<p>S2 a sophmore is pretty fluent in Spanish having gone through an immersion
program K-8. He embarked on learning Japanese in HS. Due to the fact that he's
a musician (violin) and the fact that the school added a new requirement (Career Tech)
they've made it harder for him to complete two languages to third year or
fourth year by end of junior year - which is what we'd been hoping. One way
around the bureaucracy would be to just have him self study the Spanish Language
AP junior year and continue with his Japanese track with third year Japanese at the
high school. Would the UC's consider self-study and receiving a 4 or 5 or
the Spanish AP test as good for admissions purposes as having taken the
classes at his high school? I'd hate to have to have him drop out of orchestra
which he loves because of the new requirement.</p>
<p>Proficiency proven by a sufficiently high score on an AP or SAT subject test will satisfy the “e” requirement (language other than English) out of the UC a-g requirements: <a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/a-g-requirements/”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/a-g-requirements/</a></p>
<p>The minimum requirement is actually just high school level 2 of a language other than English, although high school level 3 or higher is recommended, and there are often graduation requirements requiring a higher level than high school level 2.</p>
<p>Higher level presumably looks better, but having both proven proficiency in Spanish (particularly with a score of 5 on the AP Spanish test if he gets that) and high school level 3 of Japanese should be more than sufficient for any UC admissions purpose.</p>
<p>Great information. Thank you again ucbalumnus. I really appreciate your being on here.</p>
<p>Just don’t take an AP test thinking that it would increase the admission chances.
AP scores are almost strictly for meeting the admission requires and receiving credits after you get into Berkeley.
Unless your son wants to continue with taking Spanish and/or Japanese in Berkeley, it’s much better to focus on getting the A’s.</p>
<p>@UpMagic Fortunately he’s quite good at getting A’s. Not worried about GPA nor test scores. It’s more about having a few distinguishing things on his record like a couple languages to AP level or nearly - that would be the goal. He’s already put in all the work to become essentially fluent - so studying to do well on the AP test would just allow him to prove that he’s mastered the language in that measurable sense. I hear horror story after horror story of kids with high scores and GPA that don’t get into this or that UC - let alone UCB. Just preparing him to have the best hand possible when it’s this time two years from now.</p>