I’m a sophomore next year and I plan on taking Spanish 2 over this summer. Although I’ve been told it wouldn’t be too difficult to do that, would it be too hard to take Spanish 4 over my summer break following sophomore year? My reasoning for this is I could take Spanish AP in my junior year, which balances out the number of APs I am taking in my junior and senior years. Would this be a good idea or is independently studying two years of Spanish going to severely hurt my chances of succeeding on the AP exam?
Only you and your Spanish teachers know the answer to this. But let’s look at this intuitively: You took Spanish 1 last year, plan to take Spanish 2 over the summer, and want to skip Spanish 3 and go into Spanish 4? Well, if your school would even allow this, they should validate that you know that material in Spanish 1-3 before allowing you into Spanish 4. If you have, in fact, mastered the material, it should be no problem. But you need to master the material and not expect that the Spanish 4 teacher will spend extra time getting you up to speed in August/September. So then onus is on you to find out what topics are covered pre-Spanish 4.
My advice is to do some more interesting things in the summer. For one reason, doing Spanish in the summer wastes precious time which you can dedicate to exploring your passion and having fun, which you can’t do during the semester. For the other reason, after finishing the application season, you would find that practically everyone has the same stats but ECs really differentiates between a good student and an excellent student. I suggest paying less attention to how one AP exam would affect your application and instead focus on what you would write about in your personal statement, school supplements, extra-curriculars, because planning ahead REALLY helps. Subsequently, I think, you would find what should you do during the summer.
@skieurope I think he’s saying that he wants to take Spanish 2 over the summer, Spanish 3 in sophomore year, and Spanish 4 next summer leading to AP Spanish in junior year.
Ah, you are correct.
That depends on how well you’ve mastered Spanish 1, 2, and 3. For some people it’s a breeze, for others not so much.
It being a good idea depends on how strong you are in Spanish so far (Spanish 1). I don’t think it will hurt your chances of succeeding on the AP exam, as long as you know all your vocabulary, grammar, etc. Make sure you know how to write essays in Spanish though, because that will most likely be taught in Spanish 4 which you are taking over the summer. Not to mention that it is a large component of the AP exam. Good luck!