I checked Common Data Sets of interested colleges but still confused about Foreign language requirements - specifically: does the requirement refers to years of courses or the level? (i.e. Brown recommends 4 years of foreign language - so they expect students taking the FL one course every year in high school? or if student completing a FL level4 course like Spanish 4).
DS20 started Spanish in Middle school (7th grade) - he took the same language in 7th and 8th. The high school he joined accepted those courses as a single credit (essentially one year) and allowed him to take the same language Spanish at level2 in 9th grade. He then took Spanish-3 in 10th and Spanish-4 in 11th. We assumed that he is done with his Foreign language requirement/ recommendation at almost all colleges and opted not to do a Spanish course in the senior year. But now someone more familiar with admissions advised us to continue with a Spanish course in senior year as well. What do you think in a scenario like this. Appreciate if anyone can share their specific experiences at Brown. TIA.
BTW DS20’s intended major is Math/STEM. He has to drop one of the single credit AP course to accommodate next Spanish course and this could potentially affect his W GPA (not a strong student in FL)
Level 4 is what’s needed. Sure, AP Spanish is better, but reaching level 4 for a stem major is key, the AP is cherry on the cake. In addition, it all depends what else he’s taking and what he’d cut in order to take AP Spanish.
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That someone is wrong. @MYOS1634 is correct. Additionally, there is an entire thread on this topic:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1802227-faq-foreign-language.html#latest
You assume correctly if (and your son should verify with the GC) not taking Spanish as a senior will cause the GC to rate his schedule as anything other than “most demanding.”
Neither Brown nor Harvard is concerned with weighted GPA as there is no standard. Both are concerned with, among other things, unweighted GPA and rigor.
Note that Harvard has a foreign language requirement for graduation,but it’s only a single year, which most students who finished level 4 should place out of based on placement test scores.Other colleges may require more.
While everything I said will apply to Brown (except that Brown does not require FL to graduate), course selection should not be based upon what a single college wants, particularly when the college has a single-digit acceptance rate.
Note that a math major who wants to go on to PhD study may eventually need to learn a reading knowledge of French, German, and/or Russian, due to math research papers being written in those languages. But that is not a concern for undergraduate college admissions.
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