Dropping AP Spanish

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would any kid take a foreign language in 8th grade to place out of the first level in 9th grade, if colleges only want to make sure that the kid takes four years in high school? Best to just take Spanish 1 in 9th grade, right?

Actually, yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think he needs to take Spanish his junior yr, definitely. Whatever level would be appropriate. Colleges do not care or count what one has done/taken in middle school, even if received HS credit for it. It doesn’t matter. You need at least 3 yrs of foreign language, in high school, or through AP.

2 of my kids are at a top private, and this is what they’re told. Their private (along with many in dmv) doesn’t even offer APs anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no one size fits all answer to the question of how many years of foreign lang. Depends on the rest of the transcript. Do most top schools recommend 4? Yes. Are students routinely admitted with less? Absolutely yes.

I have two kids at T10s who only had through level 3 foreign lang in high school, one STEM, one humanities.

Most engineering programs do not have a college foreign lang requirement.

From what I’ve heard, three yrs is acceptable for top colleges if STEM major and if the classes are completed in high school. Taking fewer than 3 yrs in high school is not advisable

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think he needs to take Spanish his junior yr, definitely. Whatever level would be appropriate. Colleges do not care or count what one has done/taken in middle school, even if received HS credit for it. It doesn’t matter. You need at least 3 yrs of foreign language, in high school, or through AP.

says who? this isn't logical. It is not just that definitely defies my personal anecdata, it is that it doesn't make sense. You are acting like it doesn't matter where the kid ends up which is ridiculous. AP's kid is a super high achiever. There is no universe where he will be punished for taking linear algebra over another year of Spanish.

Schools want well rounded students, not math robots. 2 yrs of Spanish in HS isn’t enough. Linear algebra isn’t going to set him apart from many of the other applicants that also took that, and have taken 3-4 yrs of foreign language.

He’s taken FIVE years of high school Spanish.

They don’t care about middle school language classes. Unless you’ve maxed out the courses available at your high school. They want to see at least 3 years of language in HIGH SCHOOL - 4 is better. Middle school language courses are NOT the rigor of high school ones.

This is nonsensical. Language is cumulative. If a kid does FL 1 & 2 in middle school & then does well in FL 3+ in high school, clearly the middle school courses were rigorous enough. It’s the same standards of learning (what the course must cover, at least in VA). You can’t do well in a language if you learned nothing your first few years

That’s like saying Algebra 1 in middle school doesn’t count. Math is also cumulative. Doing well in Algebra 2 proves Algebra 1 was sufficient

Of course the middle school class still counts in that it happened, but if you stop math at Honors Pre-Calc in 10th grade, and never take AP Calc or anything more advanced, (even though it is offered in your school in 11th), they are going to notice that. There is no good reason to stop a core class at Sophomore year if you've accelerated in it. Will it be a deal-breaker? Probably not, but it is never going to be a positive.

But that isn't what people are implying. At my high school, Honors Spanish 3 is the same class whether you are a freshman or a junior - they are literally mixed in the same class. Posters are acting like it looks worse to take Spanish 4 as a sophomore and then take other extremely high level classes in different subjects, than to take Spanish 4 as a senior and not take those high level classes.

This is illogical and cannot be true. Admissions officers are not this stupid.

And at our school Honors Pre-Calc also has sophomores, juniors and seniors mixed in the class. Is it ok to stop there if you're a sophomore and never take math again, because there were seniors in your class that graduated and stopped at Pre-Calc? No, of course not. It doesn't matter than you did 2 years of HS math in middle school. You are missing the point that Admissions officers want you to challenge yourself. If there are more advanced classes available to you in your personal accelerated track, they do not want you to stop Sophomore year. It is not a positive to stop. They may forgive it, they may not consider it to be that big of a deal, but it is not working in your favor.

