<p>I'm currently a freshman in high school and I have taken 2 years of Spanish. I don't enjoy Spanish and this year, my teacher is awful and we barely learn anything so I feel like I will be far behind the other students if I take Spanish III next year. I desperately want to drop Spanish and have a vacant spot on my schedule to take another AP class (I'm aiming for State AP Scholar Junior year). However, my parents are both "urging" (forcing) me to take Spanish for 2 more years because they say many top schools need 4 years of a foreign language.
Will only taking 2 years of Spanish hurt my chances? I don't plan on doing anything in the future that is language-related. Thank you! :)</p>
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<p>In a word, yes. Top colleges will want you to have taken the most rigorous courses possible, and you will be competing with students who have taken 4 years or more of a language. Why put yourself at a competitive disadvantage?</p>
<p>If you already know what schools you want to apply to, look up their requirements. You may find that it is not as important at some schools. Taking the main academic subjects is usually more important than foreign language.,Having a good overall GPA will improve you odds at admittance. If you feel you will do poorly in Spanish 3, that might hurt your GPA. One option you might consider is taking another year at a local CC during the summer. My S did that to increase his foreign language without taking up a slot in HS. He got an A in the class and liked it more than the HS version. The bonus is that he also got college credit that will transfer to most colleges.</p>
<p>The Community College recommendation is a good one. Be aware that after Spanish 2 (HS level), you’d be taking College Spanish 102, since 101 = spanish 1+2.
However, if you don’t take Spanish 3 and you don’t take a community college/summer version, taking only 2 years of a foreign language in HS when more are offered at your high school will prevent you from having the “most rigorous” designation on your commonapp recommendation AND will barr from all the most selective schools, including all the schools that meet 100% need.
If your goal is your local directional (Western State U, University of Central Z) then it’s fine. But if you’re aiming at your flagship or a top college, you need to reach Level 3 at the bare minimum, and know you’ll be in competition with students who took Level 4 or APs. Be aware that most selective colleges have a foreign language requirement and that you’ll have to take a test in the language you studied in high school during New Student Orientation, so the highest you score then the fewer language classes you’ll have to take while in college (you can usually skip the intro levels or even complete the requirements if you have a high SAT Subject score or an AP score.)</p>
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As a 9th grader I want to pass on some advice I hope you’ll take to heart. The person that owns the responsibility for learning spanish is not the teacher, its you.</p>
<p>You seem to view your education as if there is an implied contract between you and the school. Their job is to supply books for the class and teachers to explain the material. You hold up your end of the bargain by doing a reasonable amount of work to learn the material, turning required assignments in on time, etc. It is <em>unthinkable</em> that you’d have to do more work than the rest of the top kids are doing. It is <em>unreasonable</em> that you’d have to take the initiative to learn something (say, spanish) on your own; the school owes you competent instruction and if they don’t give it then nobody could possibly hold you at fault for not learning the material. </p>
<p>If you probe a bit, I think the “I only have to learn what is well taught” idea is how many HS kids view school. Probably a lot of college kids, too. It may be a common view, and its probably ok for HS kids applying most places; that’s all the college can get in the way of students. But its not the one top colleges are looking for. They can afford to sift thru their applicants and choose the ones that take responsibility for their education, responsibility demonstrated by doing something about it when the outcome they’re getting doesn’t match their expectations. Even if it means spending extra time on a class. Even if it means independent work. And don’t think this effort isn’t seen by others and mentioned in recommendations.</p>
<p>In fact you could learn the material covered in this spanish class if you wanted to. And what does it take to learn a language, really, other than mostly practice with the occasional question answered? There is tons of free material on the web, entire classes available places like iTunesU. Free courses on TV like Destinos. State of the art free software like Anki to help learn vocabulary. There are entire forums devoted to people learning a language on their own just for the sake of doing so, places where you can get any question answered. You may very well have classmates who are native Spanish speakers and perhaps you could set up a tutoring deal, trading some of your help for some of theirs. This is just scratching the surface, you could come up with more ideas if you tried. </p>
<p>Many people are just drifting thru life (even though they don’t realize it), their reluctance to take charge leaving them at the mercy of outside forces. In a few years you will be in college. You won’t get the most out of college if you just wait for things to happen. The career center isn’t going to call and offer internships, your college isn’t going to beg you to study abroad, odds are your profs aren’t going to invite you to stop by their office so they can discuss your favorite areas in more detail. A bit farther down the road, a lot of people get a shock when they get into the workforce with the ingrained habit of just doing what they’re asked when they’re asked. That’s average performance, but the people getting the promotions and attention of management are the ones that do MORE than asked, that constantly search for ways to improve things and help out without being asked to do so. </p>
<p>So what does this all have to do with being a HS freshman taking spanish? Life is offering you a chance to find out if you’re really the kind of person who’s right for a top college, which you say is your aim. Making the effort now to learn the material is a way to prove to yourself that its really true and not just so much hot air. Words are cheap, and its easy to say “next time I’ll …” Being that kind of person will pay dividends beyond what you can imagine!</p>
<p>“You seem to view your education as if there is an implied contract between you and the school. Their job is to supply books for the class and teachers to explain the material.”</p>
<p>Well, yeah. There IS an implied contract. I view it as every school’s duty to provide competent teaching.</p>
<p>It may be that in the absence of competent teaching, a student is forced to look elsewhere for instruction. It may be that the OP needs to take supplemental Spanish instruction in order to maintain college competitiveness. But if so, I think s/he is entitled to be irritated about that, because the school has broken its end of the contract.</p>
<p>I think I’m a top-school-type person, and I’ve always been totally enraged when I had an incompetent teacher. Yeah, I found a way to work around the problem, but I wasn’t happy about it, and I don’t think I needed to let the school off the hook in order to be a top-school person.</p>
<p>Note that many colleges have foreign language graduation requirements, so the higher the level of foreign language you reach in high school, the fewer the courses you need in college to fulfill such college graduation requirements.</p>
<p>There are no native or heritage speakers of Spanish among your fellow students who can help you practice?</p>
<p>I would go ahead and take 4! I know it sucks, I’m not a fan of spanish either. I didn’t take it my senior year (finished spanish 5 last year) and I’m even worried if not taking a language senior year will hurt my chances. </p>
<p>Schools like to see their best candidates achieve Level IV in a language, not take four years of a language. If you can do that in less than four years of HS, you’ll be fine. With Spanish or other languages being taught from early elementary school in some schools, it’s not uncommon that some students have completed Level IV by sophomore or junior year.</p>
<p>As for bad teachers, if they are a veteran teacher, that is rarely the case. Yes, there are bad teachers out there, but much more common is the idea among HS students (and their parents) that all you have to do in a class to succeed is show up and have the knowledge poured in - no effort on their part required. I once taught briefly, and at a school with this attitude. I was available after school every day for students who needed extra help. The number of students who ever showed up - zero.</p>
<p>^This is very true. If you reach level 3 or Level 4 in other ways (community college, online class), you’re off the hook. What matters to admissions is level of proficiency achieved.</p>