<p>My senior is taking 5 AP's this year along with arts electives, but had to drop foreign language to fit a different AP that interests her more into her schedule. She took AP language as a junior, but the school also offers AP lit. Her current schedule is really perfect for her and reflects her long-term interests, but after all those college info sessions with the emphasis on 4 years of foreign language, I'm a little bit nervous. Have other parents had experience with their students dropping one of the five standard solids in order to take a challenging course in a different area? Is this a problem even when there is a clear academic rationale for the decision?</p>
<p>How many years of the FL has she had thus far?</p>
<p>I don't think you have a problem. If she's made it to AP as a junior, and wants to take something else challenging, she should go for it.</p>
<p>ohio_mom - She started in 7th grade as an absolute beginner. Her elementary school didn't offer languages. She's taken it continuously until this year.</p>
<p>dmd77 - She has decided to go for it, and I think it is best for her academically. The question is, can something be best for the student academically but bad for them in terms of getting into college?</p>
<p>Most of the seniors I knew personally last year had only 3 years of a foreign language. This fall they are attending schools like Stanford, Princeton, MIT, Wellesley, UChicago, Penn, BU, and all of the UCs, among others. If she's done well through third-year foreign language (and AP to boot!), and her other courses are good for her academically and of interest to her, I wouldn't worry about it. Most of the info sessions I attended emphasized through three years, "... and four would be nice," but I didn't see the lack of a fourth year hindering the chances of the students I know.</p>
<p>AP is considered year 5 at most schools, so if she took it through AP she should be fine. Foreign languages are not the strong point of our public high school, and the fifth year (taken in grade 12 by students who started in grade 8) is not considered an AP course.</p>
<p>We have 2 AP classes - Level IV, which is regular AP, then Level V, which is AP Lit - it is very hard to get anyone to take Level V for the reasons that are being considered here - not enough time to do it all. AP is considered year IV, so you are fine. My D did not take Level V, and even had late arrival, and she got into some terrific schools. Don't worry.</p>
<p>CCsurfer, My son decided not to take any math or science senior year because he wanted to take both art and creative writing. Like you, I had read all the admissions requirements and recommendations and was quite worried about how his schedule would affect his chances, but in the end it worked out fine and he was admitted to a highly selective LAC because, I think, they valued his artistic and creative contributions. Crafting his application to make this apparent was a significant factor.</p>
<p>Language was a separate but related issue. My son was (and is) language adverse. He took two years of an obscure language, in which he is fluent, and two years of Spanish, which he loathed. Again, I was concerned about the 4-year recommendation. We asked the admissions director at an Ivy about this rule and he said that it didnt much come up as most of their applicants already had at least 4 years under their belts and that these kids would be the competition.</p>
<p>The other consideration that came into play was the potential for placing out of language classes once matriculated. Some colleges have fairly rigorous language proficiency requirements and the idea of taking a college level language course was worrisome because of the time and effort it would require. He therefore tended toward schools without language course requirements or with totally open curriculums.</p>
<p>Your daughter sounds like her reason for dropping her language is not a problem with language per se but too many interests and not enough time. I believe her creative accomplishments will trump whatever another year of language could offer in the way of an admissions boost, but I'd take a look at the individual colleges' placement requirements so that she doesn't run into the same situation as a freshman.</p>
<p>I think your daughter has made the right choice in her schedule. No one can guarantee, of choice, that an adcom at some incredibly selective college wouldn't, on a particular day, be looking for that level of competence in a language. But you can live like that. If your D's 'stats' are in the ballpark, her app will be taken seriously. Its quality, and that of the essays will be important. And a little luck doesn't hurt!</p>
<p>I suspect that 3 years of a language may have been one of the factors of my son's WL at Bowdoin. Not like I'll ever know, though.</p>
<p>Surfer:</p>
<p>Your daughter should follow her interests and passions and let that shine through on her apps. Don't worry about performing for the admissions office, she should perform for herself. If a school is going to turn her down because she took a class (AP no less) that is more interesting to her rather than a 6th year of language (7-12) then do you really want her there? </p>
<p>My 1st D tried to do everything "right" and focused on crafting the perfect little application, my second D did things she loved- still high grades & high achievement, but she had a lot more fun than her older sister. She also had better admissions results :)</p>
<p>If you make your application look just right with every perfect class, you look just like every one else. Encourage her to pursue her interest, who knows where it will take her. My 2nd D discovered a passion in spring of 11th grade and it was surely the tip in getting her into 6/7 highly ranked schools. Her newly discovered passion also reshaped out entire list of schools to which she applied, she would not be where she is now if she had not discovered her new hobby.</p>
