<p>Do top 5 schools require 3 years of foreign languages? </p>
<p>Im currently a junior student taking Arabic, also taking it next year. </p>
<p>Also, I am very fluent in Bahasa Indonesia ("Indonesian"), although never "studied" it, mother speaks it. </p>
<p>Does having only 2 years of foreign languages hurt your chances? Dont additional languages (that are not neccesarily taught at your school or any of your local colleges) help in the admissions process?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>The highest ranked colleges do not generally “require” any number of years of language but instead provide guidelines of what they expect to see (or recommend) and most of those expect to see three or four years of foreign language and not having what is expected can be a factor (only one of many) that is considered. Nevertheless, in doing full file reviews if they see you are fluent in a foreign language, that is also something that will be part of the full file review process.</p>
<p>Top-tier colleges generally recommend four years of a foreign language if offered.</p>
<p>And there is more to a language than fluency. There’s the rationale for why 4-years, and perhaps, for some with prior study of a language, why 5 is viewed very positively. It’s because for most new language learners it takes 2 or more years to get to the point of where they can study the literature of the language in the language. So only then can they begin to learn about the culture with depth.</p>
<p>Depth in each of the core subjects: english, math, language, science and history makes for the more impressive transcript.</p>
<p>Some schools consider foreign language to be a core subject. While only 3 years may be ‘required’, to be competitive you are much better served to take a language throughout high school. For those who started in middle school this could mean 5 years. You can take 3years of one, and 2 of another. It is not uncommon for students to change to Latin the last two years. It is not recommended to do a 4/1 split.</p>