My college counselor at my high school said that SELECT colleges look for 4 years of foreign language. I have taken Latin 1 and 2 (honors) in middle school. And am taking Latin 3 in high school as a freshman.
I am trying to decide if I should take Latin 4 next year, but perhaps not take the college board AP test at the end of it.
It seems that the Latin AP test has become a lot harder recently (since 2012), and it’s a combination of material from two Latin AP tests in the past. Only 12% students who take the AP Latin test (nationally) seem to get a 5.
That brings me to my 2nd question. If I take the AP test and do not get a 5, would select colleges find that a huge negative?
Doing just school homework and lessons will likely get me a 3. I’d have to work quite a bit harder to get a 4. And extremely hard to get a 5. Is this worth it? Expected by select colleges? I hope to major in CS, and am interested in all the select colleges for CS. TIA.
Take the class. The ap test score doesn’t have to be reported - colleges want to see curriculum rigor and level 4/ap is indeed expected (barring specific circumstances such as class not offered either at hs or nearby cc).
I hope to major in Computer Science. I am very certain about that. I was thinking of possibly minoring in classical studies, but at this time, the time I have to take the AP Latin test end of tenth grade, are not great - specially because I will have other demanding classes (Calculus BC - AP) and academic competitions and extra curricular activities going on. So I guess I’ll take the class but not the AP test. I suppose I could study to take the AP test in Latin later (11th or 12th grade), although I’d have forgotten a lot by then of details in the Latin language. I do love Latin and had originally planned to go all the way to Latin 6 in high school. It’s just the demands of the AP test that seem overwhelming.
You Definitey want to get to Level 4 in your foriegn language studies…Don’t worry if you get a 5 on the AP test…your AP scores are not a big factor in your application (many people take AP test senior year, after they have already been accepted to colleges). I would take the test and see how it goes…if you don’t do well it is not that important.
Not sure if you mean “select” as in mid-range (“selective”) or if you mean higher. One year of Latin in hs counts as one year, when speaking of highly or most selective colleges. You can’t be sure how a top college will look at stopping after 10th, especially if more is available.
And if you mean highly/most selective, no you aren’t “required” by most colleges to report AP scores. But the higher you aim, the more adcoms will look for them. If you note CS as the potential major, you could skip reporting the Latin score and rest on the strength of your other AP scores. I’d suggest you think carefully about indicating you might want CS and classics, if the school goes to level 6 and you stop at 4.
There’re so many exciting electives in Math, Physics and CS that while I’d enjoy Latin, I don’t want to take Latin at the expense of those other classes. This is why I want to stop with Latin 4.
Take Latin. My computer science kid got a 5 and most of the others in his class got at least 4’s. (Good teacher small group.) They did take it after Latin 4. (So they all had two years in middle school and took the AP as seniors in high school, so they’d done a lot of Latin - more than you.) Have you taken the National Latin Exam? That might give you some inkling how good the teaching is in your school.
I think colleges give you a fair number of brownie points for persisting with a foreign language and especially Latin which is perceived as hard. Apparently Latin students tend to get high SAT CR scores - though that may be because they are a self-selective group.
Thank you all so much. I could take the Latin 4 class, without taking the AP test. That’s an option. Or, I could just take it without preparing. I do take the NLE each year. So far, almost perfect scores in them (39/40). I might have (in 10th grade next year), AP Calculus BC, AP World History, and AP Latin. And other demanding classes; I am going to stick with pre-AP Chemistry instead of placing out of it for AP Chemistry. And then English and Philosophy. Hopefully pre-AP Chemistry will be the easy thing, but the teacher is supposed to be bad (adding stress and time to the studying).
Why not take Latin 4 and the AP test? You just might get a high enough AP score to fulfill part or all of a foreign language graduation requirement at whatever college you attend.