<p>Just got off the phone with the GC of my D, rising sophomore. She took Italian I freshman year, and had planned to take Italian II sophomore year, but there is a schedule conflict.</p>
<p>First option is to drop Honors Chem and take regular Chem instead, and then Italian II would fit. She is in regular math (Alg II next year), and honors everything else. </p>
<p>Second option is to switch to a different language, Spanish I or French I. She had Spanish in elementary school and hated it. French would be OK. She sent me a text message horrified at the concept of being in a class with freshmen next year. (Not sure why that would be such a big deal - she has tons of friends through her ECs who are 1-2 years younger.)</p>
<p>Third option is to take a practical art this year instead of a foreign language, and hope to be able to take Italian II as a junior. Italian is less popular than French and Spanish, so there is no guarantee that she won't have scheduling conflicts next year as well. </p>
<p>Without scheduling conflicts, she probably would have taken 3 years of Italian. It's early to know, but I'm guessing she will aspire to a Top 25 - Top 75 level of school, either a University or a LAC.</p>
<p>Lots of colleges and some on-line high schools offer foreign language classes on-line that qualify for HS credit if you follow the rules. I had the issue with German and it was fairly easy to find a couple of colleges that offered German III (which is what my D’s conflict was with) but it was literally impossible to find one that offered pre-AP German III (which is what my D needed.) My D and one other boy were permitted to take pre-AP German III in the classroom with the German II kids.</p>
<p>Whatever you decide, if it matters on her college track, ask your GC to explain this in her letter that goes with college apps.</p>
<p>My D wasn’t able to take the honors govt and econ classes she was supposed to take this year (senior year) due to schedule conflict. So she took the on-level class for both half-year courses. When we were making this decision, GC said she would explain to colleges - because D is in all honors and a couple of APs this year - didn’t want it to look like she was looking for the easy way out (with no interest/aptitude in govt/econ, the AP in those classes would have been ridiculous for her).</p>
<p>Why not take Italian II at CC over the summer? Would Italian III fit into her soph schedule?</p>
<p>My D wouldn’t have dreamed that AP Chem was in her future, but she worked hard in Chem Honors soph year, got A’s, and her teacher suggested she take AP Chem Junior year. Which she did and got A-s. </p>
<p>She doesn’t intend to go into science, but it looks great on the “rigorous course list,” boosts the GPA because it’s a weighted AP, and may satisfy a college lab-science requirement, depending on where she goes (and depending on her AP test scorewhich we’ll find out in a few weeks. She’s pretty sure it’s a 4 or 5).</p>
<p>If she can’t take Italian II at a CC over summer, I like the idea of trying to take French I that way and then jumping into French II next fall</p>
<p>You’re definitely right about the possibility of schedule condflicts in subsequent years; this happened to ds every year w/his language, which was only offered for one section once you reached level III. I like the community college idea. Would show the extra mile she was willing to go in order to take the honors chem class.</p>
<p>Agree with the idea of whatever you decide have GC note it in LOR.</p>
<p>My child was in this situation - Latin created difficulties every year! He took regular math instead of honors and then jumped back into honors the following year. The GC said she could make a note of it when it came time to write college recommendations. I can’t remember whether we reminded her to. In hindsight there are real advantages to taking the popular languages in high school instead of ones that run only one or two sections. Taking a language in the summer is a great idea if you can find them. We had quite a hunt looking for an Arabic class that hadn’t already started. I think sitting out Italian for a year is a really bad idea. She won’t remember a thing when she tries to go back.</p>
<p>That’s the truth. My D who is on drill team (it’s two of her 8 classes) and takes German had to give up choir. My younger D started Spanish in 8th grade and has threatened to switch to Spanish. I told her that if she wants to stay in cheer and choir, she will stay in Spanish.</p>
<p>Daughter was in this exact situation soph year; she switched languages and therefore, was required to take three years of the same language through senior year (her friends stopped after junior year; common thing)…</p>
<p>If she was planning on taking four years of language anyway, a switch is not a biggie…if she only planned on taking Italian until junior year though (to open up schedule for other courses), you may want to go the route of the Italian II over the summer if III opens up the schedule…</p>
<p>re: being in class with freshman; my daughter actually enjoyed it; met new people…etc…really didn’t bother her but each kid is different…</p>
