<p>Hey, I'm about to enter AP Chinese V (as a Chinese person). To be honest though I hate the subject and even though I'm Chinese I struggle in the class and usually just end up cheating because we have a terribly unreasonable teacher. I can already speak somewhat fluently so missing the content of the actual class is not my concern.</p>
<p>However, will dropping it and taking another AP (Psych is what I had in mind) make me look bad on college applications? I actually have interest in the subject unlike Chinese but if it's essential, I suppose I could continue.</p>
<p>If I plan on aiming for high 20s to low 40s, do you think it will be a big deal? </p>
<p>My mom thinks so, so I’m not really sure what to think. I know a lot of people who dropped out of their language but they did it Junior or Sophomore year instead.</p>
<p>If you’re miserable in Chinese, don’t stay in it! Take something you enjoy more :). Anyways, you already got really far in Chinese if you are going to take Chinese V</p>
<p>What pandamic said would be preferable, but if you want to be competitive for top colleges, its not going to cut it. I was in the same situation as you (except with Spanish) and I asked my counselor for her opinion. She said this: If you want to go to a school better than <em>insert my state flagship which isn’t that great here</em>, then take a 4th year of language.</p>
<p>I don’t think you have to take a language. Chinese itself is very hard, so you are already better off being at a very high level. At my school, some people quit taking a language after their 3rd year. At our school, we only have to take a language for 3 years (this includes languages taken in 8th grade that were for credit), so after kids pass the big exam, they take different electives junior and senior year.</p>
<p>Honestly, if you think you’re going to be miserable, I wouldn’t take it.</p>
<p>Of course some colleges want you to take a fourth year, but this is a time where you have to ask yourself a really crucial question: Do I do things for the sake of getting into college, or do I take a schedule with classes I really want to take that are still rigorous, but vary?</p>
<p>If I could have gotten out of taking Spanish 4 this year, I totally would have. Unfortunately, my school does not let us drop languages and go to beginner ones (I wanted to take Italian 1, which is a freshman course. They told me I couldn’t because I was almost done with Spanish and it would be pointless. I don’t think so. It would have given me the opportunity to take another language and see if I enjoy it more than Spanish, which could really save me money in the end when I go to college rather than wasting credits trying to figure out what I like). They also told me that since I’m in the Spanish National Honor Society that I’m not allowed to switch. Boo.</p>
<p>Back to you: You’re replacing AP Chinese with AP Psych. It’s still a rigorous class. I think that colleges are going to see that you’re Chinese (if you choose to put it down) and see that you’ve taken Chinese, and if you write that it’s one of the languages you speak on the Common App, I don’t think that they’re going to penalize you for it, to be perfectly honest. Who knows, I’m not an admissions officer by any means. But I don’t think it’s that big of a deal if you drop AP Chinese.</p>
<p>Just think about it: It’s YOUR happiness (and sanity for that matter) at stake here.</p>