Hi,
I’m currently a sophomore in high school. I don’t have a career figured out right now, but I’d prefer to have a career in the medical field.
I’m taking Honors Latin II, and I really want to drop it from my junior year or senior year.
I know taking four years of a foreign language looks great on a resume, but I don’t learn anything in that class. We actually don’t learn anything. My teacher is lazy, and her quizzes are super easy (she gives us a list to study and thats it). The class is an easy A, a GPA booster whatever.
If I were to take Latin again next year, it would be Hnrs Latin III, and senior year, AP Latin IV.
I’ve heard rumors going around that everyone in AP Latin gets a 2-3 on the exam. A lucky case, a friend of mine’s sister got a 3 out of all the 2s in her class.
I feel that the class is useless. I don’t learn anything. I’d rather drop it for a challenging class, where I can learn, an alternative AP class. I’d rather take AP Art History than latin, or AP Chem, anything really.
However, four years of college looks great and its a GPA booster.
I dropped Latin for a different class, in my case AP Government. It happened to be during the same period, and because I had already reached the requirements for the honors diploma for graduation, I dropped Latin 4. In your case, I would get your Latin out of the way now for your requirements so you don’t forget the Latin should you have to take it later, and focus on AP then.
Many top colleges look for 4 years of a foreign language (meaning you take Level 4). I’d stick with Latin for now and when you begin to create your college application list you can check the common data set for each school (google “common data set XYZ college” and look at section C) to see how many years of foreign language they want applicants to have. If no college you are interested in looks for more than 3 years of foreign language then you can stop Latin after junior year.
FWIW your AP Latin score will not play into college admissions. If you take the Latin AP exam senior year admissions decisions would come in before the AP test results so you can just not report the test result.
Plan to take it through junio year at least. Or take an intensive summer class in another language (look up Concordia Language villages) and take Level 1 over the summer, Level 2 junior year, Level 3 over the summer, Level 4 senior year.
