<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>I'm a sophomore and I am scheduling classes for junior year right now. Senior year, I was planning on taking Spanish AP, but now I'm not so sure. Junior year I will be taking AP Bio, APUSH II, AP Calc BC, AP Economics, AP English, and Spanish 5 Honors (tentative). In our school, the only way to take AP is by going through Spanish 5 Honors. However, both courses are very challenging (AP especially of course) and the work load is significant. Also, the 5 Honors teacher is a native speaker, so she expects a lot out of people. Given my course load, I'm not so sure if I should take Spanish AP or 5 Honors anymore. How much do colleges care about Spanish AP (I'm Asian but I'm not taking Chinese AP)? I don't really want to go into a career such as foreign relations or anything that involves extensive use of a foreign language. Also, I'm really not that great at Spanish--average I guess. I had a mid-A 1st and 2nd marking periods but I really don't like Spanish and it doesn't come well for me. Is it really worth taking those classes and possibly hurting my gpa? If I don't take AP, I am still planning to take Spanish, but it will be regular Spanish 5 junior year and 5 honors senior year. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>It depends on what sort of university you plan on applying to, and what other top students at your high school are doing. The most selective will want you to take the hardest courses available to you and do well in them. Others want a high GPA, regardless of schedule. Still more put a lot of weight on class rank, and, depending on how class rank is calculated, an AP class could help here by boosting your weighted GPA.</p>
<p>Note that some colleges have foreign language graduation requirements, so the higher the level of foreign language ability you reach in high school, the higher you will place into college foreign language courses, allowing you to complete such requirements with fewer college courses.</p>
<p>AP scores typically are not strictly necessary for college foreign language placement (since they tend to have their own placement testing as well). But AP scores can give you a useful means of measuring your proficiency in the context of what colleges expect (check their AP score charts).</p>
<p>Thank you both! As you can probably tell, I will be applying mostly universities in the top 40’s, as that is what most kids here do, as well as Rutgers, which is number 69 I think. I do not feel confident about the AP test, as I am not very good nor interested in Spanish, so I do not know how much it will affect me college credit wise. If this is the case, should I just take 5 and 5 honors instead, so that I will at least have 4 years(or 6 years since I started Spanish I in 7th grade) of spanish?</p>
<p>You have high school level 4 already, so that is often enough for admission (but more won’t hurt, and if you do not take more Spanish, it is preferable that you take something academic in its place). But you may want more to help with college graduation requirements, unless you intend to start a new language for that purpose, or attend a college without a foreign language graduation requirement, or have heritage ability in some other language that can be used to place out of most or all of a foreign language graduation requirement.</p>
<p>Check the colleges you are interested in for whether they have foreign language graduation requirements.</p>
<p>You can always take Spanish 5 and the AP test. I bet you the course material is 75% the same.</p>
<p>By language requirements, do you guys mean that you have to take spanish for a certain amount of years in high school or you will not be accepted? I heard most schools require at least 3 in high school, and I’m looking to fulfill that.</p>
<p>At this point, considering my other classes and my ec’s, I have decided that I’m not taking honors. However, I don’t know if I should take Spanish 5 or Spanish 5 cinema. The latter is a really bs class, where you just watch movies and write things. Do colleges really care about the difference between 5 and 5 cinema?</p>
<p>There are two kinds of foreign language requirements that colleges might require.</p>
<ol>
<li> Requirements for admission. These usually specify some amount of high school language; usually they are looking for the level completed (in your case, it would be level 4 now, level 5 if you take Spanish 5).</li>
<li> Requirements for graduation. These usually specify some level of college language completed; a higher level completed in high school can let you start in a more advanced level in college, allowing you to complete the requirement with fewer college courses.</li>
</ol>
<p>I would like to add one more point. AP Spanish may give you a lot of credits. I know some schools give 14 credits or even more for AP Spanish if scored 5. That may be helpful to save you some money or graduate faster down the road.</p>
<p>The college is looking for as close to fluency as you can attain. They appreciate a deep understanding of the language rather than a superficial one. My kid was lucky enough to get to go for a month away for a language/homestay program and it really improved her fluency and her enjoyment of learning the language.</p>
<p>Can you take Spanish 5 Jr year, and Spanish cinema senior year, or the reverse?
Considering your junior schedule, no one will accuse you of taking it easy. However keeping a Spanish class both years could be good - keep in mind that before you start college, you’ll have a Spanish test, and the results of that test will decide whether you have to take one or two (or more if you do very badly) semesters of Spanish in college. </p>
<p>Yea, I understand that the main point of taking AP’s is to hopefully get you college credits, but if I do bad on the Spanish AP, which is supposed to be decently difficult, then I don’t really see the point of taking it. I really still want to take 4 years of Spanish, but I just don’t know if AP (or honors junior year) for that matter. I would take honors next year if not for the number and difficulty of the AP’s. English and Bio both require a large amount of work. APUSH has some work but is decently difficult. Economics is easy, and so is Calc BC, but BC takes a lot of work too, as it requires you to learn A B and C in one year. Also, given my ec’s, I think that if I take honors, I will have literally no time to relax or just hang out.</p>
<p>4 years of Spanish = reaching level 4, which you have. Spanish 5 (regular or cinema versions) are just icing on the cake.</p>