Foreign languages requirement for UC, class level vs. years

Hi, my daughter is a 9th grader this year and she is taking 2nd year of foreign languages (level 4) at high school as the school counselor told us as long as she finishes level 6(our school is trimester system so 2 years of foreign language is equivalent to 3 years of that in high schools with semester system), that will meet the UC requirement even she only take foreign languages in 9th grade only.

However, some people said some of the UC require actual 3 years of foreign languages regardless of the level of class. Does anybody know any of the UC colleges have this requirement? She is not planning to take any AP class for foreign languages so level 6 will be the highest non AP level class offered. We are interesting in UCSD and UC Davis.

Thank you.

ALWAYS trust the admissions office/website over CC or other people: THEY, not others, have the final say on their own admissions policies.

The UC Admissions website states the following: https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/

“e. Language other than English- 2 years*
*or equivalent to the 2nd level of high school instruction”

Even if your school is trimester-based, a year-long course is a year-long course, whether semester-based or trimester-based. Are your language courses taught like Language 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. over an entire year or for each trimester (Language level one for trimester one, 2 for 2 etc?) If the latter, then yes, you’ll need level 6 (or 2 years/6 trimesters worth of language) to satisfy UC’s admissions requirements. It does not state if one year of 2 different languages is fine, but the general advice would be to take 2 years of the SAME language.

Hope that helps!

It does in the details.

https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/subject-requirement-a-g.html

Thanks @skieurope for clarifying!

Look up your California high school (or community college if the highest foreign language course taken was a community college course) at https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist .

If the highest foreign language course taken is listed as “LOTE level 3” (LOTE = language other than English), then it is considered equivalent to year 3 high school foreign language. UC validation policy (see https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/csu-uc-a-g-comparison-matrix.pdf ) is that LOTE validates all lower levels (i.e. LOTE level 3 completion means that LOTE levels 1 and 2 are assumed completed).

CSU has similar policies with respect to foreign language taken while in high school for frosh admission. However, other colleges may have different policies.

As stated in the above posts, 2 years of a Foreign language is a requirement but 3 years is recommended for the UC’s. Meeting the minimum makes you eligible to apply but the majority of applicants exceed the minimum requirements.

UC Davis A-G course requirements:

UCSD A-G course requirements:

I have two children who both took the first two years of Spanish in junior high. They took Spanish 3 in 9th grade and AP Spanish Lang in 10th grade. They were both accepted to multiple UCs.

AP Spanish Language counts at LOTE 4+ for UC purposes, so they had “4 years” for UC purposes.

Yes, I realize that. When we first decided whether the kids should enroll in LOTE in junior high, I called multiple admission offices to see how it would be viewed. Most were vague but insinuated that they would like for at least 50% of the LOTE to be in high school.

Last year when applying to colleges, my child made a spread sheet of the recommended coursework at each school. Schools ranged in recommending 2-4 years of LOTE. Some of those that recommended 4 yrs were Harvard, Princeton and JHU.

  • 2 years of foreign language is equivalent to 3 years of that in high schools with semester system)*

Are you sure about that? Does each trimester cover a whole semester’s worth of work?