<p>My 7th grade son is taking a careers class, and currently they are looking at colleges. He told me that his teacher has claimed that MIT, among other colleges, is not considering high school Spanish as fulfilling their requirement for high school foreign language. Has anybody heard of this? I couldn't find anything on their website to indicate this.</p>
<p>I believe that MIT does not have a foreign language requirement anyway. The aptness of foreign languages only comes into play at the graduate level. My S, who is planning to do graduate work in math eventually, knows that some universities (Harvard, Princeton among others) require students to show proficiency in either Russian, French or German by translating a math passage. He has been told by many, however, that he will not need to learn either of these languages for the specific purpose of passing the test.
My S has been learning Spanish and Latin, by the way.</p>
<p>Firefly - I haven't heard of ANY college saying they won't accept Spanish as a high school foreign language for native English speakers. But, could the teacher have been talking about native-Spanish speakers taking Spanish classes as their "second" language? That might be the case. I do know that at my daughter's school, hispanic students from families where Spanish is the primary language spoken at home are encouraged to do a third language (i.e., french, german, latin) to meet their high school language requirement. Maybe this is what the teacher was talking about?</p>
<p>It's my understanding that Spanish will fulfill the requirement for colleges that require a FL. But, being that your son is in 7th grade, you might want to consider another language, instead of Spanish. My son emailed a few college professors about foreign language suggestions for his intended field of interest (art history) and was told that German would be required at the college level and a proficiency in German would be of great advantage to him. Knowing what I know now, I plan on targeting Russian, French or German for my younger child.....</p>
<p>I think for a middle-schooler, any foreign language in which she is interested, and which can be taken through high school is a potentially good choice. I wouldn't be thinking "strategically" about it from the standpoint of college admissions. But one strategic consideration is whether you, the parent, knows the language. If you know a particular foreign language well, or even from the distant past, you can possibly be a better resource for that child's language and cultural experience.</p>
<p>You have been misinformed. MIT does not have high school requirements but instead lists them as high school "recommended" courses -- consider them requirements. Two years of foreign language is among them and Spanish is perfectly acceptable, as it is at ALL colleges. Nonsense is sometimes (often?) expressed by teachers. Eliminating spanish as an acceptable language for admission to college, with the likely result that thousands of spanish teachers would be laid-off because no one would sign up for the course, would probably be met with teacher's unions taking over college administration buildings in protest.</p>
<p>Drusba is right about MIT recommending a foreign language--which is tantamount to requiring one. It does not stipulate how many years, however (unlike for other requirements). Nor, of course, does it stipulate which foreign language should be taken and which should be avoided. There is no move to eliminate Spanish as an acceptable language for college. Anybody wanting to go into medicine would be well advised to learn Spanish!
What the teacher may have had in mind is the foreign language requirement for a graduate degree in math at some universities. But as I mentioned earlier, I have been told that it is not really necessary to begin learning French, Russian or German in elementary or high school for that purpose.</p>
<p>Spanish is a great language to learn. Why? Because more and more people in America are speaking it, and it's great to be able to communicate with them. At work over the summer I had many people ask me simple things like, wheres the bathroom, wheres this ride, wheres this store, etc.. in spanish, and they were very suprised when I answered them perfectly.</p>