My son is starting high school in the fall and somebody told me that some colleges are requiring 3 years of foreign language instead of 2 or that it is preferred. He has taken Spanish 1 and 2 in middle school and hadn't planned on taking more. Would you recommend that he takes Spanish 3 in 9th grade?

A&M requires two years of the same foreign language. If his high school puts those two years on his transcript, that will meet the requirement. Whether he takes an additional year is up to him. If other schools want to see a third year, that would be one reason to take another year. A&M recommends that applicants complete the most challenging and rigorous educational plan available to them during their high school career. He can call an admissions counselor at 979-458-0950.

His goal is to go to A&M and major in engineering so he will have a pretty rigorous math and science schedule in high school. He has 4 high school credits from middle school because he has already taken Spanish 1, Spanish 2, Algebra 1, and Geometry. So Spanish 3 would be an elective for him but it is a Pre-Ap class so it will be weighted so I don't think it will look like an easy class choice.

This is my oldest child so we are still trying to figure all this high school stuff out with courses and weighted classes as related to class rank.

Ha. My daughter took a dance class as a freshman, and they counted it as 2 credits - one for PE and the other as fine arts. Cool, right? Well, they also double-counted the grade points, so her class rank - even though she got a 100 - was ~100 spots lower than kids with the same grades. Plenty of time, though, to "overcome" the egregious error of making two 100's in an on-level class.

Those kids who are valedictorians/salutatorians must start gaming the GPA/rank system in about 4th grade to make sure they have all the right classes in HS.