<p>I am looking to apply to UPenn, Rice, Vanderbilt, Washington University in St. Louis, and some other schools this upcoming year. I plan on majoring in Economics. My current schedule for next year doesn't include a fourth year of foreign language. My college counselor told me that I will be at a disadvantage if I don't take another year. I thought that with my Senior schedule it would make up for not having a language: AP Stat, AP Econ, AP Bio, AP BC Calc, and two semester English courses. I have taken Latin all three years of high school so far. I don't want to take Latin again, so I would most likely pick up a new first year language. </p>
<p>What do you recommend that I do for my language situation?</p>
<p>(Btw I wouldn't change any of my AP courses if I pick up a language)</p>
<p>Doing four years of a language is valuable. Doing one year of a new language in 12th grade probably isn’t.</p>
<p>Colleges say they want four years of a foreign language, and they mean it, but they admit tons of kids who don’t have that. It’s not a very strong preference.</p>
<p>The point of the four year suggestion, though, is to get to the point where you are really competent in a language. One year of a language at the high school level is practically useless – you don’t know anything at the end of it, and you can’t even start at level 2 in college. In the normal screwed-up US approach to teaching languages in high school, you hardly get to do anything interesting until the fourth year (although Latin is often interesting before that). So stopping before the fourth year in high school usually means that you haven’t gone deeply enough into the language to get any real benefit from having studied it.</p>
<p>I got into Wharton with 3 years of Spanish, but that being said, I’m not looking forward to taking Spanish again. At Penn you’re required to show a 2nd language proficiency, which means a 4-5 on the AP, 650+ on SAT subject test (Latin might be different #'s), or 4 semesters of Penn classes. And you take an entrance exam to figure out what level of the Penn classes you start in. I’m sure you’re busy with lots right now, but you may want to consider taking the Latin SAT subject test. It may test you out of your language requirement or at least put you in a higher level. Check Penn’s policy on Latin first though. good luck!</p>
<p>I would recommend taking a 4th year because then you can test out of taking language courses in college/ at Penn. I made the mistake of dropping my language last year and wish I had stuck with it just to test out of it. I don’t think it would hurt you to not take it, (I doubt it’s going to hurt me) but unless you really hate Latin, I recommend sticking with it because there is no reason colleges should even have to question why you dropped it. It doesn’t look great to start a new language and would probably be better to take another AP rather than the first level of a new language of you really want to drop it.</p>
<p>Taking the same language for a fourth year shows you’re challenging yourself, especially if it’s an AP course. However, you can demonstrate this in other ways, such as self-studying and taking the AP test without the course (my son did this before acceptance at MIT). I believe you can place out of the language requirement at Penn with an SAT subject score of 700+ (my daughter did so).</p>
<p>I would try to avoid giving an admissions officer any ammunition to decrease your chances for admission; three years of a language is one way of splitting hairs. On the other hand, I wouldn’t take the fourth year if there is another class you truly want to take more.</p>
<p>Since you’d rather pick a new language too and you already have a LOT of A.P’s on your plate, I strongly suggest you don’t take A.P. Latin. I took 5 A.P.s this year and wanted to kill myself. It really wouldn’t effect college decisions, I believe, so long as you pursue your interests and:</p>
<p>As TOStudentTutor and neuron39 said, now quoted from the Penn website:</p>
<p>• By receiving an appropriate score, normally 650 or better, on one of the approved SAT II foreign language test</p>
<p>you can get out of the language requirement~</p>