<p>If she follows her heart and does not get into the dream school, at least she followed her heart and enriched herself. If she does another year of FL to impress an adcom and then doesn't get in, how will that feel?</p>
<p>CC,
We confronted this same issue. My S finished with AP French Language by 10th grade. (He had been skipped a year in French.) AP French Lit was offered but he had no interest whatsoever in taking that. So, he did not take foreign language for the final two years of high school. Instead, he took equally challenging AP courses. I directly asked a number of Admissions officers from "elite" universities and colleges (Yale, Princeton, Amherst, etc.) how problematic not having foreign language for the last two year of high school would be in the application process. Almost without exception (the Princeton adcom hemmed and hawed) they all said that if he was taking an equally challenging course, it would not be an issue.</p>
<p>We also confronted it, but with less strength to support the choice. S only went thru Latin 3 ( we don't have AP lang, or any lang till 9th grade). He dropped it after junior yr because of a truly horrible teacher. He picked some academic electives to take up the slack, but I really fretted about this choice. He's at his first choice school (Columbia) now.</p>
<p>However, his penance is deciding to start over with a new language for their requiremnt, which will take him two years to finish.</p>
<p>"However, his penance is deciding to start over with a new language for their requiremnt, which will take him two years to finish."</p>
<p>Your son is not the only one doing penance. Mine will be continuing Spanish after a two-year hiatus - UChicago also want competence in a language.</p>
<p>Our Senior Daughter is actually only taking Lit, Environmental Science, AP Human Geography at high school. No Math or 5th year of French.</p>
<p>She's doing mornings at the local Community College and taking Communications/Sociology this fall and Psych/undecided classes this spring. </p>
<p>The state of MN has a program where you can attend college for free as a high school student so we're taking advantage of that.</p>
<p>I think the key is that since she already had finished math thru Pre-Calc and French 4 we should be okay on the college admissions side. </p>
<p>She should have 20-25 college credits already when she enters next year between her community college classes and AP credits.</p>
<p>Having just completed touring a dozen colleges/universities, most of them highly selective, I have similar concerns about my junior daughter's course selection for her senior year - but not regarding foreign language. </p>
<p>The admissions reps did not seem to think three versus four years of foreign language was that important, so I think your daughter is fine, CCSurfer, especially since she already has completed an AP foreign language course and is taking other challenging courses.</p>
<p>However, two out of three admissions reps at three highly selective liberal arts colleges/universities we toured said that in order to stand out in the applicant pool, the student should take 4 years of math and/or 4 years of science, even if the student is primarily interested in humanities and would prefer taking challenging AP humanities courses instead, and even if the student has already completed AP BC Calculus and three years of lab science by the end of junior year. Not what we wanted to hear! I wonder how true this is. Unfortunately, we weren't able to ask this question at all the places we visited.</p>
<p>Very happy to hear that students who followed their interests and passion were in general not penalized when it came to college admission. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile the "follow your passion" advice, which seems to me really to benefit students, with the other strong message that students must take advantage of the most challenging courses in their schools. Somehow even AP courses that are artsier, or wonderful specialty courses that are not offered AP, such as Shakespeare, seem to be looked askance at with the sometimes explicit instuction that the student really should be taking a more traditional (or generic) AP. And the issue is not just what colleges will make of the transcript, but whether the GC will indicate that the student took the most challenging courses...</p>
<p>Just a question from your original post. Last year you said she took AP lang, or you Lang and Comp as in an English AP or AP in her foreign. language. My d had AP scores for both AP lang and comp and AP Lit. I know a few schools require students to have completed the fourth level of hs languages, not necessarily four years.</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread -my senior daughter is thinking of dropping
4th year French - a new teacher who's ramping up the course work is
part of the reason. She's taking honors English, AP -Eur. His., and AP
physics all of which will require lots of time so I'm inclined to let her
do it. Any other comments on this. thanks.</p>
<p>nancyzl,
its a fuzzy area. She may wind up having to take a language in college that she could have placed out of, or have her admissions chances reduced ... or have them improved because she aced her other courses without the French.</p>
<p>Nancy: as I said above, my S dropped his fourth yr of Latin because of teacher issues. but he did take all the APs he could fit: English, Physics, Calc, and Computer AB. He also did some academic electives (Soc and Anthro) and Honors Band. He did get into his first choice, very selective school. I think that the Latin class would've made his senior yr so miserable, that he might not have done well in his other classes (or at least woulda been too surly to live with). </p>
<p>Of course, I can't promise this will never make a difference, but it didn't for him.</p>