<p>I received a 5 on AP Spanish. I’ll take the required language placement test during New Student Orientation, but I should do fine. My question is, as a freshman, is there anything else I need to do in order to take a 200 level course in my very first semester? (Specifically, Spanish 200). For example, get a petition signed by a professor?</p>
<p>If you place into Spanish 200, then you will be able to take Span 200 - - just as long as you place higher than Advanced Span.</p>
<p>So I got a 790 on the SAT Spanish with Listening Subject test. The G-Town Spanish website makes it look like I as a non-major, would automatically go into Spanish 200 without having to take a placement test.</p>
<p>All other students (non majors)
Placement according to SAT II scores:
200-360 SPAN 003 Introductory Spanish I
370-480 SPAN 004 Introductory Spanish II
490-550 SPAN 021 Intermediate Spanish I
560-630 SPAN 022 Intermediate Spanish II
640-700 SPAN 103 Advanced Spanish I
710-740 SPAN 104 Advanced Spanish II
750-800 SPAN 200 Academic Writing
All other students MUST take the online placement test.
AM I CORRECT?</p>
<p>^ You are correct. Georgetown uses the SATII’s rather than the AP score to place students in the appropriate language courses. </p>
<p>Are you a native speaker of Spanish? If you grew up speaking and writing in Spanish you should do just fine starting at SPAN 200. If not, I’ll share words of wisdom from fellow classmates. The best piece of advice I received from friends attending Georgetown, one of which graduated this year as a double major in Spanish and English, was to tread cautiously your first semester or two with your courses and courseload. Georgetown language classes are notorious for being very, very challenging. The upper level courses which are writing intensive are graded on a strict rubric designed by the Dept., not the professor. The SATII placement is a guide for you, not set in stone. Most of the professors are very helpful and when having to request modifications to your schedule it is generally speaking better to move UP into a course than have to move down because you took on too much too soon.</p>
<p>MacHoban
I am a native bilingual, and educated in both Spanish and English (in the U.S) since 1st grade. Though I am a Bio major and will be taking the big Chem and Bio lecture/lab sequences Freshman year, with a total of 17 units, I will technically be taking only four course, because one of the “five” courses is only one unit and pass/nopass. The Humanities courses are Ignatius Seminar and SPAN 200 1st semester, which are each three credits. What do you think?</p>
<p>Undclrd,</p>
<p>I think you have a very ambitious schedule for the fall. Did your advisor approve 17 credits for your 1st semester? I’m in the SFS and my advisor capped her advisees at 15 credits for fall, freshman year unless there was some compelling reason to add another class. I don’t know if that is strictly an SFS preference or not. </p>
<p>To be honest, I know precious little about the hard core science couses. Are those the 5/6 credit (like 70 minute lectures 3x per week + labs)? Since you are a Bio major, I’m sure you’ll have the two sciences under control. Did you sign up for a reading, writing intensive Ignatius Seminar? I’ve heard the coursework can vary significantly depending on the seminar/prof. Since you grew up bilingual, you have a great advantage with your speaking abilities. Which section of SPAN 200 did you sign up for – Gateway to Linguistics or Gateway to Literature? I think that as a freshman this will be an extremely challenging course mainly due to synthesis and analysis of academic & literary journals, debating your theories in Spanish and then having to produce a professional academic paper as the final product for the class. Challenging yes, but certainly doable!</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply, MacHogan. Yeah, 20 hours per week, and only 17 credits. That is what the Bio and Chem labs do.</p>
<p>There were no Linguistics sections (thank God). Only Literature or Culture sections (which appear pretty similar). So with Ignatius Seminar being an English reading and writing intensive course and SPAN 200 being a Spanish reading and writing intensive course, that is quite a lot of work. But the reality is, I will only officially have four courses: 1. Bio 103/113 (lecture lab) 2. Chem 001/009 (lecture/lab) 3. Ignatius 4. Span 200. The fifth class is Bio 101 (1 credit), and it does NOT count as a fifth class. Do I have the option to take only three official courses??? If so it would be Bio, Chem and Ignatius. That seems too light, even though it would still be 14 units. I asked other Bio majors and they said my 17 credit schedule was normal. Go figure.</p>
<p>The SFS advises based on credit hour and not number of classes per se. I don’t know if they do the same thing in the other schools. I can see where 17 credits would be standard, especially with the balance of science/math & humanities courses. It sounds like you’ve worked out a nice schedule.</p>