<p>I am an incoming sophomore at a public high school in California. Although I am still young, and I know my concerns for college are a bit premature, I am very interested in Brown. My GPA from freshman year was 4.5, and I am scheduled to enroll in two AP classes next year, as well as honors classes. On of those AP classes is AP Spanish. I was wondering if anyone could tell me how important taking four years of a language is to Brown, and other schools of similar caliber.</p>
<p>To quote the admissions website for Brown: “Ideally, Brown undergraduates will have studied at least one foreign language for four years (or the equivalent) in high school.” If you’ve run out of courses in your department, that couldn’t be held against you, since you are limited by your school. With that said, I would guess that starting a new language or finding a way to continue Spanish would not hurt you and might help. AP Spanish probably counts as “the equivalent” of 4 years.</p>
<p>Most other schools say the same thing.</p>
<p>In general, studying languages is good, not just for college admissions but because it’s important to be able to communicate in more than one language.</p>
<p>when you get to the AP level, it sure is nice if you love what you’re taking because the classes are alot of work–and it’s more work if you’re not that into the subject.</p>
<p>My son liked Spanish fine, but knew that the AP level at his HS was alot of vocab/memorization. So he stopped Spanish after 10th grade and did his APs in classes he was more interested in (math/physics/history). </p>
<p>Anyway, only 3 years of language (8th-10th) did not seem to hurt his chances–he got into Brown and several other very good schools.</p>