How important is Spanish?

I am currently a sophomore in Honors Spanish 4, and I am interested in 4 AP for my junior year, which would mean dropping Spanish. Would it look bad to skip a year and then take Spanish 5 senior year? Side note: I am terrible at Spanish so 5 is the highest I am capable at going, I cannot take AP. Would this be acceptable to top tier colleges if I get to level 5 of a language in 3 years while taking 9 AP courses?

That sounds fine

Colleges don’t even require more than 2-4 years, so 5 years worth of Spanish is more than acceptable

Agreed.

As noted above, you don’t need more than 4 years for any college, but if you are “terrible” in Spanish (and even if you’re not), skipping a year and resuming is not a good idea. You’ll forget a lot in the intervening year and will end up spending a lot of time catching up.

My school’s Spanish program is a joke, I took a test online that said I am at a Spanish 2 level, and have a 96 in Spanish 4. The difficulty is fine because the teachers are easy. Does the level 5 mean I took 5 years of Spanish to colleges? because if I did this it would only be 3 years of Spanish in High School

No, it means you’re in level 5. For the vast majority of colleges, completing level 5 is the equivalent of 5 years of language study, but it does not mean that one “took” 5 years of language. Students skip levels sometimes, or start off at an advanced level.

I’d just take Spanish 5 next year, then the extra AP in your senior year. Coming back after a year away will be painful. My kid did it and it’s excruciating for her. She feels she has to practically start over to meet the college’s language requirement.

agree with @redpoodles - best not to skip a year, take the other AP senior year.

Honestly, he Spanish classes at my school are extremely easy, and that would mean AP chem, bio, calc BC, micro and macro, and research all senior year. I think it would be easier to recover a lost year of spanish than take all those AP’s.

That was not the suggestion. What s/he suggested was, if Spanish conflicts with one of your AP classes, or if taking 4 AP classes without Spanish means that you’ve maxed out the number of classes you can take, then move one AP class to senior year, not all of them.

No i’m saying AP chem is that class, so I was adding chem to the AP I already know I’m taking senior year, which would amount to 6 exams

Oh, OK. Well, IMO, taking AP Bio and AP Chem concurrently is a bad idea because of the time involved, so if that’s the alternative, then it’s fine to push off Spanish. Just know, as stated above, that it’s a bit of a learning curve to get back into it. You’ve indicated that you think you can overcome the hurdle, so go for it. Best of luck.

Are there language classes that need to be taken in college?

Depends on the college. If the college has a foreign language requirement to graduate, then yes, although they usually have placement tests, or use Subject Test or AP scores, to reduce/eliminate the foreign language requirement. But it’s a university specific question.

How much more difficult is Spanish in college than high school