I am a Chinese immigrant and came here in freshmen year. Now I am a sophomore. The AP tests are coming, I am not sure if I take AP Chinese. Will universities accept my grade?
I don’t think it would hurt since you’re fluent. It’ll be an easy 5 for you.
Every university has it’s own policy on how they treat APs, Most colleges will let a strong score exempt you from lower level classes, and many will give you credits toward graduation (and sometimes distribution or General Education requirements). So if you take the AP & get a 5, you are likely to be exempted from introductory Chinese, and you may earn credits toward graduation. However, many colleges also specify that they want applicants to have certain courses (such as 4 years of English, math, science, social studies), and that often includes a language requirement, and typically they expect that language be a language that is not native to you. There is variation by college, but be prepared for the more selective colleges to expect to see you with another language in the mix.
Thank you, that make sense.
No, it won’t help you if you are a native speaker. College admissions are looking for mastery for those who aren’t native speakers.
1° You can take the test. It’ll prove you are truly fluent in Chinese and some universities may give you credit for it.
2° You’ll still need to take a foreign language. If you were in ESL in high school that may be waived but otherwise colleges would expect you to take up to level 3 or 4 of a high school language (or up to level 3 of a college language, which corresponds to three very intense semesters).
If you are in ESL you will not need additional foreign language. You can just go in and take the AP exam. I am very fluent in Chinese (moved to US with my parents when I was 2, currently 15 years old 10th grader) and i took AP Chinese exam and got easy 5. But since I am fluent enough with English to not do ESL, I had to take French. I am at level 3 and will stop at this level as most colleges accept it.
Short answer: go ahead take the AP Chinese exam.
If a college asks for x year sof foreign language, in the US, it generally means x years. Not that you already know the language and took a test. And I’ve never heard ESL replaces the US expectation of mastery of English and another language. (Not for a highly competitive college, that is.)
OP go to the source, see what your target colleges ask for.