<p>I'm a junior in high school right now, and my worst class is French 4. It's an unweighted class, and I have a B- in it (2.7). No matter how much I try to do well in the class, my grade just doesn't match that. I have A's and A-'s in all my other classes (4 APs, 2 honors), so my French grade is really bringing down my GPA. Would it look better to struggle in French 4 and get around a B or switch into a different class? At this point, the only class that I can switch into is AP Psychology, which from what I've heard is one of the weaker AP classes. </p>
<p>I'm aiming for very selective schools, so which class would look better to those admissions officers?</p>
<p>AP Psychology. Taking it now at the moment and in my school it’s considered one of the hardest classes. Depending on your teacher, there’s a lot of workload like article reading, summarizing, journals, etc. It’s also a science and honestly it looks much better than a language AP course.</p>
<p>But seriously though, if you really wanna learn French then stay in French AP, simply because you’ll learn more and dropping it won’t help. Don’t take AP Psych IF you’re not really interested in psychology and you just care about the letter grade.</p>
<p>It’s generally a demanding class but it depends on the school. Either way, I’d say Psych looks better to admissions officers.</p>
<p>I’m really interested in psychology and was actually planning on taking it during my senior year, but a ton of people have told me that French 4 would look better.</p>
<p>I mean if you’ve taken French since freshman year than it probably would look good to admissions officers as it shows that you are willing to continue learning the language, even at the AP level. In my school there’s a prerequisite for taking AP Psych and that’s taking Introduction to Psychology (unless you’ve taken multiple AP classes prior to enrolling AND passed them. that’s the only exception). Took that last year now I’m in AP.</p>
<p>It’s really up to you to do decide what you want to learn more and what you’re interested in. If you’re more interested in psychology take it, because if you’re doing poor in french then it’s either you work harder or consider dropping if you feel like you’ve learned enough french.</p>
<p>Your grades aren’t even that bad however. Colleges really look at first semester grades of senior year so if you manage to fly through french AP in the 2nd marking pd. you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>I’m in French 4 (my school makes you take French 4 before AP French, so French 4 is an unweighted class)</p>
<p>Ahh I see. I got confused because in my school there is only one French 4 and that’s just AP.</p>
<p>AP Psychology will add more weight to your GPA IF you do well in it. If it’s “weaker” in your school (I don’t get what that means. Is it easier?) then you should probably do fine in it.</p>
<p>What would you much rather learn, French or Psychology?</p>
<p>Sorry for the lack of clarity, by “weaker” I meant easier (i.e., an easy A). I would definitely rather learn psychology, but I’m really worried about how it would impact my chances of getting into a good school</p>
<p>Ap Psychology is indeed considered one of the weaker APs by college admissions, and a 4th year of language will be expected from very selective colleges. So it depends where you intend on applying.
An alternative might be to take AP Psych now, and French4 next year - you’ll be reviewing what you started this year, so the beginning shouldn’t be too hard, and hopefully you’ll be able to pull an A for your midyear report. Ask your guidance counselor if you’d be allowed to do this though.</p>