<p>I'm a sophomore in high school and am in the midst of choosing my classes for next year. I'm in all AP and honors classes except for my foreign language as my school does not offer advanced classes in that department. Truthfully speaking, I have utterly hated Spanish since first taking it in 6th grade. I finished Spanish 2 last semester and was wondering if taking French for the next 2 years would look bad to colleges. What are your thoughts? Would it count as 4 years of a language? Thank you!!</p>
<p>It would count as 4 years of foreign language, yes. But there are two things you need to consider:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Taking all those 4 years in one language isn’t REQUIRED, but it’s preferred.</p></li>
<li><p>French is quite similar to Spanish; what makes you think that you’ll like it any better?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks for answering! </p>
<p>I was thinking about that a lot, but I really do think I may like it a bit more. I definitely know that I like the culture a lot more. And quite frankly, the Spanish teachers at my school aren’t the best.</p>
<p>If you think you’ll be applying to selective colleges, I’d suggest sticking with a single language for 4 years, for example:</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> College Admissions § Applying: Preparing for College](<a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/preparing/index.html]Harvard”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/preparing/index.html)</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> University | Academic Preparation](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/preparation/]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/preparation/)</p>
<p>The way foreign languages are taught in high school tends to be horrible, and the first two years of any language are often boring because you can’t read the literature yet or hold a really decent conversation with a native speaker, so I sympathize. If you can do one more year, it gets better. </p>
<p>At worst, you can drop it in your senior year and take something more interesting. 4 years is ‘strongly recommended’ by a lot of the most competitive schools, but if you are a future engineer or scientist, it’s not going to be held against you. I know lots of kids who have gotten into Ivies and other top schools without 4 years because the rest of their applications were so impressive.</p>
<p>From what I know colleges would not see for example, 1 year each of Spanish, French, and Japanese as 3 years of language.</p>
<p>Ya, if you want to be really conpetitive for the top notch schools you’ll need four years of the same language. Feel free to add French if you want it as an additional language, but I wouldn’t recommend “changing” languages altogether. I guess you have to ask yourself what you don’t like about Spanish. Is it the teacher? the class? Or do you just not like foreign languages in general? Most kids in all of the Spanish classes I have taken hate it too, but I feel like a lot of kids don’t like learning foreign languages. Changing languages won’t change that, so I’d say just stick with it.</p>
<p>I would suggest that you take four years of the same language. Perhaps you could take a summer course in it, something that would enable you to possess a year without one, if that’s what you find preferable. Generally speaking though, most colleges would emphasize taking at least three or four years of the same language.</p>
<p>I think 3 years is the minimum you should take of one language to be competitive. A fourth year is great and I think more kids are starting to do that. Also know that French 1 is probably going to be a freshman class. (I just mean majority freshmen.) I wouldn’t want to do that as an upperclassman.</p>
<p>I would not take the 2+2 route. Definitely take the 3rd year of Spanish and preferably the 4th as well.</p>