Matryoshka Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 Dd16 will be a junior next year. Currently her subjects will be: English Precalc US Hist Civil War- present Physics AP Comp Sci AP Spanish AP Chem and German @ post-AP level She'd like to drop the German. She took the AP this year, and just got her score - a 4. She's spending the whole summer in Germany, so her German will actually be better in the fall. The post AP German is a 1.5 year course culminating in a very rigorous exam. But I can see her point...that really does look like too much. She's probably going into CompSci of some kind- I'm thinking the AP Chem might be better on her transcript than more German? It kind of bugs me that her score might not reflect the highest level of German she's achieved... but should I just let her drop German? Would it make any sense to have her take the SAT2 w/ listening in the fall, even though she's already taken the AP? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freesia Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 I would let her drop the German. I would make sure that her summer in Germany is on her transcript somewhere. That should speak for itself. That is quite a schedule she has! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Drop German, pick up French :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttichen Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 I wouldn't drop the German. A lot of schools want to see four years of the same language in high school. Can you do a low-key, fun German course? Something she designs herself -- maybe German cinema or 20th century German novels? That's what we did post-AP with our kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 I wouldn't drop the German. A lot of schools want to see four years of the same language in high school. Can you do a low-key, fun German course? Something she designs herself -- maybe German cinema or 20th century German novels? That's what we did post-AP with our kids. But AP's like 5th year high school level... Won't it be obvious she's had more than 4 years of high school language (even if it started early)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 Drop German, pick up French :tongue_smilie: :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttichen Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 But AP's like 5th year high school level... Won't it be obvious she's had more than 4 years of high school language (even if it started early)? ??? You'd think so, but who knows what admissions people are thinking. We ran into this with our kids because we started foreign language very young and some of them took APs in 8th or 9th grade. We thought it was best to let colleges see them keeping up those languages so we came up with fun classes to do that -- French through the Ages, German Conversation, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwen in VA Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Admissions people really want to see extracurricular involvement. If your daughter is taking this heavy a course load, she will not have the time to pursue much in the area of EC's. Make sure she has some time to pursue her non-academic interests, whether they are community theater or soccer or jump-roping. Also, do remember that three 5's on AP's is probably better than four 4's. More is not necessarily better. She should be really trying to get a 5 on every exam, and doing more will likely lower the chances of her doing her best in ALL of the subjects. Foreign language -- My dd hated Latin with a passion so she dropped it after three years -- but since she took Latin I in 8th grade she only really took two years of a foreign language in high school. We did list Latin I under "8th grade classes" (along with Algebra I), but she really only had two years of a foreign language in hs. None of the colleges (not Ivies but very highly-ranked ones) had an issue with this. If she has four years of a foreign language AND a good AP score in it AND a summer immersion experience, she can declare it done and move on. Most if not all admissions people will wholeheartedly applaud her achievement and not look for more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 I like Muttichen's suggestion. Does she enjoy German? Why not simply have her do an independent literature class and simply let her read in German? Our dd is doing something similar except it is for prior to AP French. She was supposed to read the Chronicles of Narnia in French for next school yr, but she she started when the book arrived, so I guess we'll be adding more. She is thoroughly enjoying it. Of course, I am not overly concerned with what her transcripts look like. I am letting her do whatever she wants. The local university offers a Russian major and that is where her heart is, so if she ends up here, so be it. I am through worrying about high school transcripts! ;) ETA: What are her career objectives? Just curious b/c you have AP Spanish down for this yr. (I think she has way more foreign lang than she needs if she doesn't want to continue German. My dd would drop everything before her foreign lang, so it really depends on what your dd wants!