Got it.
The more selective the school, the more of an issue it may be. Much of the competition will have foreign language at least through year 4…and overloading on science or math often doesn’t make up for shortcomings elsewhere.
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Depends on the colleges applied to. Some of the more selective private colleges recommend “4 years” of foreign language*, so having level 3 when a higher level is available to the student** may not be an automatic reject, but will put the student at some disadvantage in admissions.
*“4 years” always includes reaching level 4 or higher; at some colleges, there may be a preference for taking foreign language all 4 years of high school unless the student completes the highest available level earlier in high school.
**The usual reason many private colleges “recommend” instead of “require” high school college prep course work at a higher level is to give themselves flexibility to admit students for whom the “recommended” course work is not available to the student.
I’m not sure this statement is totally true…
But in any event…this student does have Spanish 4 available to him, and he is choosing not to take it. That’s fine…as long as he chooses colleges that don’t have this as a recommendation. Really “recommended” in college talk is “required”….because that’s really what they want to see.
Does this student understand the impact of NOT taking level 4 of foreign language?
I don’t think the App Dev courses are helping him at all at any of the mid- high- places for CS. The Math is significantly more important. If you could drop both the App Dev courses, and replace with one Discrete Math course (and get an A in it), it could go a long way.
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I agree 
App dev courses aren’t considered rigorous. You can take online courses from multiple providers. This is actually the first time I’m seeing a HS provide these courses.
Doing well in math, especially advanced courses, is important for CS admissions.
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As OP is in Virginia, I note that UVa is known for wanting to see Level 4 of a language (per the advice of the alumni association to legacy applicants). In fact, we were apprehensive about D22 stopping at Level 4 after junior year rather than taking an independent study as a senior, as some apparently think that UVa likes 4 years of study during HS. But in the end, D22 was admitted without Level 5, so that last part may be overblown.
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Maybe this is aggressive. I don’t know. But dropping the Calc AB and doing Calc BC directly would also free up some space. If the school allows, and the student is capable… If he dropped the App Dev 1 in Junior year, it will allow more time to study for the Calc BC. I am guessing many of the kids that end up in CMU SCS are on that kind of a path – CMU SCS being the reach school the OP is targeting.
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Thanks so much!
Our HS offer Calc 3 or Multivariate Calc online only. That is the reason my son decided to do AB and then BC to make sure his Math fundamentals in Calc are strong. Also to skip AB you need to do Math Analysis first virtually. He only had Precalc in his Sophomore year. I believe online only option for Calc 3 discouraged him.
By Discrete Math are you referring to Statistics and Probability?
I am going to try again for Spanish 4. I doubt he will agree.
Discrete Math is different than Probability and Statistics. I am just giving an example. It may or may not be offered for you.
Looks like “math analysis” is the hardest or most advanced version of precalculus if it is the only one that allows going directly to calculus BC, but the student chose a less rigorous math path.
For a prospective CS major, the statistics + discrete math course is probably more useful than AP statistics.
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You are absolutely right. Still you can only do BC if you had a grade of A or A+. So it’s not an auto admit.
Sure, how about if he does AP Stats in Junior year and Discrete Math in Senior year?
Seems like AP statistics would be a partial duplication of statistics + discrete math. Since neither will give useful subject credit in college, statistics + discrete math may be better for checking interest in CS.
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