<p>Even though I just complained about the conflicts, I will say that it worked out positively junior year for ds. That year, the conflict forced him to make a choice about his math vs. electives. He’d been on the fence about AB Cal and BC Cal. When the school called over the summer about the conflict with AB Cal, Latin and an elective, we took that as a sign that he should be in BC Cal (Latin was a non-negotiable). That turned out great; made a 5 on the exam, and the teacher became a favorite.</p>
<p>Our high school has been slowly whittling down the French courses offered along with Latin- forget German, Italian, Chinese or Japanese. Never been offered/available. We resolved some of the issues by having D do courses out of the traditional sequence- she took AP Gov’t junior year and APUSH her senior year. We’re fortunate that VA offered a Virtual high school program in AP French so she could finish her sequence. </p>
<p>If it were my D and she was enjoying the Italian and wanted to continue with it, I would not switch to another language. I’d go back to guidance and ask about possible alternative scheduling to accomodate the Italian. Or look into alternative instruction and just bypass foreign language instruction at the high school period.</p>
<p>Perhaps doing Italian on the side with a private tutor could work. Either to keep up the Italian skills while “sitting out” the year, while working on conversation and pronunciation, or just progressing at your own pace.</p>
<p>There was a rumor going around the 8th grade Spanish classes that the students should switch languages, because by the time the class of '14 hits college, Texas will be Hispanic majority, Spanish will not be considered a foreign language and thus, colleges won’t give credit for it. (I haven’t quite figured out the political agenda of the teacher who spread that rumor…or maybe it was the high school German and French departments that started it.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions so far. Doing something in the summer is an interesting idea, which hadn’t occurred to me. If she took a summer class, I would try for Italian II, rather than French I. I quickly looked to see if the local CC offered Italian II in the summer, but unfortunately it is no. (There were ZERO Italian classes offered during the summer.) Schedule-wise, a normal class schedule would be hard to fit in this summer, because of things we’ve already planned. But a flexible, online class should be workable, perhaps supplemented by a local private tutor.</p>
<p>Can anyone point me to any reputable distance learning programs for foreign language? I’m not worried about high school credit - only one year of foreign language is required for graduation. Foreign language classes are unweighted, so could actually bring down her GPA if she did get HS credit for a class. The goal for taking Italian in the summer would be to satisfy colleges that she had taken 2 years of the same foreign language. </p>
<p>An alternative option, although it wouldn’t be possible this summer, but it may be possible the following summer, is to do an immersion class somewhere, or a class on a college campus. But, that would unfortunately mean a one-year gap in Italian. Are there any immersion programs suitable for high school students?</p>
<p>My daughter had a schedule conflict sophomore year and it was between an engineering class she was passionate about and Spanish III. We thought about just having her start another language so she’d have 2 years of 2 languages but in the end she dropped Spanish III, took that year off from a language and took Spanish III in her junior year and had no problem picking up where she left off (got an A). While she has not continued with languages (and she got into great schools with only 3 years of language contrary to many many warnings we got ) she felt comfortable with languages and knew the gap would be fine. Her GC was very concerned but realized all would be well when she understood the type of student my D is. Good luck whichever you choose but if she takes a gap I think she’d be fine. Go with which class she loves more - having passion for it makes schedule quirks easier to work harder for!</p>
<p>I took honors and AP level German for four years, which was a bit of a pain but colleges love to see that kind of thing. If I was in this situation, I’d try to get the best of both worlds by keeping Honors Chem on my schedule and taking Italian II at a CC (you said they didn’t offer it during the summer, so this is out on a limb) DURING the school year. I have friends who did this with math classes to free up their schedule during the day in high school and it worked great. Colleges would see that she was serious about both her schedule rigor and Italian, and she could jump into Italian III as a junior without a big year-long gap. Just a thought.</p>
<p>^ Taking a CC class during the school year is not something that I would even consider. D is very busy with two very time-consuming ECs that would make it impossible.</p>
) she felt comfortable with languages and knew the gap would be fine. Her GC was very concerned but realized all would be well when she understood the type of student my D is. Good luck whichever you choose but if she takes a gap I think she’d be fine. Go with which class she loves more - having passion for it makes schedule quirks easier to work harder for!</p>