Foreign language: Is three years good enough?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>I'm considering applying to a few of the Ivies, Harvard included. All of them list four years of the same foreign language as an "ideal" requirement. I have taken three years of Spanish so far, and I was enrolled to take Spanish IV next year. However, it is my school's first year offering it, and only six other people enrolled. The class made, but it conflicted with my AP Calculus and AP Art History classes, so I'm unable to take it.</p>

<p>In short, I'm not taking a fourth year of a foreign language even though my school offers it. Is this a big deal? I'll be taking ten APs to make up for it, and I scored 5's in all four of the AP exams I've already taken. I have a 35 ACT, 4.0 GPA unweighted, very good writing abilities, and average ECs.</p>

<p>It is possible that I take Spanish IV online. Will the benefit from this outweigh the difficult involved? (I have six other APs to take this year--yikes!)</p>

2

<p>The 4 years of foreign language won’t be important for admissions purposes at all. I highly doubt Harvard admissions committees will even notice it. You’ll be fine if you don’t take your 4th year of Spanish your senior year.</p>

3

<p>You should be fine, really. I got accepted and only took three years of spanish, turning down AP Spanish even though my school offered it.</p>

4

<p>NewYork94, how grand were your ECs? When I say “average,” I mean I’ve had leadership positions in clubs, volunteered about 70 hours per year, went to a TN Governor School which offered college credit, attended TN’s Boys State, did a volunteer internship as a local assistant radio talk show host for about a month, and won second place in a state-wide essay contest and first place in a few school-wide ones.</p>

<p>This feels pretty weak now that I’ve seen applicants on here with far more impressive ECs get rejected from HYP schools.</p>

5

<p>I think 2nerdy’s assessment is a little too worry-free. I do think you’re OK, but I think a few words of explanation would be in order.</p>

<p>Harvard does strongly recommend 4 years of a single foreign language. Most applicants in the pool will have at least 4 foreign language credits, starting with the second year of language in the ninth grade. All things being equal, your transcript with only Spanish III would suffer somewhat in comparison.</p>

<p>But all things are not equal in this case. (Probably all things are never equal, but that’s beside the point.) You’re not just bailing on Spanish IV; you have a schedule conflict. Choosing to take AP math instead of Spanish IV is a rational decision that a serious student might make. And if Harvard knows you were confronted with this choice, it won’t be held against you. But you need to make sure Harvard knows. You could put a sentence or two of explanation in the “additional information” space on the Common Application. Or you could ask you guidance counselor to address it in your Secondary School Report. (Frankly, I like the second option better, but either is OK.)</p>

<p>And, yes, if you have the time and the money to do it, you could take Spanish IV online.</p>

6

<p>Your ECs are fine and probably better than mine. As long as you have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of doing them, they’re good. And sikorsky makes an excellent point: make sure Harvard knows that giving up Spanish was a sacrifice made to preserve a math and art course - both APs.</p>

7

<p>Thank you, Sikorsky, I feel more confident knowing that. I’ll be sure to make the appropriate notes so that colleges will know. I’ll still consider taking Spanish IV online, but doing so during the school day would mean dropping Theater Arts, and I want to have one fun class that isn’t an AP. But I won’t discard that possibility.</p>

<p>Also, I know that the Ivies are a far reach for me, so I’m not relying on them. But I do want to make sure that I do my absolute best to strengthen my chances, and I think I’ve gotten the answer that I need as far as foreign language is concerned.</p>

<p>If you’re interested, NewYork94, here are my ECs:</p>

<p>Freshman year: Founded, organized, and served as president of a chess club for our high school. We didn’t do competitions, and I wasn’t involved in other clubs. A great opportunity that I had within school was that I opted to receive my PE credit by working one-on-one with a small group of special needs preschoolers. I loved them.</p>

<p>Freshman/Sophomore summer: For two weeks, volunteered and worked closely with a local youth summer program called YSI. This was about 70 hours. Then, I did a volunteer internship with as an assistant talk show host for our local radio station. This lasted about a month, so around 50 hours.</p>

<p>Sophomore year: Continued to serve as chess club president. I worked with the special needs children for another semester, and I participated in the Chemistry Olympiad and placed top 10 in the state. I also joined Mu Alpha Theta and tutored some in math.</p>

<p>Sophomore/Junior summer: I attended TN’s Governor School for the Humanities, which is something of a standard reference for Ivy applicants. What’s notable is that I was one of only four rising Juniors out of the 72 attendees. My grandmother (whom I lived with) fell terminally ill while I was there and passed away shortly thereafter, so I was at home caring for her the rest of the summer and couldn’t do volunteer work.</p>

<p>Junior year: Disbanded chess club to help form a Quiz Bowl team (most everyone from chess club wanted this). I was a co-captain, and we competed in a televised competition at Tennessee Tech and placed third out of ten or twelve teams. I joined a couple service clubs to make up for my summer, and through them I earned about 60 service hours. One good opportunity I had was reading to a kindergarten class of the same special needs students whom I’d worked with in preschool. I freaking love those kids. This year I was VP of Mu Alpha Theta, treasurer of Student Council, and PR chairman of a service club.</p>

