including nationalism, capitalism, and socialism. By studying these ideas and institutions historically (that is, in context and through time), you learn to think about these matters analytically; to understand not only what happened by how and why.

If possible, take a third year of history – perhaps a year of ancient history, or the history of an area such as Latin America, Asia, Africa, or the Middle East. An additional year of American or European History can be especially valuable. The more history you study, the more you will appreciate the complexity of human affairs, and the better you will understand other cultures – an understanding that is fundamental to citizenship in a multicultural world.

Dates and places, names and events, are not trivial facts. They are the very stuff of history. "Concepts" are useless without information to back them up. If you do not know when the invention of gunpowder affected warfare, you will not fully understand the rise of nations from city states. If you are ignorant about when Commodore Perry arrived in Japan, you will not grasp the impetus for modernization in East Asia. If you are unfamiliar with the invention of the cotton gin, you will not comprehend the expansion of slavery westward in the United States.

The rigorous study of history is broader and provides a more basic preparation for college work than do courses on economics, comparative government, psychology, sociology and anthropology. Most of these subjects are better deferred until college.

Research and Writing
Your college courses will require analytical writing. Whether you are writing about a work of literature, an historical or scientific problem, or a philosophical argument, your ability to point out the main features of other texts and ideas you are examining will be important. In argumentative prose, just as in a debater's argument, analysis means considering the line of reasoning, the nature of the audience, and the persuasive features of the style.

In writing a scholarly research paper, you depend on information from authors who know more than you do about the subject. Try to read with common-sense questions in mind. For example, for a paper on emigration from the American colonies in 1776, you might ask "Who were the people who chose to flee to Canada when the American Revolution began? Where in Canada did they go? Why? What became of them? Did they go on to England?" If you read with curiosity and purpose, you will be able to take notes more easily, to weigh one author's view against another, to categorize your research under leading questions, and to form your own observations and opinions.

Ideally, you will gain in secondary school some practice in thinking and writing about texts. You should arrive in college knowing how to quote or paraphrase, and how to attribute the information you have gleaned from others. The lack of these skills will put you at a serious disadvantage in college.

Writing often is the key to writing well. Almost any regular writing task, such as keeping a journal, makes your writing more fluent. It helps to have someone – a friend, a parent, a teacher – read your compositions so that you can see whether what you have put down on paper communicates your thoughts clearly and concisely. In this way, you can become a better critic of what you have written, and can act as your own editor. Writing for self-expression can provide deep pleasure; writing to find out what you can think can offer equally profound rewards.

Mathematics
No matter what your field of interest, mathematics will be essential for your higher education. It is the language, as Galileo put it, in which the book of nature is written. Today it is the common language describing new discoveries at the frontiers of science, of economic prediction, and of models of climate change.

To acquire the mathematical background you need at Harvard, you should study mathematics every year in secondary school. But simply taking mathematics is not enough. You should acquire the habit of puzzling over mathematical relationships. When you are given a formula, ask yourself why it is true and if you know how to use it. When you learn a definition, ask yourself why the definition was made that way. It is the habit of questioning that will lead you to understand mathematics rather than merely to remember it, and it is this understanding that your college courses require. In particular, you should select mathematics courses that ask you to solve hard problems and that contain applications ("word problems"). The ability to wrestle with difficult problems is far more important than the knowledge of many formulae or relationships.

By the time you get to college, the concept of a function, and its representation by a formula, a graph, or a table, should be second nature to you. For example, you should be able to sketch a graph of the time required to drive from Boston to New York as a function of average speed; or of the number of bacteria in a colony as a function of time given that each one divides in two every twenty minutes. A qualitative understanding of graphs – the ability to sketch and interpret graphs without plotting or reading specific points – is as important as the ability to draw graphs point by point. For example, does a given graph indicate that the concentration of a pollutant in a lake is leveling off, or increasing steadily?

