I am freshman in high school at private school and I am currently taking French 2 honors and enjoy learning languages. I find that French is not very challenging, and I have heard that it is not much more challenging in French 3 honors. I plan on continuing on in French in the Honors and eventually AP program, but I am considering also taking Spanish 1 next year. I took a very low level of spanish from Kindergarden to 6th grade, so i am already familiar with the language, and I learn languages very quickly. I’m wondering if the extra workload is actually worth it and if taking two foreign languages is impressive to colleges. If anyone has any experience or insight, I would love to hear it!
It depends on what you want to major in, and where you want to apply. But if you are passionate about language, then by all means, become a polyglot.
Several of my son’s friends in HS were polyglots, and they are attending some terrific schools. One received a pretty impressive scholarship that he attributed to his near-fluency in multiple languages.
If you had Spanish in K-6th grade, then you may want to check with your school’s Spanish teachers about whether you can start in a higher level course than Spanish 1.
Note that when you get to college, foreign language courses will be more intense. A semester of college foreign language may be equivalent to a year or even two years of high school foreign language.
It depends on how you define “worth”. If you value learning 2 languages then take 2.
Are you allowed to take more than one foreign language in high school during the year? Since you’re already going to carry French out to the AP Level, studying Spanish is a choice. If you want to do it and you think you can handle it, then do it!
It is worth it if it is something you enjoy. But you also need to consider if you’d need to give up another valuable class to fit the Spanish in.
French and Spanish are related languages so it isn’t as impressive as if you were to take, say, German.
But even using the word “impressive” gets things on the wrong track. If you have an interest in learning Spanish for whatever reason, then do it. But if you’re angling to see “what looks good to adcoms” then you’re making the decision for the wrong reason. In general selective schools want to see that applicants have taken a challenging set of classes, but don’t prefer one group of challenging classes over another.
Lastly I do have to admit to a bit of surprise that you’re coming for advice here. You write “I am freshman in high school at private school”. Part of the reason your parents pay money to send you to a private school instead of the local public is so that you can have access to better counseling (unless, I suppose, you live in a part of the country where kids are sent to privates to avoid integrated schools). Why not talk about this with your GC?
Wow, that was a pretty negative thing to say about private schools. How about religious schools or public schools that aren’t doing a good job as valid reasons, rather than ‘to avoid integrated schools?’
Romance languages are going to have a lot in common, so take Spanish, if it interests you, and probably at the 2nd year level because of the vocabulary similarities, your prior exposure and your stated facilities with languages. The general advice regarding course work is to take the hardest subjects your school has to offer and then your counselor can check that ‘most difficult work load’, or some words to that effect, box on the common application. I agree that trying to take classes that look good to adcoms is probably not a good enough reason to take Spanish, especially because: 1) who knows what is impressive to adcoms? 2) the unknown impressive course load changes from year to year. Take Spanish if you want to and it doesn’t cut off other interesting (to you) academic avenues due to scheduling conflicts.
Studying languages is always “worth it” within a big picture, but you might have to sacrifice other course-work to do so. If your school has an IB diploma option, it would be difficult. I believe that mastering foreign languages is one of the best cognitive training exercises available, especially if you are not inclined toward Math and Science. Base your decision on what interests and excites you, not what you think might appeal to admissions committees.
No more so than not following the IB Diploma; one could do a second foreign language (group 2) in lieu of arts (group 6). The challenge as mentioned above becomes scheduling issues.
To the OP: as mentioned upthread, if you enjoy it, do it. Do not do anything to try to impress an admissions officer who is not easily impressed to begin with.
I don’t think it is that useful to take two languages in the same language family…Colleges want to see you take multiple years of one foreign language…if you are really interested in languages can you take one in another language family? Otherwise why not learn a different topic?
OP stated that she will continue French through AP, so she’s covered every single US college’s recommended foreign language preparation for admission. Assuming there are no scheduling conflict which would preclude taking a core course in another area, there is no reason, then, why her 2nd foreign language cannot also be a Romance Language.
Romance languages are quite different from another, especially in nuance (idioms, syntax, pronunciation, etc.) Taking another is perfectly respectable.
Romance languages are similar, but different from one another (a French speaker doesn’t understand a Spanish speaker, for instance - they may recognize some words, but the conjugation, sentence structure, etc, is very different).
If you enjoy languages, go ahead and do it. In fact, if you enjoy languages, you might want to accelerate yourself a little by going to a Concordia Village language camp - it’s fun and you will cover Spanish 1 or 2 at the camp, skipping straight into Spanish 2 or 3 at your school. You can also do it for French, BTW, and then if you accelerate to AP, you could take French in a college setting. But this would have to be because you find languages “fun”.
No college expects more than Level4 or AP in one foreign language, anything else is a differentiation point in your favor (ie., two languages at a high level, one language to a college Lit/civ level, etc.)