<p>My son only took three years of a foreign language. He is a smart kid: 30 act, 3.92 with many AP and honors courses, extracurriculars, ect. He wants to apply to competitive schools like NYU, Vanderbilt, UCLA, ect. How badly will only three years of a foreign language affect him?</p>
<p>Three years of foreign language is acceptable.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Admissions/applyRequirements.php[/url]”>http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Admissions/applyRequirements.php</a>
^Here’s the link for the Vanderbilt requirements (2 years of foreign language). </p>
<p>Check on the websites of the individual colleges. The info should be there.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.aim.ucla.edu/cds/cdsformC.asp[/url]”>http://www.aim.ucla.edu/cds/cdsformC.asp</a>
^UCLA link to Common Data Set (you’ll see that 2 yrs, is required, 3 yrs. of foreign language recommended)</p>
<p><a href=“How to Apply”>How to Apply;
^NYU link</p>
<p>My daughter only took 2 years of a foreign language - she couldn’t stand it! It’s a part of who she is. She was also salutatorian, perfect SAT II scores, almost perfect SAT I scores, tons of directed ECs, etc. Was accepted into Yale and Dartmouth. It’s a package deal, scores, classes, essays, extra curriculars, recommendations, etc. Good luck!</p>
<p>Also, if the high school only offers three years of foreign language, colleges won’t hold that against him.</p>
<p>Our D’s GC made a good point about the fourth year of foreign language. If two students have basically the same stats and one has taken 3 years and the other 4 years, most competitive colleges will select the student with 4 years.</p>
<p>yes four years necessary unless you want to go to a junky college.
i know poeple who thought they could bypass this. haahah nope</p>
<p>^not true. Three years will get you into top tier colleges.</p>
<p>I took only two years
I contacted all the colleges on my list, and none saw an issue</p>
<p>I disagree that they would take the kid with 4 years over 3…what if the kid with 4 FL has only 3 Science, while the one with 3 FL has 4 science…</p>
<p>there are alot of compromises in schedules, and adcoms know that</p>
<p>Definitely were advised to do 4 years for top colleges even though that meant going past AP for 2 of ours (their schools offered it). Same rational as emgamac stated.</p>
<p>I tried to make the same argument to S. He (and everyone else) had such problems with the replacement Latin teacher junior year, that he said he’d take the consequences and risks of not taking it senior year. He got into both schools he applied to (one an Ivy) so I quite disagree that it will eventually lead to a “junky” school as suggested above.</p>
<p>S1 only took three years. He did not apply to top schools but did go to our big state u. with a full ride.</p>
<p>S had problems getting all his classes in his schedule to fit for this coming year. In order to get Physics he decided to drop 4th year Latin - the only way to make his schedule work. He felt bad about it, but we looked up requirements for colleges he was looking at and it didn’t seem to be an issue.</p>
<p>What if one of those years was level 1 in middle school? Would it count as towards the FL requirement? DD has completed through Level 4 as a sophomore but wants to quit. Should she show proficiency with SAT 2? Those scores tend to be unimpressive for nonnative speakers.</p>