What is of least importance: 4 years of a foreign la
I still need my art credit and I was planning on getting it through summer school to make more room for my now full schedule. The class ended up getting dropped due to the small class size and now I have to take it during the school year and I don’t know what class I should give up for room: Spanish, sports, or AP Human Geography.
I’m trying to get into a UC and I know that they recommend you take 3 years of a foreign language, which I have already, but I’m worried because it seems like most people are taking 4 years. I’m going into my fourth year on the cross country (3 years on varsity) and track team (2 years on varsity) and I don’t know if it would be a good idea to drop my sports either since other than xc and track, I don’t have a very impressive list of extracurriculars. And as for my AP classes, I would rather not drop APHG either because I didn’t take many AP classes in the past (3 APs in 11th grade and 1 in 10th grade) and I want to try to make my senior course load look a bit more rigorous compared to my past course loads.
So far, I’m thinking that I should drop my Spanish class but I’m not entirely sure.
What I’m asking is: what is of least importance when it comes to colleges’ decisions? 4 years of a foreign language, 4 years of a varsity sport, or the number of APs taken?
This is my current senior schedule:
AP Gov & Macroeconomics
AP Human Geography
AP English Lit
AP Statistics*
Spanish 7-8
Physics 1-2*
7 & 8. Cross Country (1st semester), Track & Field (2nd semester)
There are 4 different types of UCs, so you’d need to be more specific. These are the four types of UC schools:
UC Berkeley
This is one of the most prestigious schools in the nation. You’d need to be taking as many APs as possible to get in. When I say as many APs as possible, I don’t mean as many as you’re comfortable with. I mean as many APs abs can possibly fit into your schedule so that it looks great.
UCLA and UCSD
Not as prestigious as Berkeley, but after that tier of schools, you’d have the tier which includes UCLA and UCSD. Your schedule would need to look pretty similar to that of Berkeley to have a fair shot of getting in, but I think if there’s one course you’d rather do Honors than AP, you can probably get away with it.
UCSB, UCI, UCD
Prestigious schools, but these are nothing compared to the three UCs above. You’d need a fairly difficult schedule to be able to get into these schools. You can probably get away with taking 3 APs during senior year and still get in.
UCR, UCM
These two UCs are just like state universities in the sense that they are easy to get into if you have the grades. They don’t require much effort to get into.
That said, with your current schedule, I wouldn’t worry too much.
How many AP classes are offered at your HS? How many AP classes do the top students in your HS take?
4 years of FL is important if you plan to schools like Harvard, Stanford, Yale etc… If you are applying to the UC’s, then 3 years is fine.
APHG is considered a “lite” AP and usually available to Freshman/Sophomores so you might want to drop this and replace with AP Art History, AP Studio Art or AP Music Theory to fulfill your art requirement and still show some good HS rigor.
Other option is to take an Art class at a community college summer session, so you can have your current schedule.
I would definitely not drop your X country sport which shows dedication and consistency.
