I’ve taken three years of Latin, one in middle school and two in high school. I took Latin 3 honors as a junior and I did really well but I chose not to take latin as a junior in order to take AP stats, AP euro, and AP literature. For senior year I’m scheduled to take AB calc, AP gov, AP lang, and AP human geography (and I might take AP psych out of school). How important is it to take a forth year of latin? I could drop human geography to take AP latin, but I really don’t want to. I’m planning to major in psychology and these are some of the schools I am applying to:
UMich
UVA
William and Mary
Wake Forest
Vanderbilt
Some of these schools recommend four years of a language so if anyone could give me an idea of how important this is to getting accepted that would be great!
AP human geography is widely seen as one of the least difficult AP courses, so having it instead of AP Latin may be seen as a downgrade in course rigor.
If the college has a foreign language graduation requirement, completing a higher level in high school may allow you to complete the college’s foreign language graduation requirement in fewer courses.
Most people will tell you that “recommendations” for course loads are actually requirements. Colleges like consistency, and dropping AP latin for an “easier” AP is not the way to show that.
You have enough AP classes already, and if you don’t want to take AP Latin that is perfectly fine. Especially if you personally are more interested in Human Geography than you are in more Latin.
But, frankly, my vote here would be for the classes you’ve heard good things about through the gossip mill at your own school. Which of these have the good teachers? Which of these classes transitioned easily to online this semester? There is a good chance that at least part of next year will be in online status, so think about that while you are choosing your classes.
izrk02 That’s what I was worried about. However I do already have three other APs (and four if I take one outside of school). Also AP human geography is more in line with my major than AP latin. I’m not just taking it because its an “easier” AP.
a friend’s son was a UVA legacy and had a call with an admissions counselor there. This was in 2017. He was told UVA values the foreign language, and completely disgarded his AP Psych class because they only look at the core subject areas. Not sure if that’s changed, but if UVA is at the top of our list, Latin is better than Psych.