<p>If I only take only 2 years of language in high school but get an 800 on an SAT II on a DIFFERENT Language?</p>
<p>Well sure...no single item is enough to completely disqualify a person from Harvard...except perhaps murder conviction.</p>
<p>Depends. For example, if you speak spanish in the home (ie, your parents are spanish and have raised you bilingual) but don't take spanish in school, they'll probably see it as you just trying to get a good SAT II grade to boost your resume. I always have despised the kids that take spanish even though they speak it. So lazy...</p>
<p>I speak Chinese and wanted to take it but didn't because I didn't read the instructions carefully(CD player, not a cassette player). My scores are pretty low and I don't have any 800...<em>sigh</em>.</p>
<p>FYI I don't speak Spanish, but Hebrew(which my school does NOT offer).... I'm taking my second year of Spanish in school but want to take the SAT II in Hebrew.</p>
<p>As long as Hebrew is not the language you speak at home, but rather one you studied as a foreign language outside of high school, that sounds OK to me.</p>
<p>A language you learned from your family, however, is usually NOT a good substitute for a real second language.</p>
<p>...there's a Hebrew SAT II? Haha wow, I had no idea</p>
<p>I speak Russian at home lol....I lived in Israel for 8 years though...</p>
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[quote]
Depends. For example, if you speak spanish in the home (ie, your parents are spanish and have raised you bilingual) but don't take spanish in school, they'll probably see it as you just trying to get a good SAT II grade to boost your resume. I always have despised the kids that take spanish even though they speak it. So lazy...
[/quote]
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<p>So they're lazy because they chose a subject in which they're good at? Ok...</p>
<p>They are lazy because they are not challenging themselves. Appropriate language courses are taken by people with different levels of abilities with the language. The basic high school introductory courses are for new learners of the language. Some high schools offer advanced courses for native speakers. Where these courses are not offered, native speakers should not take the introductory courses since they do not offer them a chance for improvement.</p>
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<p>a subject in which they're good</p>
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<p>It's not a "subject" for them at all. If you learned a language during childhood immersion, then you never really studied it, because you didn't have to. All healthy people -- regardless of whether they grow up to be good or terrible language students in new languages -- have the ability to absorb languages whole during childhood. This ability is lost during adolescence; observe people with PhD's in English who can never lose their accents because they started learning English too late in life.</p>
<p>In other words, no one is "good at" speaking their native language. It becomes, literally, part of the makeup of your brain.</p>
<p>Taking Hebrew SATII if you are a jew is the same as taking chinese if you are chinese. Of course getting a 800 won't hurt, but the adcom probably wouldn't be too impressed.</p>
<p>Wow, there is a hebrew sat? why are they making all these tests that not many people will take. Why not make a European History test? (Sorry, I'm just mad that I have to restudy US history over the summer instead of getting to take euro history-my class this year.)</p>
<p>unique but that's pretty boring what's your stats? honestly that's not impressive unless you're serious about that language</p>
<p>they're not necessarily "lazy". my freshman year, some of my friends simply couldn't handle French, so they switched to Spanish. They did try. It's not their fault. Not everyone's good at foreign language.</p>
<p>What do you mean my stats?</p>
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<p>Taking Hebrew SATII if you are a jew</p>
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<p>This doesn't have anything to do with "being a Jew." I'm a Jew, and I was not immersed in Hebrew growing up. I don't speak Hebrew at all. This is about being brought up in a particular language, either because it's what your parents speak at home or because you lived in another country during your childhood.</p>
<p>Re: Language SATIIs</p>
<p>What is considered a good score for someone who doesn't speak the language at home? A score of 600 waves the foreign language requirement for Harvard, but in all other areas, that's a pretty pathetic score. So I got a 690 on the German SATII, which threw me into the depths of despair because, in my family, anything less than 700 is an indication I'll be working at Burger King the rest of my life. Hopefully the Harvard adcoms don't agree with my parents on that score (heh).....what d'y'all think?</p>