<p>Our school has four years of Spanish instruction, with the opportunity to take Spanish 1 in middle school. I took this opportunity, and have exhausted my Spanish instruction opportunities with technically only three years of Spanish. What should I do since many colleges expect four years of foreign language? Is there a way to compensate for my lack of a fourth year of foreign language, or should I take (gulp) AP Spanish?</p>
<p>Omg don’t take AP Spanish. I regret it soooooo much. Its so hard. I have a (buh buh buhhhh) C+<em>whispers</em>. I’m being so serious don’t take it. If your school has a regular Spanish V, take it.</p>
<p>If you’re good at Spanish, then you should definitely take AP Spanish Language. It will look good on a college application.</p>
<p>You have completed level 4 of Spanish… if you like and are good at Spanish, take level 5 / AP.</p>
<p>For practice, do you have any classmates who are native speakers of Spanish who are willing to talk to you in Spanish whenever they see you?</p>
<p>The important part is the number of years completed, not the number of years you took in high school. You get credit for Algebra and Spanish 1 even if you take them in 8th grade.</p>
<p>That said, there’s really no reason not to take AP Spanish unless you think you’ll do poorly. Five years is better than four, especially since the fifth year sets you apart from EVERY other applicant that studied Spanish and completed four years.</p>
<p>AP SPanish is not that bad, and the credit will likely wither count for placement or get you out of foreign language completely in college. Otherwise you may just end up with another several semesters of Spanish later.</p>
<p>All colleges when they recommedn or require a certain number of years of a single foreign language mean reaching the stated level of a language (such as third or fourth year) and not that you are actually required to have language all four years of high school.</p>