which will make me more competitive, taking a regular Spanish 3 class to give me three years of foreign Language or taking AP psychology giving me 6 Ap classes senior year (12 total) but leaving me with only 2 years of foreign language
If it matters, I am a hispanic student interested in HYPS
Definitely Spanish. Selective colleges like to see a foreign language through the 4th year so taking one through the third year is a no brainer. You have plenty of other APs.
Please look at Common Data Sets of your prospective schools and find out what they want. One school my son plans to apply to says three years required but four recommended. It’s not HYPS either. Can’t you take a weighted language class?
@OspreyCV22 I could possibly take Pre-AP Spanish 3 but that could present problems since I despite being hispanic and having taken 2 years of Spanish I am not proficient at all
If you are looking at HYPS you should not be afraid of getting in over your head. I guess it depends on the schools but my son claims AP classes are easier for him because the students are all highly motivated and there’s none of the noise from kids who don’t want to be there. Just study extra if needed.
Highly selective colleges tend to prefer higher levels of foreign language completed. I.e. level 3 looks a lot better than level 2, and level 4 looks even better.
Remember also that many colleges have foreign language graduation requirements, so a higher level completed in high school can help you complete the requirement with fewer courses in college, since it may help you place into a high level college course.
3 years of Spanish will be better.
4 years are expected for all Top 50 universities and LACs.
Pre-Ap Spanish then AP Spanish would be very important.*
Being Hispanic, if your family speaks Spanish, colleges the caliber of HYP would ALSO expect you to be taking another foreign language up to level 2 or 3! You can accelerate via a community college class taken over the summer.
The academic elective APs are: gov, econ, music theory, visual arts, cs, etc. Those complement your core APs and are considered very rigorous.
The AP Lite classes are: Environmental Science, Psychology, Statistics, and Human Geography. AP lite exist for several reasons: introduce younger students to the AP style of learning; complement your list of classes (ie., you’re already taking your 5 core classes as Honors or AP, and you add AP Psychology because it sounds interesting); because you’re a strong student but you have a weaker area (for instance, you couldn’t take AP calculus because precalc was a disaster, but you’re strong otherwise and want to continue taking a 4th year of math, so you take AP Stats.)
For top colleges (Yale, Amherst, UChicago, Pomona, Stanford, Middlebury…) you want 4-8APs total.
Not true that all Top 50 universities and LACs expect 4 years of a foreign language. E.g. University of Chicago. https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/preparing-for-college Also, they are expectations and not requirements. Are you thinking of taking AP Psych because you are interested in psych or just to add another AP? At my daughter’s school (where I think 10 kids are going to Harvard and similar numbers to Yale and Princeton this year) they can only take 3 APs per year so most kids have no more than 6 APs and yet, they all seem to do very well in college admissions.
^unfortunately, yes, they do expect it. They don’t require it because some high schools are poor and don’t offer all 4 years, but if your HS offers 4 years and you don’t take them, it’s not well-considered. Can you get in with only 3 years? Yes, if you make up the defiency with something else.
4-8 APs are what top colleges hope for, mostly in the “core” APs + electives.
Take all 4 years of language, and then take Psychology, online/self study/ take it a community college.
Just for fun, here are some random college website pages. No “requirements.” They all have recommendations. But they all talk about taking the most rigorous classes your high school offers :
Princeton http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/preparation/ (4 years math, 4 years English, 4 years, 4 years of one foreign language, at least 2 years of science and at least 2 years of History)
Stanford http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/prepare.html ( recommend 4 years English, 4 years math, 3 or more years History, Science, one Foreign Language)
Duke http://admissions.duke.edu/application/overview (recommend 4 years of English and at least 3 in everything else)
University of Chicago https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/preparing-for-college (recommend 4 years of English, 3-4 of math, 3-4 of science, 3 or more history/social science, some foreign language)
Columbia http://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/ask/faq/topic/397 (recommends 4 years English, 3 to 4 years everything else)
But wouldn’t that be only if the student is an actual native or heritage speaker? That would be observed if the student took (for example) Spanish 4 or a heritage speaker Spanish course, rather than starting in Spanish 1, or just did well in the SAT subject or AP test for Spanish without any school course work. That does not seem to be the case for the OP who took Spanish 1 and 2.
Also, if you can, take honors Spanish 3.
@ucbalumnus: correct, that’s why I said “if your family speaks Spanish”. If the family only has Spanish heritage, then the language is learned in class (even if in a favorable environment, with some listening/speaking eased.) There’s also some allowance if the family doesn’t have a college education.
It should be “if your family speaks Spanish with you”, since some immigrant parents speak a non-English language with other relatives and possibly with each other, but mostly English to their kids, who grow up with only limited knowledge of their parents’ language (not enough to start higher than level 1 of high school language).
However, some heritage speakers do have good speaking and listening ability, but limited or no reading and writing ability, so their level may be a mismatch for high school or college course work designed for complete beginners (some high schools or colleges do have courses for heritage speakers).
So the end goal is to get to AP? From my understanding of this thread will I be discounted because I took french 1, french 2 and then ap french (3yrs) rather than 4?
No, because in foreign language (and in math) what matters is level of proficiency reached . Whether you needed 3 years to get to AP or 5 won’t matter.
AP French is considered to be Level 5.