Spanish-IV or AP-Economics, Dean-J and others

Colleges & Universities University of Virginia
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>My son is going over his Junior year course selection and he would like to take AP Economics rather then Spanish-IV. I have read many threads saying 4 years of foreign language is recommended. However, his argument is he wants to try Economics to see if he likes it so that it helps him with some college selection. Following is his current and future course load.</p>

<p>Question is, looking at his course load and everything else, does it make a difference between taking Spanish-IV v/s AP Economics. UVA is on top of of his college choices (we are in-state, other are Princeton and Brown - offcouse it changes every few weeks).</p>

<p>Freshman: Biology (H), Algebra-2(H), Spanish-2, English (H), History (H), Finance (Elective)</p>

<p>Sophomore: Pre-Calc (H), AP world Hist, AP Statistics, Chemistry (H), English (H), Spanish-III</p>

<p>Junior:AP English, US and VA history, Ap Calc BC, AP Comp. Science, AP Chemistry, Physics HN, Spanish-4/AP Economics</p>

<p>Senior: AP English 12,AP Physics,AP Biology, Multi. Var. Calc, AP Government, AP Psychology/AP Economics, Business Law/ Business Management </p>

<p>EC: Crew, Model UN and few other clubs. GPA until now is 4.4</p>

<p>Please advise,
Jay</p>

2

<p>Spanish IV-Junior Year
AP Economics-Senior Year</p>

<p>For all of the colleges your son has on his radar each prefer to see (not require) 4 years of a language.</p>

3

<p>Setting aside what Admissions Committees would like to see, 4 years of Spanish would make it possible for your son to place out of the language requirement at either UVA or Princeton, which requires proficiency equal to two years of college-level language instruction. With only three years in high school, he’s almost certainly going to have to take a year of Spanish in college in order to satisfy that requirement.</p>

<p>His junior year schedule is already very challenging. If he were my kid, I’d advise him to put off AP economics until his senior year, and take it in lieu perhaps of the business law class.</p>

4

<p>Spanish > Econ. Quite a few of my UVA friends spoke 3-5 languages fluently and have been quite successful in securing jobs. If you’re monolingual nowadays…unless you’re an engineer, you are not competitive…at all.</p>

5

<p>Spanish IV – without question. Econ as a senior.</p>

6

<p>Wahoomb - I think that’s a bit extreme. Although I’m only a senior in HS, I saw both of my sisters (business majors and only spoke English) secure high level jobs. I guess that’s a small sample, though.</p>

7

<p>I went to the transfer information session at UVA recently, and we were urged to complete our foreign language requirement as well. Starting at one school (be in high school or another university) and then trying to finish at another can be difficult, especially if there’s a big leap in difficulty between the two. If your son waits two years and then finishes Spanish at UVA, there’s a good chance he will have to take at least one remedial class to keep up. And as woosah said, he can always take Econ his senior year.</p>