What does 4 years of a language mean?

needadvice17
Mon, 13 Oct 2014 04:40:28 +0000

My high school is a joint middle school and high school and an IB school. I am a junior. So we started a foreign language in 7th grade. I concluded spanish 4 in 10th grade. If I take a different language instead of venturing on to AP Spanish (a 2-year course at my school), will that hurt my chances of getting into the really elite schools? I know Princeton allows it but what about Harvard and others? It’s because I want to take the opportunity to learn another language since I know I want to take Spanish classes in college and would rather not have like 10 years of a language. I am a non native which means I have to work about 5 times harder than the natives and even then, I don’t know if I can get an A in AP Spanish. Plus, my schedule for senior year is already going to be my hardest ever and adding AP Spanish Lit to that makes me concerned if I can handle it since I do not want to sacrifice my science grades for a foreign language. I want to be a biology major.
My argument is that I’ve already taken the same foreign language for 4 years, so shouldn’t I be free to take another language I want for the remaining two years? Considering my school is an IB school (if that matters to colleges), will they see that reasoning the same way? Or will they disregard the first two years since it was in middle school?

I’m already taking 5 APs and 6 with AP Spanish. Would the top colleges rather see a B in an AP Spanish class than an A in a regular foreign language, considering I do well in all my other APs. I just wanna know if this is a misconception that any B at all has a bad connotation with the courseload I just mentioned? I hope that makes sense.