@LushLillies Please don’t take AP Spanish Lit… It is so so so so so so hard, even MY AP SPANISH TEACHER (mind you, he’s been teaching AP Spanish for over 5 years now) and he claims it’s extremely difficult, even to teach, so he absolutely refuses to have our school offer that class. It’s so complicated. Plus, as a junior in AP, colleges will be impressed, especially with your other language ability (yay we have something in common b/c I also am fluent in Spanish/Russian/French), and the fact your ahead of your grade with the Spanish AP Class. If I were you, don’t fret. Don’t take anymore spanish in HS, take a break.
Would taking 2 semesters of dual enrollment college courses in foreign language be considered as equal to 4 years of high school study? If you take that route, will there any disadvantage in admission compare to taking actually 4 years in highschool ending with AP?
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Re: #61
It depends on the college and high school, since different colleges’ and high schools’ language courses cover material at different speeds. However, in California, a year of college foreign language is commonly seen as equivalent as three years of high school foreign language.
Consulting with the language instructors at the current school for the proper placement would be the best thing to do if the student wants to continue studying the language after completing course work at a previous school.
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Foreign language instruction at daughter’s current school is very good. In fact, it is too challenging for my taste. Honors third year at the school - exclusively taught in the foreign language - will probably be equivalent to or higher than 3rd semester course of local community college where mine took 1st semester course last year. She is getting a B on honors Spanish Lv2 and I don’t see it improving next year unless she moves down to regular. I was interest in an easier path that doesn’t seem to exist.
Can you all help me define fluent for college application purposes? Georgetown asks a question about fluency on their application. Would you take AP score, subject test score, or number of years studied into account?
@SculptorDad You want your daughter to take her language courses at CC because its too hard at her prep school? I don’t know that the school would even allow this- it doesn’t make sense. Since I’ve seen from other threads that your daughter is very very advanced in math and science courses, already haven taken many CC courses, I would think you would encourage her to stick with her challenging language course and work hard at it. Perhaps she can have a free period next year rather than take more APs so she can work on her more challenging language courses. Colleges (and her high school) won’t understand why she did not take a the language ** at her school ** other than the obvious (grade grubbing).
The easier path exists… Drop to regular Spanish at her high school… Not attend community college for Spanish so it looks like a college course when its really just easier than high school.
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Can you have a reasonable conversation with a native speaker of that language?
@suzyQ7, I form a lot of ideas that are bad. Thanks for the reminding. I think dropping to regular Spanish is what my daughter might do for next year.
Glad I could help @SculptorDad !
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How would a high school exchange to a foreign language country look? I would only have 2 years of French study and no study of other languages before going to a French speaking country but would likely come back with university-level or above French language skills (the exchange I’m currently looking at is for a full school year). Would I have to take a French proficiency test for it to ‘count’?
It would not hurt to take a known proficiency test (AP and SAT subject tests are well known to US universities) to confirm your knowledge of French after the year of study in the French-speaking country, and note on applications that your source of French proficiency is from that year of study.
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S2 hates hates hates French. He is a junior taking French 4 now. I know schools don’t look at junior high, but French 1H in 8th grade (his 3td year of French) is on his transcript. Then French 2 in 9th and so on.
Does he have to take it Senior year? He has the 4 years, but in in 8th grade?
Re: #71
See Q1 and Q4 in the initial post of this thread.
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Duh! When all else fails read the thread! Sorry @ucbalumnus I followed a link to this thread and it started me in the middle, which I thought was the beginning!!!
Apologies!
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When is the right time to take CLEP ? After 3 years of taking foreign language or should we finish fourth year first ?
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Will it hurt my chances in college if I don’t take 4 years (up to AP)?
Like will they automatically pull me out of the applicant pool or consider me as a weak applicant?
I had the opportunity to ask USC’s (SoCal, not South Carolina) Director of Admissions this question after he spoke at my son’s elite private HS: “My son wants to take AP Econ Senior year instead of Spanish 4. Will this hurt him in the eyes of USC or other elite universities?”
The answer was: No, absolutely not! If he is replacing “rigor for rigor” the schools do not have a problem with it. (Especially replacing a likely “B” in Spanish 4 for an A in AP Econ – which is what happened with my son, and my son wants to be an Econ major.) He did tell me that AdComs will have a problem with dropping a 4th year of language for another free period or “basket weaving” type class.
We’ll see if my son gets into USC (& other elites) based on this advice. He’s already in at UMiami, Pitt & Fordham, at least he’s going to college 
@HRSMom yes they look at French 1 in 8th grade because it was a high school course. so your child is getting credit for 4 years of high school language. My junior is in Spanish 4 and doesn’t want to take AP Spanish. He is swapping it out for a different AP class.
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My daughter has over 4 years of high school level French. She does not really want to take French in college but it would be great if she could get some credit for what she has learned. Any ideas on the “easiest” path to accomplish this through exams? She currently is signed up for the AP French exam but is hesitating. As background, she was in an elementary school French immersion program beginning in 1st grade (NO French speaking at home). They focused on conversation but didn’t do as well with grammar. When she got into the “regular” French classes in high school a lot of the kids had difficulty because they could “listen” to the French but made many grammar mistakes that had to be re-learned correctly. She is a HS senior now and took her last French class her Junior year (the highest level offered at her school). Her guess (based on friends experience with the same French background) is that she might make a 3 on the AP exam and that may not translate into college credit. Any other thoughts? SAT subject matter test? I understand that 1x per year there is a different version that also involves listening/speaking (I may be wrong about these details - it has been a while since I was investigating that).
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
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AP and SAT subject scores may be used by colleges for placement in foreign language courses. Colleges often have their own foreign language placement tests, since some students enter with some knowledge of a foreign language but do not have any AP, SAT subject, or other test score to help a college determine placement.
How a college handles foreign language placement, and how that relates to fulfilling any foreign language graduation requirement the college has, depends on the college.
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