In particular, you should be thoroughly familiar with the graphs and behavior of exponential and logarithmic functions, including doubling times and percentage growth rates. The trigonometric functions, and the ideas of amplitude, period, and phase, are important. Scientific notation and the ability to estimate orders of magnitude are frequently used. An increasing number of fields use the basic ideas of probability and statistics, such as mean, median, mode, and standard deviation.

If you are well-versed in algebra, functions, and graphing, secondary school calculus will enable you to take more advanced introductory courses in mathematics, physics, and chemistry in college. But do not rush into calculus. It may surprise you to know that success in first-year quantitative courses at college is determined more by the strength of your proficiency in algebra, functions, and graphing that by whether or not you have studied calculus in secondary school. Courses in the natural and social sciences often depend more on a real understanding of the behavior of different kinds of functions than on the ability to use calculus.

In the last analysis, however, it is not what courses you have taken, but how much you have thought about mathematics, that counts. More important than the knowledge of a specific mathematical topic, is the willingness to tackle new problems.

Science
The natural sciences help to explain, to predict, and sometimes to control, the processes responsible for phenomena that we observe. They constitute a large and growing portion of human knowledge important to everyone. Even if you have no intention of becoming a scientist, an engineer, or a physician, you should study some science throughout secondary school.

A desire for knowledge is not the only motivation for studying science. Broadening the range of human activity through technological advance, fighting disease, and controlling the earth's environment, also spur scientists and engineers to discovery and invention. How did the universe begin? What laws govern its behavior? What is life? Did life result from the chemical reactions of inanimate matter? Could it? How does a fertilized egg become a baby? What are memory and consciousness? Does the human mind consist of more than a large number of interactive nerve cells in the brain? The study of science begins with the habit of asking questions. These questions are fascinating in themselves and their answers can be equally engaging. To answer such questions, scientists perform experiments, make measurements, and develop theories to explain and predict the phenomena they observe. Such experiments and observations are the essence of science and are a critical part of secondary school as well as college science education.

Since the basic laws of chemistry and physics remain important and valid, since they illustrate how scientific knowledge is acquired, and since they must be learned to understand more recent scientific developments, it is essential that you study chemistry and physics in secondary school. Your college work will build upon these courses. To be well-prepared for college, you should study secondary school science for four years if possible: a year of chemistry, physics, and biology, and a year of advanced work in one of these disciplines. Courses in psychology, astronomy, geology, and anthropology are not appropriate substitutes for these subjects.

Conclusion
We believe that you should prepare for college by mastering certain subjects and skills. You should demonstrate your proficiency in the areas described below by taking SAT II Subject Tests and Advanced Placement tests.

In summary, we recommend:
· the study of English for four years: close and extensive reading of the classics of the world's literature;
· four years of a single foreign language;
· the study of history for at least two, and preferably three years: American History, European History, and one additional advanced history course;
· the study of mathematics for four years, including the particular topics described;
· the study of science for four years: Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, and preferably one of these at an advanced level;
· frequent practice in the writing of expository prose.

Various important secondary school subjects, such as art and music, are not specifically mentioned in our recommendations. The omission of these subjects should not be interpreted as a value judgment. We are concerned only with secondary school subjects for which we have data that suggest they are specific prerequisites for college work.

While we believe that the conclusions summarized in this booklet will meet the expectations of many other selective colleges, let us say a word about Harvard, since it was here that the data underlying our conclusions were gathered. This pamphlet is not intended to provide a formula that will ensure admission to Harvard. Our admissions policies are based on many criteria. Some are academic; others are not. Our Admissions Office chooses carefully from a broad range of applicants who seem to us to offer the most promise for future contributions to society. Not all of the students who are best prepared for college will be among those with the most future promise, nor are all of the most promising well prepared academically. While the heart of the matter will always lie in academic promise, we prize candidates with special talents and with outstanding personal qualities; we are interested in students who excel in one or more extracurricular activities; and we seek a distinctive and diverse national and international student body. Most of all we look for students who make the most of their opportunities and the resources available to them, and who are likely to continue to do so throughout their lives.