Two main things come to mind reading your original post. One is that your daughter sounds amazing and is going very well. The other is that every student should take things at their own pace. You do not want your daughter to get burned out. This is a very, very long marathon, and definitely not a sprint. Each student should pace themselves accordingly.
Regarding Spanish, taking AP Spanish junior year is indeed sufficient for any university. One daughter did part of her junior year abroad, at a high school where all classes were in Spanish (this was a relatively normal high school in a Spanish speaking country). This was a very positive experience for her, but of course is not for everyone. She stayed with a family that had a daughter her age. We then hosted the other familyâs daughter here at our house, which was a very positive experience for us. I have referred to my daughterâs friend as âour third daughterâ. When the friend was returning to South America, at the airport she and my daughter hugged and called each other âsisterâ (but in Spanish). Of course, this is an experience that you do instead of doing something else (such as ECâs).
Regarding mathematics, I am a big believer again in pacing yourself. Calculus for example is very much based on the prerequisites, including high school algebra, trigonometry, and pre-calculus. In my experience for students who are very strong on all of these prerequisites calculus is relatively straightforward. For students who are weak on any of these prerequisites I have heard that calculus can be tough.
I would be careful about taking too many AP classes (or even any AP classes) as a high school freshman. AP classes really are tougher than regular classes. I have referred to AP European History as âthe most difficult A- that I ever witnessed in my lifeâ, but my daughter who took AP Euro years later assured me that organic chemistry in university was more difficult.
In terms of switching computer languages from JAVA to C++ both are useful. I have said that computer science is about computer languages in the same sense that being a lawyer is about speaking English. There is a lot more to programming a computer (such as algorithms and data structures, and how you structure your programs). However, it sounds like your daughter is way ahead in this also.
My daughter who took both calculus based physics and âregularâ physics liked calculus based physics a lot better.
And both daughters did quite a bit of art, and ended up with a STEM major. This is fine. Music is also a very common skill among people who work in high tech. I spent my career working in high tech, and have on multiple occasions seen coworkers get up on stage and start playing music. Mostly this was unexpected on my part, and they were very good. One time my friend came over between sets, chatted with us, and gave us each a copy of his most recent CD. Then he went back on stage and played another set. I had known him as a software engineer.
Eventually however students have to pick where to put their efforts. There are only so many hours in the day. My older daughter has been neglecting her music for years to focus on academics. She has a friend who in high school needed to decide whether to continue to focus on figure skating and hope to get to the Olympics (the friend was that good), or to focus on academics. This particular friend like my daughter also decided to focus on academics, and both of them should be called âdoctorâ in a bit less than two years (but my daughterâs music and her friendâs skating have by necessity been neglected).
In terms of extracurricular activities, it sounds like your daughter is again doing very well, but she is doing a lot. Students should participate in the ECs that make sense for them. What I did, what my wife did, and what each daughter did, were four entirely different things. We each did what was right for us, and it worked out for us. This is my understanding of the advice from the âapplying sidewaysâ blog on the MIT admissions web site, which is worth reading (and quick Google search should get you there).
And sometimes the hard part is deciding what to NOT do.