My friend is a senior in high school in Pennsylvania, where they don’t have a foreign language requirement in order to graduate high school. I’m helping her look for colleges, and many of them require/strongly recommend that applicants have at least a year of a foreign language. Will her not having a foreign language hurt her when she applies? Will a letter from her counsellor explaining that her school doesn’t have a language requirement be good? Thanks!
I live in PA and I have to take 2 years of a foreign language to graduate. Maybe you should double check that policy. But yes, that will probably hurt her. What did she take in place of foreign language classes? I mean, why was she so busy that she couldn’t take them? If she can handle it, I suggest taking a class from a community college for the whole year (fall semester and spring semester) to get credits ( the unis I’m looking at require at least 2 FL credits) No, that letter might actually hurt her. Colleges like to see people who go above and beyond. Her not taking a language simply because it wasn’t required doesn’t bode well for her. If she can’t fix that this year, I recommend not saying anything about it and just letting it be.
If the high school did not offer foreign languages that would be OK. But since the school does offer foreign languages and you friend chose not to take the courses, that will hurt a lot.
Her high school doesn’t require a language. The state of Pennsylvania lets the schools decide if they want a foreign language requirement or not. Her requirements were 4 years of English and social sciences, 3 years of math and sciences, 2 of PE, half years of technology, health, and speech, and 14 elective classes.
I’ll talk to her about potentially taking a foreign language at a CC, but she works and doesn’t drive, so I don’t know how possible it’ll be.
Thanks for your input!
Yes.
No.
Your friend’s school offered the classes; she opted not to take them. That will hurt.
As a point of reference, UC’s have requirements for entry. One of those is two years (or through level 2) of the same foreign language. For the UC’s, these are not recommendations, they are requirements. If the applicant does not have the required preparation, s/he doesn’t get accepted, regardless of what the HS grad requirements were. She should start looking at plan B - either colleges with no foreign language recommendation or some avenue where she can get FL instruction.
What the high school requires for graduation is irrelevant. Colleges set requirements for admission and they must be met. Her best course of action would be to look for a community college or online course. One semester of college would equal two years of high school.
Cool, thanks a lot everyone!
The GC should have warned the students about the college requirement long ago. At the curriculum night every year, the GCs of my D’s school mentioned some colleges may require or strongly recommend 3-4 years of foreign language while the district/state requirement for HS certificate is 2 years. We actually received this information since middle school where the first level of HS world language can be taken and is required if one want to reach AP level by senior in high school.