I’m currently in the process of senior course selection at my school and after three years of Honors Spanish, my teacher said no to letting me move into AP since I haven’t done Honors Spanish 4, which is a class nearly entirely of juniors. However, I saw on Harvard’s website that they recommended 4 years of a single foreign language, but I really wanted to take some more social studies electives instead of taking Honors Spanish 4 since that’s what I’m interested in.
As much as I don’t want to give up classes I think I’ll really enjoy, I also don’t want this choice to jeopardize my chances of admission. So how much does a 4th year actually matter & would Harvard prefer I take classes I care more about?
This is the schedule I wanted to take. If I choose to take a 4th year of language (or even double up on science) I’ll have to cut the Civil Rights class and AP Human Geography:
AP Lang
AP Gov
AP Macro Economics
Intl. Relations
AP Human Geography
AP Comp. Politics
Civil Rights, Great Society, Vietnam (or I'll take AP Psych if not enough people sign up)
Harvard rejects 95% of their applicants, the vast majority of whom will have Harvard’s recommended high school preparation. So yes, you will be at a disadvantage. Also note, that Harvard has a foreign language requirement for graduation, so the better prepared you are in high school, the fewer courses you will need to take in college.
You already have 7 AP’s (as an aside, more is not always better), and you’re upset because the teacher won’t admit you to AP Spanish since you don’t meet the prereq? Take Spanish 4 over the summer if taking a class with juniors is so abhorrent.
Some group at Harvard spent some time deciding what would be the best HS preparation for a student applying to Harvard. Quite frankly, they do not care if you think differently.
Well, I took a language as a summer-study class with a tutor. It worked wonderfully, and counts as a language course on my transcript. It is listed as pass-fail, so I had my counselor explain in her recommendation that I got an A in a summer-study class - this keeps it from looking like I was having problems with my grades.
This might be a good way to free up some space in your schedule. My tutor and I only met once a week to complete a Spanish 3 accelerated course over the summer.
@skieurope I’m definitely aware of how hard it is to get into Harvard and that I’d need to take a language when I’m there (and I’d really prefer to take a language other than Spanish when I get there). I guess my question is, how much of a disadvantage am I actually at and how much weight will they put on it? If it’s just a very small one, I don’t think it’s really worth it to take a class I know I won’t enjoy just for a marginally better chance at a school which most likely won’t accept me anyway.
EDIT: As a response to your other edit, no, I’m not upset that I can’t get into AP Spanish and I fully understand my teacher’s decision. So I wanted to see if it would actually make a serious difference admissions-wise for me to take classes that genuinely interested me (such as the APs I’ve chosen—I’m not going for more just for the sake of more, I actually find them interesting) instead of being stuck in a class of the same students from my Spanish class this year that are not pleasant to be around. I really don’t need the attitude you’ve given where you try to paint me as a whiny student who just wants to take any class with an “AP” on it—I just wanted to know if it’ll actually matter whether I take a 4th year of language and didn’t need your judgments.
@BrownHopeful27 Unfortunately, there are no language opportunities outside of the school year recognized by y school and I’m actually already taking the max amount of summer classes (to get rid of my school’s required theology credit) so that I can take these elective classes.
This is really a question for your guidance counselor. When you apply to college, your GC must fill out the Secondary School Report (SSR) on your behalf and rate the rigor of your class schedule against all other college bound students at your high school. See top right hand section of page 2 on the SSR: http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/documents/UG_Admissions_SecondarySchoolReport.pdf
All selective colleges, including Harvard, expect applicants to take the MOST DEMANDING schedule available to them at your high school. So long as you get a “Most Demanding” rating from your GC, you will be a competitive applicant. Anything less than “Most Demanding”, makes you a less competitive applicant.
A fourth year of language is definitely a good idea. On the other hand, I did not take a 4th year because my teacher wasn’t very helpful, and I felt like I was wasting time in the class. I wasn’t getting any better at French, and there were other classes that I wanted to take instead. Of course I didn’t tell Harvard any of this, but I think if you’re taking other rigorous courses in the place of the 4th year of language, you should be fine.
The way I look at it is that 4 years foreign language is core coursework, like english or math. So you take that and then you add your electives as room allows. I just don’t think you have a compelling reason not to take it. But if you can make a case then do it. You wouldn’t say you want to take an elective rather than a math because you enjoy it better. And the idea is to aim for fluency, so if you can attain and show that some other way that could be considered an equivalency.
Regional Admissions Officers are EXPERTS on the high schools they cover – that’s their job – so they will know because: (1) they’ve admitted other students from your high school and know that other students have taken 4 years of a language and some students have taken the AP Language Class and test, and (2) As @skieurope said, graduation requirements, AP courses offered, honors courses, average SAT/ACT scores, GPA distribution, etc are all part of your high school’s profile that your GC sends to colleges along with your transcript. If you haven’t seen your HS profile, ask your GC for a copy. Many HS Profiles are on line, like this one from Boston Latin High School: http://www.bls.org/ourpages/auto/2013/5/24/55204166/2014-15%20BLS%20Profile.pdf
I am a big fan of foreign language study. It has really enriched my life. I love that Harvard recommends four years of foreign language study in high school, and if it were up to me (which it decidedly isn’t) they would enforce the recommendation pretty strictly. Everything skieurope said would be true. Anyone who took AP Micro or Macro, or [shudder] AP Human Geography, without taking a fourth year of language would be disqualified for admission.
Except . . . after years of observation in real life and on CC, my only conclusion is Harvard doesn’t enforce the recommendation much, if at all. I suppose if you had all the data and did a regression it might show that there was some slight advantage to following the recommendation, but lots and lots and lots of exceptions get made every year. I believe that in the end – and honestly this is appropriate – Harvard wants its applicants to have a broad, challenging curriculum that stimulates and inspires them. It’s possible to do that without a fourth year of foreign language.
Also: What the heck is going on in high school foreign language departments? AP Spanish Language is, at most, the equivalent of a second year of college Spanish. How little could they possibly be teaching in Spanish I-IV as to make four years of Spanish a prerequisite to take AP Spanish? There’s really no excuse for that. No wonder Harvard doesn’t enforce its recommendation strictly, and no wonder educationally ambitious high school students don’t respect it…
At my sons’ high school, Spanish 4 is a less-rigorous alternative to AP Spanish, so it isn’t a matter of the student taking Spanish 1 - 4 and then taking AP Spanish. As well, there is an entire non-honors track for Spanish at their high school. To graduate, students must complete a three-year foreign language requirement. Spanish appears to be the language of choice for those who show weakness with foreign languages. Other languages offered have course sequences of Honors 1 - 3 + AP, with no non-AP fourth year offered, and no non-honors track. These include Latin, German, and French, as well as years 1 - 3 for Mandarin and Greek.
