Hello, my school doesn’t require 2 years of foreign language All the colleges I’m looking at require 2 years of a foreign language in high school. I am currently a junior, what would be the best course of action for me? I am Hispanic and know Spanish pretty well since I learned it along side English, if that matters.
Have you taken a foreign language before? Does your school run on a semester system?
Just take something else other than Spanish next year if possible. Too late in the school year to do a schedule switch now.
Yes my school runs on a semester system. I have not taken a foreign language before.
Another bit of info that might be helpful is that I was in ESL for a while in middle school and some of highschool.
Would your current skill in Spanish place you into a higher level of Spanish course next year?
If you can take Spanish 2, 3, or 4 next year, that may satisfy colleges that look at highest level completed.
If you are in California and looking at UCs and CSUs, they also accept high enough SAT subject or AP scores in lieu of high school level 2 language courses.
Yeah, my Spanish is decent so I might try to get my counselor to put me in Spanish 2 some how.
You may want to ask the Spanish teachers what the proper placement should be for you.
I agree. See if you can get placed into Spanish 2. Could you possibly take Spanish 2 one semester and then Spanish 3 the next?
Well my school is not the best , so they only offer Spanish 1 and 2. I really hope I can get this figured out. My counciler never told me about colleges wanting 2 years of foreign language. The rest of my application is strong so I hope this doesn’t kill my chances at competitive colleges.
@MannyG1 You could also explain this on your applications. Could you take a dual-enrollment Spanish class at your local CC?
Yeah I’ll try to explain it on my application and sadly no. My local community college offers only vocational training. So I think I’m just gonna try to explain it on my application.
So I talked to my counciler and the only thing I can do is to take two level one foreign language classes next year, would this help at all?
People in my extended family speak Spanish but never had an education in it. Their grammar is poor and vocab isn’t nuanced.
Can you do some literature reading in Spanish over the summer to work on any gaps you may have?
There is a CLEP exam for Spanish. Work through any online material and see if this exam is doable for you.
https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/clep/spanish_language_fact_sheet.pdf
https://clep.collegeboard.org/world-languages/spanish-language online resources are listed
Amazon sells study guides for CLEP Spanish exam
Yeah I can speak Spanish and read it as well as I can speak and read English. I have a mastery of both languages.
Awesome! That is going to be a real advantage in any career.
The colleges aren’t going to take your word for it though. If I were you I would rather place out of it rather than sit through spanish 2.
Go ahead and take a year of another language.
If you have a couple of colleges in mind, you can contact the admissions officer that recruits multicultural students and get some advice on how to proceed.
Have you taken the ACT or SAT yet? The ACT is going to start letting students who were ELL have extra time because often people read slower in English when they have learned it as an older student. Talk to your counselor about that and what the requirement are.
If you are shooting for some of the top colleges, search on CC for Diversity Fly in weekends. The list is posted on several threads. Some colleges will pay for your visit but it usually requires an application. Those applications open up in August typically.
That still only gets you to level 1. Most of the time, when colleges say “two years”, they want to see level 2 or higher.
What colleges are you looking at? They may specify some alternative methods.
If you cannot take a Spanish 2 or higher level course, at least consider taking the SAT subject test and/or AP test in Spanish (and do well) to show proficiency that exceeds that of high school Spanish 2.
Also, if English is your second language (since you mention being in ESL in middle and part of high school), some colleges may consider that as fulfilling their “foreign” language requirement (perhaps your counselor can include that in his/her counselor report for colleges that ask for that).
I will look into the SAT subject test , I am planning to explain my situation in my application.
Yes.
The follow @ucbalumnus advice and take either the Subject Test or AP test.
You should not explain your situation; your GC should explain it.
Here’s the bottom line. No college (none, zero, zilch, nada) is going to ding you because of what your school offers or does not offer. If your school only offers through level 2, there is no expectation that you need to look for something outside of your school. So if you are truly proficient in Spanish, even taking level 2 might be a waste of your time. Or not. Since none of us here knows your Spanish skills, that’s really a conversation to be had with the teacher. Many heritage speakers can speak and understand Spanish, but can’t write a grammatically correct sentence to save their lives and/or have picked up really bad habits with their speaking skills.
Thank you all for the advice. I have managed to be put in Spanish 1 and 2 in the same year so that should be good enough.