Hi! I’m currently a junior and I’m on track for AP Spanish my senior year, I’ve been in Honors Spanish for all of high school, where I’ve had a B+ (the class average was a B). Now obviously that isn’t an amazing grade, but my school’s Spanish department is quite terrible with grading. Currently, my new Spanish class has a really bad teacher and the class average has moved down to a C (maybe it’ll move up to a B-). Now because it’s so bad, I was considering moving down to a normal Spanish class, which is an easy A/A+. I was just wondering if this would look bad on my transcript? Would this better or worse my chances in comparison to a B+ in honors? Outside of Spanish I have straight As/A+s and take the most rigorous course load offered at my school along with really good extracurriculars and I was aiming for T20 schools, but this is really holding me down. What should I do?
You should take the most rigorous class you can reasonably handle.
College should not factor in.
Good luck.
It sounds like grade disinflation is a significant factor in your school’s Spanish department. Another factor affecting grades could be the influence of native speakers who would tend to have an advantage.
It’s a real issue, and my advice would be to move to a normal Spanish class unless you plan some more advanced Spanish study in College. School work, EC’s, leadership tend to begin to peak in Junior year, and even the guidance counselors in our local schools recommend being selective on which advanced tracks to continue due to time constraints. And of course because they realize that GPA matters.
It’s much easier to explain how you wanted to lean into your interest, say in History, as a Junior and therefore didn’t continue the high Spanish track rather than explain a lower grade. These kinds of considerations are why grade deflation initiatives in colleges are either nearly impossible to enact or are enacted and then rescinded (i.e. Wellesley). GPA does matter.
So if you were talking like an A+/A versus A-/B+, I would probably lean toward sticking with the more challenging track.
But if you are talking like an A+/A versus B-/C+, where the latter is way below normal for you, and this is not a core interest for you . . . I would have a hard time recommend grinding out the B-/C+.
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