<p>To all hopeful Harvard applicants or current alumni:</p>
<p>Just wondering, how many years of foreign language did all of you take?</p>
<p>I heard that four years is the best, but I'm not sure I want to do that.</p>
<p>Im in spanish and I want to just do three years and make room for classes such as AP Comp Sci, AP Env Sci, and AP Stats.</p>
<p>Any advice would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>Four is always the best, although five would be spectacular. </p>
<p>Personally, I only had two years, but I'm fluent in other languages and took the SAT II in them to prove my skills. I'm not quite sure how it will affect me since I'm a non-traditional applicant in that regard but I'm pretty sure that a normal applicant such as yourself (forgive me if I'm wrong here) should take four years, or more.</p>
<p>In a technical sense, I began French in 5th grade, giving me seven years. However, grades 5-9 were all the exact same material. So, four years of high school, and some prep in middle school. Got to AP Language level this year.</p>
<p>6 years of german</p>
<p>i took none....already know another language.....counselor advised against wasting time to do so....will probably kill my chances too...hhahah....T-T</p>
<p>4 years of Spanish and 7 years of Chinese (outside of school though and that includes summers too)</p>
<p>I have 5 of french, 3 of latin, and 1 of italian</p>
<p>I took french from grade 5-8 (but like- does that count? pft) and I'll have three years of French by the end of grade 12 (I barely made this mark though haha), and I've spoken Korean all my life. and I'll have 2 years of Japanese- but I'll have only one beginner year as a credit. and I go to an EC club where you learn latin (but this hardly counts for anything)</p>
<p>I'm in my fourth year of French, and I'm taking the AP test in Fr. Language, but my school doesn't offer AP French</p>
<p>5 years Japanese, 3 years French, Latin and Greek, 2 years Russian, 1 year Danish</p>
<p>I took 1 year of Spanish (in 8th grade though, so Harvard doesn't know about it) and 4 years of Italian.</p>
<p>2 years of latin, in my 3rd year of French and taking AP French. Although I said that I'd like to major/concentrate in French in college, so I'm probably not a good comparison.</p>
<p>I was just wondering how everyone got 4+ years of multiple languages--did you all get them from just high school? or did you take extra-cirricular language classes?</p>
<p>My school has compulsary two years of latin, and compulsary four years of a modern language. Most people tend to choose an additional language as well (out of German, Russian, Spanish, or French, with ancient Greek and Latin also offered).</p>
<p>how do you take five?</p>
<p>you mean AP etc? well, it's my fourth year taking the language but i am taking AP French.</p>
<p>6 years of French</p>
<p>I took 3 years of French, because I had AP last year, and ran out of French to take. Now I'm taking German. I figure I could have gotten by without taking German, because I got to the AP level in French. It is hard to say, because the admissions people will look at SO much more than how many years of languages you've had.</p>
<p>Princetonwannabe: I'm at a British school, so French is taught from Year 7 through to GCSE level at Year 11 - or five years. Most British schoolchildren now also have French lessons at primary age. As hrsraddish says, I don't think it matters that much how many years you taken.</p>
<p>nick04,
thanks for your exp... my hs starts in 8th grade, and i've been taking french since then. but my transcript only goes from 10 - 12.</p>
<p>i think it's not how many years you've taken it.. more important is the level you're at. AP, IB, etc.</p>
<p>i would agree that it has more to do with how far you go, than how long you take a language</p>