<p>Hello all. I am a junior in highschool now. Previously, during my freshmen and sophomore year, I took Spanish 2A (Accelerated) and 3H and received A’s in both of them. However, I am struggling with Spanish 4AP. Should I continue taking it in school? I was thinking of doing the following:</p>
<p>1) Take Spanish 4 (The level right now is unknown, whether it is A or AP) during the summer
2) Replace Spanish 4AP with Latin 1H and take Latin 1H and 2H for junior and senior years
3) Not take the Spanish AP test</p>
<p>My plan is to apply to Tier 1 and 2 schools. Thanks for your time!</p>
<p>My son really struggled in AP Spanish, too, but was still glad he took it. It enabled him to become fairly fluent, which will benefit him in his eventual career. I think it even helped him in getting summer jobs. He did not do well on the AP test, so he immediately went to our local college and took the Spanish CLEP test. It was much easier and he was able to get college credits.</p>
<p>The AP Spanish test is brutally difficult and seems to have little to do with fluency. My daughter got a 5 on it and can’t speak Spanish worth a damn. She says it was the most difficult test she ever took.</p>
<p>I agree that the results of the AP test have little to do with fluency, but I don’t think the test was that difficult. I do well with grammar and writing in foreign languages, but I’m not so great at listening and speaking. I managed to get a 5 despite the listening and speaking portions of the exam. The curve must have been pretty generous.</p>
<p>Agreed that the Spanish AP as well as the Spanish SAT Subject test are quite hard. My son took honors through his 3rd year with relative ease, then ‘regular’ his 4th year due to the number of AP classes he had. He has continued on and is taking a 5th year of ‘regular’ however. He will be applying to one or two top schools that really value foreign language, consider it a core class, and do not like to see it dropped during high school. If it is dropped it should be replaced with a class that will add significant academic value to the transcript. For example, a student applying to an engineering program would be justified in dropping a 5th year of foreign language to pick up AP Comp Sci. This is information directly from an admission representative at a tier 1 university.</p>
<p>I would suggest calling the admission department at your target school and ask them what they would advise…how they would view your transcript if you switched to Latin (which can help students on their CR SAT btw)? Ask specific questions so you get specific answers.
Best of luck!</p>
<p>blueiguana - I am thinking of medicine/sciences, so if I take “Research in Science H,” would that be acceptable? The only problem is that most schools require at least 3 years of foreign language.</p>
<p>Having completed Spanish 3H would indicate three years, correct? It doesn’t have to be three years in high school. If you took one year in middle school that counts. I’m not familiar with your high schools curriculum so I can’t speak to the benefits of ‘Research in Science H’ (although is sounds pretty cool!). </p>
<p>I would still suggest that you contact admissions to one or two schools that you might consider and ask. They want great candidates, they will be happy to give you their best advise! They honestly love to answer good, honest questions. Make sure you ask what their required years are and their recommended years are. From here you can pose your question and ask specifically about your classes. Be very specific.</p>
<p>For my son the recommendation honestly came down to a very specific EC. Another math/science class would have had no value added…they knew he was well equipped there. For this school, the fifth year of foreign language was more important for him. For another student applying to the same school, they may have given another answer.</p>
<p>Congratulations for asking these questions NOW, not your Sr year when it’s too late to produce an additional year of foreign language! :)</p>
<p>Ask your GC about what level of foreign language kids from your school, and similar area schools, have who apply to top tier schools. When our child was a senior, and I thought there were too many difficult courses on the schedule, I thought AP Latin should be dropped This was 5th year of Latin with one Latin AP already taken with a score of 4! (Not sure if both AP Latin’s are still offered now…) AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, APGov, APEng Lit and competitive research class were already on the schedule.</p>
<p>GC said to keep AP Latin, because it would show rigor and other students from our high performing HS and other area high performing high schools would have schedules with this kind of rigor.</p>
<p>Not likely the deciding factor in admissions, but didn’t hurt, as this child just graduated from an HYPMS school.</p>
<p>In admissions rigor of study is judged by what was available to you and how you stack up based on what your peers achieved. This is why you will find such variation in admitted stats from one geographical area to another, even from school to school. If your school offers 15 APs and top students are taking 10, you want to be right there with them. If your school only offers 4, then you can’t take any more than 4.</p>
<p>Definitely continue with Spanish instead of dropping it for another language. According to every inquiry to admissions at a selective school that I have ever heard about, both on CC and IRL, schools prefer to see one language taken throughout the full sequence. Dropping a language when it gets hard in favor for another at a lower level is not viewed with favor.</p>
<p>Dropping a language for scheduling reasons and taking it during the summer instead is something you might get away with–but you don’t have a schedule conflict. That said, if you really are going to tank the class, it might be preferable. On the other hand, a) you might get a lousy grade in the summer class, too, and b) if you’ve been getting As in the subject, it seems unlikely that you will not be able to get a good grade this year, too. It’s a long time until June.</p>
<p>There is no need to take the AP exam, though, if you think you are going to do poorly on it. But the school year has just begun and things may change between now and May. Your GC of Spanish teacher can probably tell you how students from your school generally do. There are always exceptions, but is the majority of students get 1s and 2s, it tells you something. I believe that the Spanish SATII is considered to have a nasty curve, because of all the native Spanish speakers who take it. You can also glean information about the percentage of test takers getting various scores if you search around on the College Board web site.</p>
<p>Lastly, if you take the AP exam and don’t do well, you don’t have to report the score to colleges. So don’t worry about it now.</p>