<p>I need advice!! My son took three years of Latin - in 7th, 8th and 9th grades. Overall he has stellar grades and is probably in the top 5-10% of his grade. He's interested in Chem Engr so I happened to look at the Univ of Delaware website and it stated that they require 2-4 years of a foreign language with 2 of those years being in high school. This means my son is not even eligible to apply to UofD! I bopped around to a few other schools' policies on language and couldn't find anything this explicit...but now I'm wondering. Will most colleges expect that he has at least two of his foreign lang credits from his high school years? If so, I'm not sure what to do now. He's a junior, so he could take Latin 4 his senior year, but I'm quite certain he's forgotten enough to make it really difficult. Any thoughts on this? Thank you!</p>
<p>I doubt that there is a universal answer to your question regarding other colleges. The requirements vary. They depend on majors, etc. And there are occasional alternatives to formal in-class language study. The University of California system for example accepts a high-enough SAT 2 test score, or a high-enough AP score in lieu of formal high school coursework.</p>
<p>You’re fortunate. He’s a junior and he has 1 1/2 years to do something about the requirement. While I expect that taking Latin 4 after a 2 year gap is a stretch, there is nothing that says that he can’t take Latin 3, or Latin 2 for that matter. And then there’s the option of on-line or community college programs.</p>
<p>Check to see whether they are more concerned about the number of years, or the level completed (in high school course work). You may want to ask the college directly if it is unclear.</p>
<p>Colleges generally count language courses taken before high school toward required or recommended years needed. Thus, if the requirement is two years, they mean completing second high school year level and not number of high school years spent in class. UDelaware is one of the rare exceptions to that rule and states it will not count courses taken before high school toward two year requirement. Nevertheless, you should still apply if desire is to attend because colleges can waive a requirement. As to taking another year of Latin, it may be considered for a number of colleges but not because of a requirement but because a number of colleges, particularly a number of your higher ranked colleges, “recommend” four years of a single language.</p>
<p>Have his guidance counselor contact UDel for him and get a definitive answer</p>
<p>Contact UDel yourself - because there may be more ‘negotiating room’ than your GC has the time or inclination to explore. See if UDel will accept another language - like Spanish 1 - for a year. Could be much easier than a higher level of Latin after such a long gap.</p>
<p>My D did a couple years of an online Latin class (no Latin taught here at the high school) and then took the SAT Subject Test for Latin. She scored well enough that her college both accepted it as meeting her foreign language requirement, but also as satisfying her language requirement for her BA. I agree, talk to UDel yourself and find out what the options are for a kid in your son’s situation. It may not be as black and white as the website leads you to believe. If you get an answer that helps resolve the issue, then email that person and say you’re just wanting to confirm that “as we discussed, blah, blah, blah.” It never hurts to have these things in writing.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your input!</p>
<p>Would they accept a summer school class at a local community college? If they offered Latin and he followed that up with an SAT 2, would they accept that? Can’t hurt to ask.</p>
<p>JandJ…that was my thought if I find that schools prefer to see coursework completed in HS vs. middle school. He truly hated Latin, so I think he would take spanish I at a comm coll over the summer, then spanish II his senior year.</p>
<p>A summer school class at a CC means getting credit for a college semester of language, which for admission to colleges usually counts as two high school semesters (a full year) when determining how it would apply towards count for required language years.</p>