Something you need to do right away is figure out your EFC (Fafsa forecaster) to know whether you’re eligible for Pell Grants and the minimum you’ll have to pay.See if you’re eligible for CalGrants.
Colleges each calculate their financial aid differently. Run the Net Price Calculator on UC’s as well as a few universities on the West Coast like Whittier, Whitman, Chapman, Pomona, Scripps (these all calculate differently so you have to do it on each college’s website.) See the net price for each.
Talk with your child about what’s affordable and what’s not. Then build your list with affordable colleges.
Is there any possibility that her HS would enable her to take the Lit AP as an independent study?
Our HS arranged for my S to take the AP French Lit course as an independent study. It required the time and cooperation of the senior French teacher and the G/T coordinator.
I think that what’s most important is for her to continue to develop her skill.
Hey @momtopandp, you seem like a very dedicated parent. My daughter would have had a similar situation had she stayed in public school in high school. A couple of thoughts. 1) where do you live? If she truly loves Spanish and is considering minoring in it, she might want to take a bonafide Summer School class in college after she finished AP Spanish. For instance, CAL (Berkeley) has a very strong summer program. 2) If there are any Spanish enrichment programs, you might want to consider that for her after school or on weekends. Our area had an excellent after school program for Spanish, and it was actually because of that program that might child placed into 3rd year Spanish as a Freshman in HS. If you do have something like that, it can help her with her accent and her fluency. 3) Consider getting her a tutor. Again, if option 1 and 2 are not available, it is about the frequency and practice. NYU (or any other school) could see through her application that she continued to pursue her love of the language. Hope that helps. Best of luck!
@MYOS1634 our family as a whole has already sat down and discussed various college options and finances involved. Fortunately, we do have the financial freedom to let her go to a school of her dreams. Thanks for letting me know about things like EFC, net price calculators etc. I had no idea.
@Consolation we are really hoping that the school will let her pursue Spanish Lit on her own. So far we haven’t had any luck in getting any response from the school. Thanks for your input.
@CallieMom Thanks for coming up with some options for us. We live about an hour away from Cal and it’s logistically not possible for us to take her to Berkeley for a summer course. We have looked at all the possible courses that are offered around us and unfortunately, there is nothing that is offered which goes beyond AP Spanish Lang. Our hope lies with the school now. We are waiting for her counselor to meet with us so we can figure out a plan. So far we haven’t had any luck in getting any response from the school.
@momtopandp,
I REALLY would NOT worry about trying to get additional course credit for Spanish if she does great on the Spanish AP and Spanish [non listening] Subject tests.
NO college is going to penalize her for having completed the toughest Language class available by the end of her Sophomore year. If she wants to pursue Spanish Lit on her own, more power to her. She can take the AP test for that to prove to colleges that she knows the material.
It WOULD be a good idea to do what she can to keep fluent in Spanish the next 2 years [ offering to tutor students in Spanish at her new HS would look VERY good to colleges and also show her passion for Spanish ], but dont stress about something she can’t do anything about.
Thank you @menloparkmom Appreciate your input. We keep mulling over the consequences of her not doing any more foreign language for next two years and not worry about dual enrollment etc especially since her new school people are not helpful at all. It also gives her room to try out new sources like sports medicine, physiology and anatomy etc. Your comment made me feel at ease. We just do not want her to miss out on any opportunity in future just because we didn’t do our due diligence.
Can she get there on her own (e.g. on BART)?
@ucbalumnus honestly we never thought of that as an option. BART is doable from where we live…about an hour ride each way. We will see what the counselor says about the dual enrollment or independent study option. If those don’t pan out, we will look into Cal option. Do you think it’s the right way to approach this issue or should we prioritize Spanish in summer over the other two options? Thanks!
Which she has already met. “Two years of the same language other than English or equivalent to the second level of high school instruction.”
https://www.ucop.edu/agguide/a-g-requirements/
It’s fine.
However, I really think there are 2 separate issues that you need to separate.
1/ Course credit. This is a non-issue. For every single college in the US (including UC a-g) your daughter has met the HS preparation requirements. If the HS has an issue with meeting its own graduation requirements, then that is an issue for the school, and it, not you, needs to figure out the solution, IMO.
2/ Daughter potentially minoring in Spanish and wanting to maintain/improve proficiency. This does not need to be a credit option. So while the credit-bearing suggestions offered are one solution, there are non-credit avenues she can explore.
I agree, she’s met the language requirement for any college in the US and the UC A-G requirement as well. But if she wants to use her Spanish she needs to find a way to keep using it. She’s just at the level where she can really have fun with Spanish. It’s too bad the school is being so unhelpful. Dual enrollment is a great option, but I’d be wary if it requires a lot of commuting time. (I actually can get a lot of homework done on a long train ride, but she might fritter the time away instead. And commuting is surprisingly tiring.) Summer programs are not a bad option. Or some sort of independent study.
Yes, agree with the above. For point 1, completion of an AP Spanish course is seen as level 4 or higher, as well as being the highest level of Spanish commonly offered in US high schools, so there should not be a college admission problem.
For point 2, if no more advanced course is available, other means of continuing to practice Spanish should be readily available, such as those suggested in reply #5.
There is a 3rd issue - who pays for the class. I’m guessing that the district requires the accreditation and UC A-G thing in order for them to pay for the course.
While not in CA, we are looking at something similar for math, which is how I found the CTY courses. We’re at the point where we have approval to my daughter to take the class and it should land on her transcript. Have not clarified who is paying for the class yet.
You mentioned that there weren’t enough sign-ups for the school to offer the class. If there are other kids who wanted to take it, is there any possibility that they could get together and read Spanish Lit and discuss it together, like a book club? Maybe write the occasional essay? Not for credit, but to enhance their skills.
If you are worried about the admissions aspect, finding ways to pursue intellectual interests outside the curriculum is a big plus to many schools. 
How great that your daughter was able to take AP Spanish her sophomore year. Too bad that AP Spanish Lit is not available.It may be because they have no one in your school who can teach such a high level course. My daughter took AP Spanish her Senior year with a lousy teacher. She basically has taught herself almost everything in the course. If your daughter loves languages maybe she can start taking another language her Junior year. My daughter also took Mandarin her senior year. Good luck.
Thank you so much for all of your responses. The counselor finally called us back and has promised to talk to Spanish department head regarding the independent study option.
@Consolation she is moving schools for her junior year and doesn’t know any of the kids in the new school. That is also one of the reasons we are having trouble maneuvering the system.
Independent study sounds like a great option for her. If she is looking for classes to fill her HS schedule she could consider starting a second foreign language offered at her HS. This would enhance her skills at decoding languages by seeing how the languages varies from both Spanish and English.
Definitely not worth any commute time- an hour is a huge chunk of a day. There is so much more she could be doing to enjoy her time as a teen.
Just wanted to update everyone on my daughters Spanish course. As expected, the counselor never responded back on whether she could do independent study AP Spanish lit with Spanish department head. The counselor however did agree to let her take a Spanish course at a local community college. She would have to take that course twice a week in the evenings. We are hoping this would turn out to be a fun and enjoyable experience for her.
I just wanted to thank this community for taking the time to respond to my queries. Being new to the system, it helped us tremendously with figuring out what to do.
Thanks for the update.