Is 4 yr Foreign lang. Required ?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
1

<p>I am a junior with the following AP schedule
Sophomore : AP Env Sci and AP Gov.
Junior: AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Eng Lang, APUSH, AP Calc AB & BC
Planning to take in Senior year:
AP Physics, AP Psychology, AP Eng Lit, AP Stat and for the last one am debating between AP Spanish and AP Human Geo.
Now Human Geo is an easy A at our school while AP Spanish is a killer . It is a double block (Spanish 5 which is Honors and AP Spanish) They are both very hard courses, most everyone get Bs. Here is my problem . Until now I have almost all As(one B now in AP Eng) and am in the top 1% ranking(5/560).
But I have had 3 yrs of spanish in high school, one Spanish1 in middle(that counts towards high school credit). I have heard all elite colleges like to see 4 yrs of foreign lang in high school and would love to see AP SPanish. But is it worth taking that AP SPanish at the cost of bringing down my GPA and class rank ??
My councelor strongly recommends taking the AP Spanish route and says AP Human Geo is a weak AP that top colleges don't like. However I will already have 12 good APcourses will the 13th one still matter or I guess is the foreign lang thing so imp. for Duke. I do want to have a strong courseload while I dont want to being down my GPA/class rank.
Also my SAT is 2300(CR 800. M 740, W760)
I know that Duke requires atleast 3 yrs. of foriegn Lang but how critical is the 4th year?
Can I maximize my chance of getting into Duke either by
1) taking Spanish 5 & AP Spanish which will give me 2 Bs one in Honors and one in AP
or
2)taking AP Human Geo and Honors Sociology in which I will probably get both As.</p>

<p>I really want to go to Duke and I would appreciate advice . Thanks</p>

2

<p>I didn’t take any foreign language course in high school and still got in. (Well, in my defense, English was my second language, but I doubt that I managed to inform Duke of that)</p>

3

<p>I was accepted with three years of high school foreign language. I had finished Level 4 (not AP, though IB Standard Level) after junior year, and chose to use that slot to take a different class than AP foreign language.</p>

4

<p>I took Spanish 3 freshman year and Spanish 4 sophomore year and then decided I didn’t want to go onto AP. I got in to Duke, though I did have a 790 on the Chinese SAT II. Your schedule looks rigorous enough that I don’t think you’d need to worry about it.</p>

5

<p>You’ll be OK. I only took up to Spanish 3 and that was in 10th grade. Didn’t take anything afterwards.</p>

6

<p>I only took 2 years of Latin, neither of which was an AP, and got in.</p>

7

<p>Thanks for the advice guys… any more opinions welcome.</p>

8

<p>i took IB french and I think it helped tremendously. not quite sure admissions-wise though.</p>