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 ETA: What are her career objectives? Just curious b/c you have AP Spanish down for this yr. (I think she has way more foreign lang than she needs if she doesn't want to continue German. My dd would drop everything before her foreign lang, so it really depends on what your dd wants!) She's probably going to go into something computer science... That's why I started thinking if something had to go, it should probably be better to drop down to just one FL and keep AP Chem? It seems silly to drop the Spanish just on the cusp of the AP... She doesn't love FLs, she's just been at them so long, she's competent. Does anyone have an opinion on having her take the SAT2 w/ listening in the fall? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 Admissions people really want to see extracurricular involvement. If your daughter is taking this heavy a course load, she will not have the time to pursue much in the area of EC's. Make sure she has some time to pursue her non-academic interests, whether they are community theater or soccer or jump-roping. She does FRC Robotics, and next year she'll be helping mentoring a self-study Java group at coop. Also, do remember that three 5's on AP's is probably better than four 4's. More is not necessarily better. She should be really trying to get a 5 on every exam, and doing more will likely lower the chances of her doing her best in ALL of the subjects. Yeah... in the past German Sat School has just been a given, and it really didn't add much more work over the course of the week, but this last level preparing for the DSD2 sounds like it could be a lot of work, so that's why I'm thinking something has to go... If she has four years of a foreign language AND a good AP score in it AND a summer immersion experience, she can declare it done and move on. Most if not all admissions people will wholeheartedly applaud her achievement and not look for more. And it will be two FL APs. (*is* 4 a good enough score? I could have had her take it next year instead (or even again) but then she would've had to study for two FL APs in one year, and she'd be stuck continuing at Sat School...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttichen Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 I think a 4 is fine. I wouldn't have her do 2 FL APs in a year. I missed that she was also doing Spanish. In that case, I think dropping German is fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Dd16 will be a junior next year. Currently her subjects will be: English Precalc US Hist Civil War- present Physics AP Comp Sci AP Spanish AP Chem and German @ post-AP level She'd like to drop the German. She took the AP this year, and just got her score - a 4. She's spending the whole summer in Germany, so her German will actually be better in the fall. The post AP German is a 1.5 year course culminating in a very rigorous exam. But I can see her point...that really does look like too much. She's probably going into CompSci of some kind- I'm thinking the AP Chem might be better on her transcript than more German? It kind of bugs me that her score might not reflect the highest level of German she's achieved... but should I just let her drop German? Would it make any sense to have her take the SAT2 w/ listening in the fall, even though she's already taken the AP? I would ease up on the German. But it would be great if she could maintain fluency with reading. She could go to fun reading. I went through the whole Harry Potter series in German, which really helped my vocabulary and general comfort in the language. Kid book or not, it is a whole lot of pages. She could set something like Spiegel as her computer home page and try to skim an article a day. She could watch a German tv show. When we were new in Germany, we watched a lot of Ich Bin ein Star; Hol Mich Raus, which not only made us listen to a lot of conversational German, but introduced us to Daniel Kubelblock (the Justin Bieber of 10 years ago). Made for interesting conversation fodder. We also watched a lot of Hollywood movies in German. DH tends to pick a German TV drama and watch episodes online. He went through several seasons of Rettungsflieger, which had some locales we were familiar with, and also had vocabulary that had some relationship to his professional life. You could seek out some books or articles that relate to the other subjects she is studying. So a German article about the US Civil War (in which a number of German immigrants fought, including a disproportionate number of German immigrants as officers of US Colored Regiments) or the World Wars. The magazine Geo is pretty good for issues on historical topics, and there is a ton in the news right now related to the WWI centennial. There are a couple good movies easily available that have German language tracks (The Red Baron and Joyeux Noel, both about WWI). Netflix used to have the miniseries The Tunnel about the Berlin Wall c. 1960s. (one sex scene and a suicide attempt). The tv show Wissen Macht Ah (which I think is no longer in production, but was on iTunes last time I checked) or a similar show like Galileo or other how-stuff-works shows would have episodes related to physics and chemistry. I don't think you need to overdo this. But I do think that a couple things a week would be an easy way to maintain the language. I think this has value in its own right, well beyond the desire to list it on a transcript. And if you keep track, it might in fact be enough to put down as a half or full credit at the end. Or make a great topic of conversation in interviews or essays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 I checked and Wissen Macht Ah is still available on Deutsche Welle www.dw.de Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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