Foreign Language Question?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hello all,</p>

<p>I am currently a freshman in high school. I plan on applying to highly selective colleges, with my main interest being Harvard. </p>

<p>I'm currently completing my third year of Spanish, and will be done in June. In 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, I completed Spanish 1A, Spanish 1B, and Spanish 2. In June I will have completed Honors Spanish 3. </p>

<p>Next year (sophomore year), I am wondering whether or not I should take Honors Spanish 4 or should take AP Psychology. I know many highly selective colleges recommend four years of language, but I am thinking that AP Psych would look better than Spanish 4. I'm sure I can achieve A's throughout both classes and a 5 on the AP Psych exam, so difficulty should not be a factor in this case. I'd like you guys' input on which class I should take. </p>

2

<p>Continue with the language, the consistency is valuable. Most colleges recommend at least 4 years, so if you really want to next year you can drop. AP Psych is often seen as an elective course and one of the easier APs. If you have space in your schedule, there will always be opportunities to take it later on. However, once you drop a language, it may be harder to get back in the groove if you decide otherwise. Besides, you’re still early in your high school career and it may seem odd that you’re dropping after only one year in high school.</p>

3

<p>Most colleges have a Foreign Language requirement that can be totally or partially satisfied by taking an AP Foreign Language exam in high school and by scoring a 4 or a 5 on the test, or by demonstrating the same proficiency by taking a college level test once you are admitted, or by taking the SAT Foreign Language Subject test and scoring a 700+ on the exam. For Harvard see: <a href=“http://static.fas.harvard.edu/registrar/ugrad_handbook/current/chapter2/language_requirement.html”>http://static.fas.harvard.edu/registrar/ugrad_handbook/current/chapter2/language_requirement.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In addition, you also should check with each college’s website to see if taking AP Psych will actually help you once you are admitted. Most college’s give some kind of AP credit, or allow you to skip the 101 entry level course, by taking the AP test in Bio, Chem, Physics, Math etc and scoring a 3, 4, or 5,. but they DO NOT give the same credit for AP Psych. (I imagine one reason for this is colleges don’t believe in the strength of the AP Psych Curriculum – in other words, colleges believe it’s an easy type of course, not of the same rigor as other AP courses, so it’s NOT as favorably looked upon as you might think.) For example see Yale’s list of AP Credits they will accept; no matter what you score on the exam, Yale will not accept your AP Psych test score: <a href=“http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/table-acceleration-credit”>http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/table-acceleration-credit&lt;/a&gt;. </p>

<p>For both of those reasons, I would recommend taking Spanish and not Psych.</p>

4

<p>For the most selective colleges, getting to level 4 or AP level in a foreign language should help.</p>

<p>Think of AP psychology as an elective social studies course, not something to take instead of a higher level foreign language course. I.e. it may be worth taking if you need a third or fourth year of social studies after taking the typical US history, US government, and perhaps another history or social studies course.</p>

5

<p>Take Honors Spanish 4 and plan to take either the SAT Subject in it or the AP test, depending on what level you reached (SAT Subject tests at CEF A2 level, AP tests at CEF B1 level). This is considered a “core” class, unlike AP Psych, which is considered an elective.</p>