My school has started having students pick their classes for next year. I’m going into my junior year and I will definitely be selecting AP English, APUSH, AP Calculus AB, AP Chemistry, Physics Honors, and Sports Medicine 2. I originally planned on continuing my foreign Language and taking Latin 3. However, I just found out that the Spanish 3 class is becoming an honors class. Which means my friends will be taking an extra weighted course and have a higher gpa then me assuming we get straight a’s, which we always have. I’m currently on the road to becoming valedictorian and I’m really upset that this hurts my chances. Therefore I’m thinking about taking Anatomy Honors instead of Latin 3. That’ll give me a 4.857 gpa instead of my friends’ 4.83 and my 4.71 with Latin 3 instead. Science is my best/favorite subject so taking three sciences excites me. However, I don’t want to risk being turned down in college admissions because I did the bare minimum of two years of language. If it helps, I either want to go to UC Davis, Irvine, or San Diego. I’m planning on becoming a Scientist too. Furthermore, I’ll have exceeded the minimums for the number of math, science, and history classes needed for acceptance. Maybe that’ll help my case of only have two years of a language?
Oh boy. You do know that every year many valedictorians get turned down from their top choices? You have to decide what is most important to you. In a couple of years, no one will care that you were the Val. But you might care if you don’t get into your top choices because you didn’t have the extra year of language. Many top colleges recommend three years of foreign language. So check their websites and see what they recommend. Its very competitive these days, so I would personally do what a college recommends. No college will say they recommend you be the Val.
Look up the recommended number of years of foreign language required for your target schools. Meet the recommendation (because you will be competing against tons of applicants who do). That is more important than graduating valedictorian in the long run. You might also talk to your guidance counselor/Latin teacher about the inequity of having Spanish 3 an honors and not Latin 3 – seems to me that it would dissuade students from taking Latin going forward.
Agree with above. My S only has the equivalent of 2.5 years of language (took through community college and incredibly hard to schedule around EC’s) and it was a hurdle in the application process. Not having the recommended three or even four years of FL was a disadvantage for him and shaped his potential college list. Even if you lose your valedictorian spot, you will still have a very high class rank, an impressive course list, great GPA.
For UCs, check the UC doorways site to see what classes UC considers to be honors. In some high schools, what they label as honors are not considered by UC to be honors.
Also, UCs do not use your high school calculated class rank, so do not worry about that for UC purposes.