I am taking my first year of German in my junior year here in NM. I am transferring to CA to finish my senior year. I could not find a HS that offer German in the bay area (northern CA). Does anyone know of any HS in the bay area offer that? If I could not find one, what options do I have to fulfill the requirements of 2 years of the same second language?
You could take a summer course, self-study, etc. You can indicate these types of things in your applications and explain how the switch in schools prevented you from fulfilling the 2 year requirement. However, what language did you take freshman and sophomore year? I know it’s too late to change that, but you could’ve taken German as a freshman.
CA has an excellent community college system, and many of them have German courses. However, the first semester of a foreign language at a CA community college is typically equivalent to years 1 and 2 of that language at a high school. The 2nd semester is equivalent to year 3 of HS.
Check the online course catalogs of the community colleges near your new home. If there is nothing convenient nearby, you can look for online community college courses at https://cvc.edu/courses/
You are right that German is no longer a common foreign language in CA high schools.
Check out online high school courses.
There is a lot of variation in whether CA public high schools will accept online classes intended for high schoolers. Most will not accept anything that isn’t specifically accepted by the UC system (https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist#/list/search/all). You will need to talk to the school you decide to attend about that.
There is a UC-approved online German course through BYU’s online system
Take Level 2 throuhg BYU, then take German 2 at a community college. That’ll exceed the requirement and will set you well for your application.
Are California CCs allowing high school student enrollment now? 10 years ago (can it be that long!) my daughter was in a similar situation with German, although only a freshman. We tried online, but that did not work well for her and she only completed one semester of it. The local CCs did not allow high school enrollment. In the end, she took a summer quarter at the local US that did allow for HS enrollment in Spanish and finished up with Spanish 2 at high school.
@my3girls I believe most or all allow some HS students to take classes. Some HS do not take the credits because they can be used to pad weighted HS GPAs. I took CC classes as a HS senior back in the 1980s.
There was a successful age-discrimination lawsuit several (many?) years ago. But, there are different implementations. I have seen one CC that says they only allow dual-enrollment for HS juniors and seniors. Ours has free dual-enrollment to students from the summer after 8th grade through HS graduation. There is a petition process here for even younger students (mostly homeschoolers). The part about being free (except books, parking, and activity fees) probably differs widely depending on funding mechanisms for dual-enrollment.
@Needyourhelp at what part of the Bay Area are you looking?
Freemont, Milpitas, San Jose, anywhere closed to my home. I am living in Milpitas, CA
oh, I don’t know about that place. I know there are schools that offer German in the South Bay
De Anza has German courses.
Note that it is on the quarter system, so three 10 week quarter courses are like two 15 week semester courses.
^This may actually work perfectly since it’s more flexible. Check with your HS.
Here is the De Anza German course catalog:
https://www.deanza.edu/german/courses.html
If you look at the prerequisites, each 10-week course is approximately equivalent to one year of high school German. For example, German 3 lists a prerequisite of German 2 or two years of high school German.
However, the schedule indicates that only German 1-3 are offered in winter and spring 2016:
https://www.deanza.edu/schedule/classes/