I am planning on taking Korean as my foreign language at UVA.
From what I understand students need to take an equivalent of four semesters of a language or complete the 2020 level.
I see that Korean only offers 1010 and 2010 levels (as do Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Italian) whereas some other languages (French, Spanish, German, etc…) offer 1010,1020,2010,2020.
So does that mean that students who take Korean or the aforementioned languages only need to take two semesters worth (1010,2010) to complete this requirement?
UVA has 1020 and 2020 language courses. Perhaps you are just looking at what is being offered in the fall term?
A placement exam helps the student determine how many courses they would require to get to the 2020 level. If someone has no experience in a language, they would need four semesters to get to the 2020 level. Those with more experience would hopefully do better on the placement exam and skip some of the lower-level courses.
We also allow students to demonstrate proficiency through AP/IB/SAT2 testing.