3
3 years ago
Admissions Advice
[edited]

can i get into top colleges if i only took 2 years of spanish?
Answered

i know a lot of schools recommend taking 3-4 years of a foreign language, but because i'm finishing HS in 3 years, i didn't have enough space in my schedule to take spanish 3 or ap spanish (i'm taking ap enviro instead because i'm interested in climate change and have many extracurricular activities around it). will this impact me negatively? thanks!!

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Accepted Answer
3 years ago

It will only hurt you if you apply to Ivys and Elite Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges. Not only that, you will be up against the stiff competition in terms of course rigor, GPA, extracurriculars, writing ability, etc because they will all have 4 years of HS experience, grades, and scores versus 3 years. It's a great accomplishment to graduate HS early but it comes at a cost and if you don't have a specific plan that takes advantage of this then I would re-evaluate why you are pushing to graduate early.

At my HS, we need 25 credits (units) to graduate, I had 26 after Junior year and now have 36 plus (30 credits of college courses and dual enrollment college credit). And believe it or not, I'm thinking of doing a PG year at boarding school even though I got into Columbia University ED because I want to study on a physical campus with students and in-class lectures. If I take that path I'll have nearly twice the graduation requirements before I start Freshman year and I'm happy about it. I admit I'm not a typical HS student, I like learning for learning's sake and feel no rush to grow up and have a career at 18. I feel the pandemic stole 3 semesters of HS for me and that cost was great. I might not be able to get it all back but I'm going to take my own time to navigate through the next chapters of higher education.

I'll share another short story about my dad. My dad couldn't decide what to major in so he enrolled in a dual degree Architecture / Business School program and got 2 college degrees in 5 years. He told me it took 190 college credits to graduate and he was burnt out and times wanted to quit or take a break but the pressure he created for himself was too great and failure was not an option. So yes, he did a heck of a lot of studying 5 years in a row but in hindsight, he regrets making that choice when he was 17. While helping me with my college admissions process, he said it would have been more meaningful to get a broad Liberal Arts Education and have a solid core foundation before deciding what major or career to focus on. Now he is playing catch up by reading poetry, literature, history, listening to podcasts, and watching education youtube videos, and taking sex MOOC courses.

So I decided to take his advice and look forward to studying the "core" at Columbia. I don't know what I want to be when I'm older but I do know that being able to write better, think better and hone my voice and how I present and express myself can only help me.

Maybe none of my anecdotes or personal experiences apply to you but I shared them in case someone else is in the same situation about graduating early or not having the requisite amount of course rigor to apply to the top colleges. Apologies for writing a longer answer but I felt it might be useful to those who might be reading this.

4
0
3 years ago

You will get into colleges if you've never even been in a Spanish class. The question is what kind of college to you want to get into, some have very lenient requirements while others are very strict. Also if you have an interest in the environment there are a lot of Grant's and scholarships you can get.

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