<p>If a college recommends three years of spanish but do not have requirements, is it bad if I only did 2 years? I really do not want to take spanish 3 my senior year since I am terrible at spanish.</p>
<p>It is not smart to not listen to recommendations. It would be highly frowned upon to ignore the foreign language recommendation. I would recommend you take the class. Who knows, you might find that the Spanish 3 teacher has a teaching style to compliment your learning style? However, do not go through HS trying to impress colleges, so do what makes you happy and what you like. </p>
<p>Best of luck,
- Mike</p>
<p>When they say no requirement but something is RECOMMENDED almost everyone is going to do it and if you don’t you just won’t be as competitive… but if you’ve got other parts of your application that is spectacular, not having that 1 year of Spanish won’t really affect you</p>
<p>Thanks for the pointers. Also
Would it make more sense to do a class more related to my major, like creative writing or something on those lines for english?</p>
<p>Note that when you get to college, the foreign language graduation requirement may be greater than the foreign language admission requirement. So if you take level 3 of the foreign language in high school, you may need to take fewer foreign language courses in college.</p>
<p>But also keep in mind that if you are really ‘terrible at Spanish’ (which I assume means you get a C or lower), it might be advantageous to skip that 3d year, rather than risk having your GPA pulled down. If ‘terrible’ means a B, then I’d say suck it up and be sure to take the SATII in that area, if only to avoid having to take Spanish, or some other language class if you end up at a school with a language requirement. </p>
<p>I also think ‘recommended’ doesn’t automatically mean you are less likely to get in than a student who has 3 years of a language. It depends on the schools you are applying to. Those that are more ‘holistic’ in their evaluation might be perfectly happy with other evidence of academic rigor and international exposure. And of course, if English isn’t your first language, then this discussion would be entirely different - taking a 3d year of Spanish if you are already, say, fluent in Chinese, is unnecessary.</p>