<p>Hello everyone. Next year, I'm going to be a senior in high school and I'm applying to take Spanish courses at Princeton. I'm a little bit curious as to how hard the level 200 classes are compared to AP Spanish Language. I've gotten A+s in all my Spanish courses in high school (all Honors courses, etc.) but they've mainly focused on reading, writing, and grammar and not so much on speaking... which is part of the difficulty I'm having with the AP Spanish exam. As such, I'm wondering if this is going to be a big problem if I take a level 200 class, like Introduction to Latin American Culture or some of the other more cultural/reading based classes. I'm also taking Multivariable Calculus, AP Biology, AP English Literature, AP Art History (not too heavy in terms of work load, kind of a joke AP), Creative Writing, and AP Statistics (which I will drop if I decide to take Spanish at Princeton). Princeton is definitely my top choice for college so being able to study there in high school would be a wonderful experience and would also allow me to continue to studies in Spanish since I've already maxed out. Any thoughts? I'm also not a native speaker, if that wasn't already implicit.</p>
<p>Any helpful comments or guidance would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Hi Decillon,</p>
<p>I’m not a student, but my son took a 200 level Latin American fiction class this past fall. He is a freshman who placed out of his language requirement with a 5 on the AP Spanish test. He had also taken a beyond AP Spanish Lit class in High School so he was well prepared.</p>
<p>He LOVED the class. I think there were only a handful of students in the class and the professor was great. He did not find it overly difficult but being able to speak well in the language was essential as part of the grade was class participation (all in Spanish). He said it wasn’t overly time consuming either, but then again, he was well prepared.</p>
<p>You would probably get dominated if you take a 200 level Spanish class at Princeton if you’re struggling at all with the AP exam. Many of my classmates from 103/107 did well on the AP exam.</p>
<p>Also, why does your other courses matter? No one gives a **** what you’re taking? High school’s a joke kid, and so are all the AP classes.</p>
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<p>Well. Alright. I’m not going to get overly put off by your obnoxious tone, since I’m glad that you’re offering input. First off, I mentioned what other classes I’m taking in order to describe the type of workload I’m anticipating my senior year. I’m not trying to win a gold star or a pat on the back from people on this forum by bragging about what kind I schedule I’ll have next year (which is difficult, but not exceedingly remarkable). Also, I apologize for not making that specifically clear, but I assume the classes I am taking next year play a role in whether or not I can handle the Princeton course because I may or may not fall behind in my studies in general. Second, considering that only about 1,000 nonnative speakers get a 5 on the AP exam, am I really going to get destroyed if I’m struggling with the speaking component? From what I’ve read from the course descriptions it seems to focus mainly on reading and writing, and some marginal class discussion. Also, are 200 level courses really that difficult? I’ve heard Spanish is one of the easier foreign languages from other Princeton students that I know - but then again you probably have more firsthand experience, I’m assuming.</p>
<p>*From practice tests, etc. I project a score of a 4/5 on the AP.</p>
<p>Well if you get a 5 on the AP exam then you can assume you are ready for the class. Just be prepared that being ready doesn’t mean it will necessarily be easy for you. </p>
<p>The other students in the class have chosen to continue with Spanish beyond what is required by the University so they clearly have more of a passion/talent for the subject than most students.</p>
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<p>Ohh I didn’t realize you were planning on taking the Spanish class while in high school. I thought you were just randomly mentioning your AP classes.</p>
<p>Yeah just to let you know, my Spanish classes have consistently been an average of 1 hour per day of outside of class homework/studying. That’s a full 1.5~ hours per school day when you include class time, and more if you have to walk all the way to class.</p>
<p>You’re probably really bright, but is it really worth taking on an extra 10 hours of work per week? Let’s say you spend about half an hour a day on average for your other 6 classes, that’s still 4 hours a day of after school work you have to do, plus all your extracurriculars (right?)…</p>
<p>If you think you can write a 2 page (600 word) paper in Spanish within maybe 2-3 hours with relatively not that many grammatical errors on a non-trivial topic, then you should be okay with Span 207.</p>
<p>If I were in your shoes, I’d probably take the Spanish class too since I was also really ambitious. But I’m not sure if the marginal benefit is really worth the cost of 8-10 hours a week of work. You’re already taking multivar…</p>
<p>Thanks, your input is actually really helpful in the decision making. In all honesty, though, I’m only taking the course because I think it’d carry weight on my Princeton application, (which I’m applying to SCEA). I have a couple of other mini-hooks like NJGSS and other stuff like that (which aren’t really hooks, but they can help at least somewhat, right?), so I was hoping that perhaps this would be another pretty good thing to have because I’ve known people who have done Princeton classes before from my school. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Well, I know a lot of people here who went to NGSS. I’ve heard that most of the people who go there get into Princeton, so I think you should be fine. Just don’t slack off…</p>
<p>I do not want to sound ignorant, but wait, how are you taking classes at Princeton? Is it a special high school program of sorts?</p>
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<p>Schools nearby who I suppose are in good standing with the school (my school is kind of a feeder school, well at least it was) are sent applications to enroll in the “High School Program at Princeton University” (It’s not really widely published and I’m sure most universities have some sort of small program for motivated high school students). Students are only eligible if they max out in classes in a specific subject (for example… they take all the AP Sciences in their school or they take the highest math course or Spanish course… etc) before their senior year (or junior year if they’re like super amazing) and then can register for actual classes at Princeton, do all the work and exams/papers, and instead of receiving college credit, they get a grade on their high school transcript.</p>
<p>Bump Bump …</p>