I have a 3 children in a top private day school. All are still in Middle School. All 3 take Latin and French. One my children is having a tough time keeping up her grades with both. Before she drops one I want to get some insight as which is better to have for admissions, 6 years of romance language or Latin. More than half of graduating class from this school ends of at one of the Ivies. However I think my daughter will likely be looking at North East small liberal arts colleges (Coby, Bates, Williams). I know she is young but I feel language decisions are long lasting.
Let her make her own decisions. Perhaps she wants to take, say, Japanese in high school. Perhaps she’ll suffer through an obligatory two years of rudimentary Spanish in high school and call it quits. Maybe she doesn’t know what college she wants to attend or what major she wants to go into and she shouldn’t! Let her be a kid and focus on keeping her grades up. To answer your ridiculously preemptive question, French is more useful but Latin will help on SAT tests.
First of all, I want to applaud you for understanding the value of languages unlike the majority of the United States! Solely for the sake of admissions, I think it could go either way. Colleges look for what makes an applicant stand out, so in that regard Latin has the edge simply because less people study it. At the same time, however, universities also pick applicants who they believe will contribute to the community and make a difference, in which case French would probably be more useful in doing so. If I absolutely had to pick though, I would say Latin has the edge. Six years of French is, however, by no means frowned upon. As an overall opinion, I think that you should let your daughter choose. College admissions officers always say that the worst thing you can do is to base everything off of what will look good to universities. The best thing you can do, however, is to partake in the things you love, and it will show. Besides, if your daughter’s not aiming for the Ivies, then she won’t need as much of an edge anyway. Do what makes her happy. Oh, and Latin doesn’t really help you on the SAT like everyone says it does, and by that I mean that it may help you answer like one or two questions. I studied Latin and have taken the SAT obviously so that’s how I’ve formed my opinion. In the scheme of the entire test, vocabulary is by no means the lion’s share, and most of the questions on it are really easy anyway. Besides, if you are concerned about the vocabulary part, there are lists of SAT words that would probably better prepare your daughter anyway. Just as a random factoid, French is a relatively new language, meaning that it hasn’t undergone as many changes as say Spanish has and is therefore more closely related to Latin. Also, consider that French is so much more useful than Latin. Looking passed colleges for a second and focusing on jobs, mastery of French is a great skill to have, whereas Latin will do very little. I hope this helps!
Since your child is in Middle School, I’d say: have him/her try and the the SAT subject in Latin, and be done with it. It will be a distinguishing trait (regardless of score) because it was taken in a fairly rare language and at a young age.
She/he should however continue with French as much as possible. Indeed, many colleges have language requirements and the further advanced students are, the better (often, it’s one semester post AP, and 2 to 3 otherwise for a language studied in secondary school). In addition, top notch colleges all have exchange programs with France and indicating one is interested in studying abroad, discovering the culture, etc, is a definite plus (there are even exchange programs at the high school level that are definitively something to consider - kids learn without realizing it and return with better skills and more enthusiasm for the subject, not to mention it’s good for their application.) Finally, many freshman seminars are actually interdisciplinary and taught by members of the language departments. Indicating one has an interest for the culture and emailing a prof who offers such a seminar because one would be interested in Topic 3 from Fall 201X is a definite “sign of interest”.
(As a side note, Qu
You should let her choose. If you have to “create” her as an Ivy League student she will be miserable. Let her make the decision.
Agreed^. Decisions as arbitrary as these should be made for your daughter’s benefit, not for her college application - especially since she’s only in middle school. Romance languages and Latin look equally good to colleges, and by allowing her to take the class she enjoys, you’ll ensure that she does better in that class.