Sigh. This is not equivalent. Any competitive college wants to see Calculus. Stopping at Pre-Calculus is not reaching the LEVEL college admission officers want to see. On the other hand, there is not one college in the country that states any expectation of a level of Spanish above SPanish 4. Not one. Sure, they'll be impressed to see AP Spanish but more so than to see a future stem student taking Linear Algebra? Impossible.

Some kids take AP calc in 9th or 10th grade. They still need to take math in 11th and 12th grade. No advisor would tell them to just stop taking math after calc if they are accelerated enough to take it early,

Actually colleges don’t hold it against you if your HS only goes to AP Calc. Some schools don’t have Dual Enrollment so practically speaking there is no ability to take more math unless you do it online but no college really cares about that or would expect that.

Similar to a FL (but not exactly the same), they would expect that you take AP Physics C or other AP STEM classes as a proxy as they would expect someone who got a 5 on the FL AP test in 9th to take a new language for a couple of years.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think he needs to take Spanish his junior yr, definitely. Whatever level would be appropriate. Colleges do not care or count what one has done/taken in middle school, even if received HS credit for it. It doesn’t matter. You need at least 3 yrs of foreign language, in high school, or through AP.

says who? this isn't logical. It is not just that definitely defies my personal anecdata, it is that it doesn't make sense. You are acting like it doesn't matter where the kid ends up which is ridiculous. AP's kid is a super high achiever. There is no universe where he will be punished for taking linear algebra over another year of Spanish.

Schools want well rounded students, not math robots. 2 yrs of Spanish in HS isn’t enough. Linear algebra isn’t going to set him apart from many of the other applicants that also took that, and have taken 3-4 yrs of foreign language.

He’s taken FIVE years of high school Spanish.

They don’t care about middle school language classes. Unless you’ve maxed out the courses available at your high school. They want to see at least 3 years of language in HIGH SCHOOL - 4 is better. Middle school language courses are NOT the rigor of high school ones.

This is nonsensical. Language is cumulative. If a kid does FL 1 & 2 in middle school & then does well in FL 3+ in high school, clearly the middle school courses were rigorous enough. It’s the same standards of learning (what the course must cover, at least in VA). You can’t do well in a language if you learned nothing your first few years

That’s like saying Algebra 1 in middle school doesn’t count. Math is also cumulative. Doing well in Algebra 2 proves Algebra 1 was sufficient

Of course the middle school class still counts in that it happened, but if you stop math at Honors Pre-Calc in 10th grade, and never take AP Calc or anything more advanced, (even though it is offered in your school in 11th), they are going to notice that. There is no good reason to stop a core class at Sophomore year if you've accelerated in it. Will it be a deal-breaker? Probably not, but it is never going to be a positive.

But that isn't what people are implying. At my high school, Honors Spanish 3 is the same class whether you are a freshman or a junior - they are literally mixed in the same class. Posters are acting like it looks worse to take Spanish 4 as a sophomore and then take other extremely high level classes in different subjects, than to take Spanish 4 as a senior and not take those high level classes.

This is illogical and cannot be true. Admissions officers are not this stupid.

And at our school Honors Pre-Calc also has sophomores, juniors and seniors mixed in the class. Is it ok to stop there if you're a sophomore and never take math again, because there were seniors in your class that graduated and stopped at Pre-Calc? No, of course not. It doesn't matter than you did 2 years of HS math in middle school. You are missing the point that Admissions officers want you to challenge yourself. If there are more advanced classes available to you in your personal accelerated track, they do not want you to stop Sophomore year. It is not a positive to stop. They may forgive it, they may not consider it to be that big of a deal, but it is not working in your favor.

Sigh. This is not equivalent. Any competitive college wants to see Calculus. Stopping at Pre-Calculus is not reaching the LEVEL college admission officers want to see. On the other hand, there is not one college in the country that states any expectation of a level of Spanish above SPanish 4. Not one. Sure, they'll be impressed to see AP Spanish but more so than to see a future stem student taking Linear Algebra? Impossible.