<p>Junior/Senior summer: TN Boys State, then YSI again–roughly 70 hours, and I also took some 500 photos and a couple hours of video to help kick off a website I want to build for the program. Our city mayor is in charge of the program, and he was supportive of my building a website; he thinks it would give the program a needed publicity and funding boost. I’m working on trying to complete this project before I apply to colleges. Also, the second week of YSI I worked one-on-one with a blind child, and she is probably the most inspiring person I’ve ever met. One day, we took the kids rollerskating, and she insisted that she could do it–so I held her hand and we skated together!</p>

<p>Also this summer, I went on an EF tour of Costa Rica with my Spanish teacher. Not prestigious, but hopefully this shows my commitment to Hispanic language and culture.</p>

<p>Senior year: I plan on restarting chess club again, vying for president of a service club, and also I have 6 APs.</p>

<p>That’s about it. Nothing spectacular, but I’m hoping that my mayor can provide a good recommendation since I worked closely with him. If I get this website thing done, that’ll be a selling point too.</p>

<p>Do you have any input?</p>

8

<p>Well, it seems you’re really committed to helping special needs children and your community at large. Not everyone at the Ivies attended a Governor’s school (probably a minority did) - I certainly didn’t. Regardless, your ECs seem to be fine and consistent, as opposed to being all over the place. I’d recommend you work on that website with the end result for the program in mind rather than a deadline. If you do it well enough, you may have some positive results to talk about too. If your city mayor can attest to the benefits of your hard work in a recommendation letter, I can only see it as helping you. Just remember to embrace and convey your passion for the community at large. After that, you still likely won’t get into Harvard, but that’s just reality. At the very least, you will have done everything you could to get in and will probably still have a stellar array of schools to choose from.</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

9

<p>If you’re applying to the Ivy Leagues, you probably shouldn’t be of the mind set of “good enough”. You should want to push yourself and take every opportunity to enhance your knowledge and application!</p>

10

<p>It will not tip your admissions decision in either direction. Colleges are aware that scheduling conflicts occur, and so it would appear rather silly to have it mentioned anywhere in your application.</p>

11

<p>I’m pretty sure 3 years is more than enough. And it shouldn’t matter too much unless you’re planning on continuing the language as a minor/major.</p>

12

<p>NewYork94, all right, thanks. I feel a bit more confident now. So I should apply to several good schools that I’ll likely get into, financial safeties just in case, and brace myself for rejection from the Ivies. In the meantime, I’ll do my best on my current projects. Thanks!</p>

<p>Thank you for your input, Jazzed. Being that my school offers Spanish IV, I think it’s important that colleges wanting me to take it know that I simply couldn’t take it through the school. Even if it’s silly, it shouldn’t hurt.</p>

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</p>

<p>I agree! This is why I tried to take AP Spanish IV, but as noted I had a scheduling conflict. I was asking if this would harm me in such a way that I would noticeably benefit from taking AP Spanish IV online. Thank you for your that reminder, though. :)</p>

13

<p>I couldn’t go into Spanish 4 because I wanted to take Physics Honors and double up with AP Chemistry. I knew it could hurt me a little in the future, but the fact that I got a 5 in AP Chem, and room for AP Physics senior year now is more than worth it. Hopefully colleges will assume a scheduling conflict because it doesn’t seem right to mention it.</p>

14

<p>Thank you smarty99. I’m leaning toward making a note of the schedule conflict, but I think I’ve found an inventive way around the awkwardness of it: I’ll have my Spanish teacher of three years write me a recommendation letter in which he mentions the conflict in passing.</p>

15

<p>I’m in my freshman year and deciding wether I should take turkish or Spanish, any thoughts?</p>

16

<p>Lokker, I see you’re new to College Confidential. May I offer you a little advice?</p>

<p>What you just did is called “hijacking the thread.” You seized on Denlah’s thread to ask a question of your own that’s sort of related, and sort of not. That’s not considered good manners (I’m sure you didn’t realize that), and it’s also not a very effective way of getting your own question answered.</p>

<p>I suggest that you start a new thread to ask your question, and that you give it a title that describes the question you’re asking.</p>

<p>Good luck to you.</p>

17

<p>I am so sorry I didn’t know.</p>

18

<p>I have returned to this thread to write the last chapter to my story.</p>

<p>Three years of a foreign language, I found out, is not good enough for Harvard University. Or maybe my Harvard essay was not good enough, or maybe my reader was not in a forgiving mood. Whatever the reason, the University sent me a letter of rejection.</p>

<p>Instead, next fall I will matriculate at Princeton University. After visiting both schools on my tour of the northeast, Princeton became my clear top choice. Their campus is more gorgeous, their town is more peaceful, and their focus is more strongly placed on its undergraduates. I was shocked and humbled that they accepted me.</p>

<p>To future readers of this thread, I advise that you take four years of a foreign language where you can. If you can’t, that’s okay too. If Princeton thinks three years is acceptable under certain circumstances, Harvard certainly will too. If, indeed, you are not able to take a fourth year of your language, follow the wonderful advice that @Sikorsky gave: Explain.</p>

<p>My thanks again go out to Sikorsky, and to all of you, for you have helped me become what I am now–a pre-frosh of my dream school.</p>

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<p>While I generally say that applicants to top schools should 4 years of the same foreign language, it is not always possible as in the case of @Denlah. I doubt that that figured into the rejection. 97% of the RD applicants were rejected. As in the OP’s case, there are other college options, and I wish you the best of luck at Princeton.</p>