Foreign language requirements and admission

Hello all I am a senior who is starting to apply to colleges. For my high school foreign language I decided to take Arabic independent study instead of the languages my school offers. Most colleges require/recommend at least 2 years of a foreign language credit. I currently will only graduate with 1 year worth of credits. I have reached out to colleges and many have said it shouldn’t impact my admittance but I am still worried that this will negatively affect my admittance into colleges. Does anyone have any advice? All feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Well, there’s your answer.

But in general, it is really going to depend upon which university, what they request, and how competitive admissions to that school is.

I’m assuming you live in a state that does not have a HS foreign language requirement of more than 1 year.

Only the colleges and universities on your application list can tell you if this will matter or not. So ask each of them, and trust their responses.

Hopefully the schools you’re applying too won’t penalize you for not having 2 or more yrs of foreign language. But basically, at this point, there’s nothing you can do about it if they do. Senior year is unfortunately a bad time for you to realize that most schools prefer 2 or more years of foreign language credit.

It may be helpful if you reached the equivalent of high school year 2 or higher in skill (similar to how some students have fewer years than the year completed due to starting in year 2 in 9th grade because they completed the equivalent of year 1 in middle school). But if you only reached the equivalent of high school year 1 in skill, that will be problematic for colleges that want foreign language. Even year 2 is problematic for many more selective colleges that want to see year 3 or 4 or equivalent.

Is there SAT-II Subject Arabic? If so, some / many colleges recognize a passing grade as equivalent as 2-years of the same foreign language. SAT Subject II for certain foreign languages can be offered only once or twice a year (some languages are in November that you will get a score by mid November).

There is no SAT subject test or AP test for Arabic.