Some kids take AP calc in 9th or 10th grade. They still need to take math in 11th and 12th grade. No advisor would tell them to just stop taking math after calc if they are accelerated enough to take it early,

Actually colleges don’t hold it against you if your HS only goes to AP Calc. Some schools don’t have Dual Enrollment so practically speaking there is no ability to take more math unless you do it online but no college really cares about that or would expect that.

Similar to a FL (but not exactly the same), they would expect that you take AP Physics C or other AP STEM classes as a proxy as they would expect someone who got a 5 on the FL AP test in 9th to take a new language for a couple of years.

Yes, but if your HS does go past AP Calc and you are 2 years accelerated, they will expect you to take something past AP Calc. Not just opt out of math junior/senior year.

[Anonymous]

Don’t they need to take a foreign language credit in college without the AP? Is that preferable?

[Anonymous]

If you are aiming for top schools, you should take a language all 4 years. the test isn't that bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are aiming for top schools, you should take a language all 4 years. the test isn't that bad.

At our high school, the ap test is taken during Spanish 5, not Spanish 4. Why take Spanish 1 in 8th grade if the college only cares about four years of Spanish?

[Anonymous]

None of this passes the smell test. Not one of the selective college websites I’ve looked at have said that a kid must have culminated their language study at AP level to be considered for admission. None of them say that if you max out at Spanish 5 in sophomore year you’ll be considered less suitable for admission than someone who stopped at Spanish 4 in senior year.

None of them indicate that foregoing AP language to take very advanced math or science classes instead, of the type that the vast majority of high school students will never have the opportunity to take, let alone be prepared for, could be considered to be a bad thing.

And a student that starts high school in Spanish 3 or 4 and successfully completes it with good grades has clearly demonstrated that their middle school language instruction was up to par and directly comparable with classes taken in high school (after so those Spanish 3 or 4 classes in high school are full of older students who started that path later).

There’s no actual facts in this discussion. It’s lacking in links to specific college admissions pages where they say you MUST have four years of language in high school to be considered. It’s missing specifics about schools that kids couldn’t apply for because their middle school language credits were discounted out because they had two rather than three years in high school out because they stopped at Spanish 4 or 5 instead of AP.

I call BS. I encouraged my child to continue with foreign language but they are considering stopping after junior year. This thread is convincing me that it’s fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of this passes the smell test. Not one of the selective college websites I’ve looked at have said that a kid must have culminated their language study at AP level to be considered for admission. None of them say that if you max out at Spanish 5 in sophomore year you’ll be considered less suitable for admission than someone who stopped at Spanish 4 in senior year.

None of them indicate that foregoing AP language to take very advanced math or science classes instead, of the type that the vast majority of high school students will never have the opportunity to take, let alone be prepared for, could be considered to be a bad thing.

And a student that starts high school in Spanish 3 or 4 and successfully completes it with good grades has clearly demonstrated that their middle school language instruction was up to par and directly comparable with classes taken in high school (after so those Spanish 3 or 4 classes in high school are full of older students who started that path later).

There’s no actual facts in this discussion. It’s lacking in links to specific college admissions pages where they say you MUST have four years of language in high school to be considered. It’s missing specifics about schools that kids couldn’t apply for because their middle school language credits were discounted out because they had two rather than three years in high school out because they stopped at Spanish 4 or 5 instead of AP.

I call BS. I encouraged my child to continue with foreign language but they are considering stopping after junior year. This thread is convincing me that it’s fine.

you need to take a break

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of this passes the smell test. Not one of the selective college websites I’ve looked at have said that a kid must have culminated their language study at AP level to be considered for admission. None of them say that if you max out at Spanish 5 in sophomore year you’ll be considered less suitable for admission than someone who stopped at Spanish 4 in senior year.

None of them indicate that foregoing AP language to take very advanced math or science classes instead, of the type that the vast majority of high school students will never have the opportunity to take, let alone be prepared for, could be considered to be a bad thing.

And a student that starts high school in Spanish 3 or 4 and successfully completes it with good grades has clearly demonstrated that their middle school language instruction was up to par and directly comparable with classes taken in high school (after so those Spanish 3 or 4 classes in high school are full of older students who started that path later).

There’s no actual facts in this discussion. It’s lacking in links to specific college admissions pages where they say you MUST have four years of language in high school to be considered. It’s missing specifics about schools that kids couldn’t apply for because their middle school language credits were discounted out because they had two rather than three years in high school out because they stopped at Spanish 4 or 5 instead of AP.

I call BS. I encouraged my child to continue with foreign language but they are considering stopping after junior year. This thread is convincing me that it’s fine.

I posted UPenn’s criteria on page 2 of this thread and it said that they expect you to take 4 years of English, math, history, science & world language in high school if your school offers them. That was the only school I looked at, so it’s a sample size of 1, but your kid should check the requirements for the schools they’re interested in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of this passes the smell test. Not one of the selective college websites I’ve looked at have said that a kid must have culminated their language study at AP level to be considered for admission. None of them say that if you max out at Spanish 5 in sophomore year you’ll be considered less suitable for admission than someone who stopped at Spanish 4 in senior year.

None of them indicate that foregoing AP language to take very advanced math or science classes instead, of the type that the vast majority of high school students will never have the opportunity to take, let alone be prepared for, could be considered to be a bad thing.

And a student that starts high school in Spanish 3 or 4 and successfully completes it with good grades has clearly demonstrated that their middle school language instruction was up to par and directly comparable with classes taken in high school (after so those Spanish 3 or 4 classes in high school are full of older students who started that path later).

There’s no actual facts in this discussion. It’s lacking in links to specific college admissions pages where they say you MUST have four years of language in high school to be considered. It’s missing specifics about schools that kids couldn’t apply for because their middle school language credits were discounted out because they had two rather than three years in high school out because they stopped at Spanish 4 or 5 instead of AP.

I call BS. I encouraged my child to continue with foreign language but they are considering stopping after junior year. This thread is convincing me that it’s fine.

I posted UPenn’s criteria on page 2 of this thread and it said that they expect you to take 4 years of English, math, history, science & world language in high school if your school offers them. That was the only school I looked at, so it’s a sample size of 1, but your kid should check the requirements for the schools they’re interested in.

I missed that, thanks. But it’s still not very definitive. The way some folks have stated it here, it implies that you won’t even be considered without 4y in high school, and it also doesn’t address the issue of what if you max out earlier than four years or almost max out. It is odd that there is no one here warning that that their kid didn’t take FL all four years and they wish they’d known that because it hurt their chances and they didn’t get in to their dream school. If it’s really essential to maximize your chances then why aren’t there multiple people sharing how it impacted them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of this passes the smell test. Not one of the selective college websites I’ve looked at have said that a kid must have culminated their language study at AP level to be considered for admission. None of them say that if you max out at Spanish 5 in sophomore year you’ll be considered less suitable for admission than someone who stopped at Spanish 4 in senior year.

None of them indicate that foregoing AP language to take very advanced math or science classes instead, of the type that the vast majority of high school students will never have the opportunity to take, let alone be prepared for, could be considered to be a bad thing.

And a student that starts high school in Spanish 3 or 4 and successfully completes it with good grades has clearly demonstrated that their middle school language instruction was up to par and directly comparable with classes taken in high school (after so those Spanish 3 or 4 classes in high school are full of older students who started that path later).

There’s no actual facts in this discussion. It’s lacking in links to specific college admissions pages where they say you MUST have four years of language in high school to be considered. It’s missing specifics about schools that kids couldn’t apply for because their middle school language credits were discounted out because they had two rather than three years in high school out because they stopped at Spanish 4 or 5 instead of AP.

I call BS. I encouraged my child to continue with foreign language but they are considering stopping after junior year. This thread is convincing me that it’s fine.

I posted UPenn’s criteria on page 2 of this thread and it said that they expect you to take 4 years of English, math, history, science & world language in high school if your school offers them. That was the only school I looked at, so it’s a sample size of 1, but your kid should check the requirements for the schools they’re interested in.

I missed that, thanks. But it’s still not very definitive. The way some folks have stated it here, it implies that you won’t even be considered without 4y in high school, and it also doesn’t address the issue of what if you max out earlier than four years or almost max out. It is odd that there is no one here warning that that their kid didn’t take FL all four years and they wish they’d known that because it hurt their chances and they didn’t get in to their dream school. If it’s really essential to maximize your chances then why aren’t there multiple people sharing how it impacted them?

Now one is saying you must take 4 yrs. Plenty of kids get in taking 3 yrs IN high school. But to only take 2 yrs in high school when those two yrs aren’t even AP, like OP is suggesting, could be problematic for top college admission. Probably state college it won’t matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of this passes the smell test. Not one of the selective college websites I’ve looked at have said that a kid must have culminated their language study at AP level to be considered for admission. None of them say that if you max out at Spanish 5 in sophomore year you’ll be considered less suitable for admission than someone who stopped at Spanish 4 in senior year.

None of them indicate that foregoing AP language to take very advanced math or science classes instead, of the type that the vast majority of high school students will never have the opportunity to take, let alone be prepared for, could be considered to be a bad thing.

And a student that starts high school in Spanish 3 or 4 and successfully completes it with good grades has clearly demonstrated that their middle school language instruction was up to par and directly comparable with classes taken in high school (after so those Spanish 3 or 4 classes in high school are full of older students who started that path later).

There’s no actual facts in this discussion. It’s lacking in links to specific college admissions pages where they say you MUST have four years of language in high school to be considered. It’s missing specifics about schools that kids couldn’t apply for because their middle school language credits were discounted out because they had two rather than three years in high school out because they stopped at Spanish 4 or 5 instead of AP.

I call BS. I encouraged my child to continue with foreign language but they are considering stopping after junior year. This thread is convincing me that it’s fine.

I posted UPenn’s criteria on page 2 of this thread and it said that they expect you to take 4 years of English, math, history, science & world language in high school if your school offers them. That was the only school I looked at, so it’s a sample size of 1, but your kid should check the requirements for the schools they’re interested in.

I missed that, thanks. But it’s still not very definitive. The way some folks have stated it here, it implies that you won’t even be considered without 4y in high school, and it also doesn’t address the issue of what if you max out earlier than four years or almost max out. It is odd that there is no one here warning that that their kid didn’t take FL all four years and they wish they’d known that because it hurt their chances and they didn’t get in to their dream school. If it’s really essential to maximize your chances then why aren’t there multiple people sharing how it impacted them?

No one can say that definitively because at schools where admit rates are very low, you’ll never know why you didn’t get in.

Conventional wisdom is that AOs compare you to other kids in your school. If other kids take 4 years of language, or up through AP language, it is not great if you stop after 10th. However, holistic admissions means that there are other considerations as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been wondering about this for my own kid (current sophomore in Sp 4) and read through some of the old threads. They are so contradictory.

Some people say you have to take 4 years of the same language to get to the higher levels of grammar and a degree of competence. Other people say four years of language in high school no matter what - and seem to think that colleges will be more impressed with someone who took Spanish 1 in 9th through Spanish 4 in 12th than your kid or mine who achieved the same level by grade.

Everything I have read suggests that colleges want to see rigor and that the student is challenging himself. If he is taking AP Stats or some advanced Math class instead of AP Spanish, how can that not be fine?

I think I heard on the latest Yale admissions podcast that they (Yale) don’t need to see the same foreign language for 4 years… just any FL. You could listen to the episode. Wonder if other colleges are the same.