I’m a rising Junior in high school, and if I continue on the path I’m on, I’ll have only taken Latin I and Latin II (online) by the end of high school. Like most people in this forum, I’ll be applying to several Ivies and some safeties in my state. Will admission into colleges like Harvard or Yale be difficult if I only take two language courses, both online? Here are some of my stats:
APs Taken: Enviromental Science, Psychology, U.S. Gov, Music Theory, Statistics, Calc AB, European, Microeconomics, Language, U.S. History, Macroeconomics, Biology, Chemistry, Literature, and Physics I. I will also take Calc II and III at local community college.
ECs: All State Trombonist, Elected Official in Democratic Party (Chair of State Youth Wing), Founder/Prez of multiple clubs, service hours, etc.
So there are my stats. I am taking Latin I and Latin II online. I have the option to take Latin III Honors online as well. My school only offers Spanish I-IV, nothing else. If I wanted to do another language, it would have to be online. AP Latin is not available online.
Will colleges look down on my application because of this? Am I supposed to have more? Thanks.
If you apply to these highly selective schools, which highly recommend 4 years of language, most applicants with whom you’re competing will have met those recommendations. If you don’t have 4 years of language, you need to have a good reason for those missing 2 years; it looks like you don’t have one.
Well this is all news to me. I may have screwed up.
I sort of had a reason for doing Latin online. My school only offers Spanish, and our Spanish teacher is garbage, so I was told it would be wise to attempt a language online. I chose Latin because I figured it could help me a lot given that plenty of English words come from Latin. But I may have made the wrong decision.
What if I were to take Latin III as well? AP Latin is no longer an option, but if I were to take three years would it at least help? And what if I were to take the Latin SAT Subject Test and get an 800. Would that help? I’m doing damage control now.
I would suggest you check the websites of the schools you are interested in. Each will have the requirements listed. Some schools require 3 years, some only require two. There may be a few (MIT if I am not mistaken?) that require none. But each school will have the information readily available.
I could probably do Spanish I next year and work something out where I do Intermediate at CC. Will colleges be satisfied with that? That would give me Latin I, Spanish I, and Intermediate Spanish. I could try to throw in AP Spanish if I could work with the online provider.
The problem with this is that I would lose my spot as valedictorian if I did all of this. The first two language classes count as a CP credit at my school, and since #2 is right behind me, I would be bumped down a seat. Is it worth it?
Val status isn’t officially decided until the end of senior year, and being 1 or 2 in your class will make no difference for admissions.
I’m not sure whether Intermediate Spanish counts as through 4 or through 3. Through 4 would definitely be good admissions-wise, although you might be a bit behind at the start (I guess you could try to increase vocabulary, etc. in preparation with DuoLingo or Memrise or something). If it counts as through Spanish 3 would leave you with 3 years Spanish + 1 year Latin; that’s not optimal but it would work (adding another year online would be great but probably not essential).
If you can take online Latin III Honors, I think that’s your best bet. Your GC can say on his/her recommendation form that AP Latin is not available online. My D took 3 years of Latin at her high school and the Latin teacher retired and wasn’t replaced. There was no online AP Latin offered, so we just had her GC note that fact on her application.
Whatever you do, don’t say this in an application. There is absolutely no way to put this without sounding like you’re making excuses and that you’re whining, neither of which will put you in a positive light with colleges.
Do this.
I disagree with this. At this point you’re already 2 years in, so I’d just continue with Latin, If an advanced Latin class is available at a local community college, that might be an avenue to explore.
3 years of a foreign language will not mean an automatic reject, but at the end of the day, these top colleges reject 95% of their applicants anyway.
That seems like a better option. Since I’ve already started with Latin, I could have 3 years of Latin under my belt, and there is always the possibility for something more at a local college. Do you think I should take the SAT Latin Subject Test? If I were to get a really good score it could show that I’m committed to the language.
I don’t think colleges are looking for “commitment” to a foreign language exactly, but rather that you reach a relatively advanced level (by the standards of high school foreign language classes, which generally move much more slowly than college classes). So the Latin subject test could be useful to demonstrate competence rather than “commitment.” It’s not like they require you to continue with the same foreign language in college. A college may have a foreign language requirement to get your degree, and some may let you satisfy it with a SAT subject test. But you could also switch to a totally different language in college, which is what my D did.
Take Latin III online. If asked, your reason for taking Latin that way is that you wanted to study Latin and that the only way you could do it was online. If anyone asks why three years of Latin instead of four, then the answer is that the program you are enrolled in only offers three years. Don’t say anything about what you’ve been told about the Spanish teacher.
Lots of people have limits on what they can do for foreign language due to the schools that they attend and the languages (and number of years of each language) that are available. Don’t worry about this.
Does your Latin program normally ask you to take the National Latin Exam? http://www.nle.org/ You could try that next year.
Foreign language is very important! I was lazy with foreign language in high school and it bit me in the ass later. Now I’m extremely gung-ho about foreign languages and I get in at least a few hours in each week learning a foreign language.
Most schools only require 2 years. My son only took 2 years (of Latin–hated every minute and got his only B’s in HS) and he got into half of the top 10 schools he applied to which I think is pretty decent BUT he was clearly a STEM type kid planning to major in STEM. He specifically did not apply to Yale because they have a high threshold for foreign language competency. Everyone on CC will tell you it matters but in our case it definitely did not. My son had higher ranked admissions and more merit offers than other friends with similar or slightly better grades and similar scores (who all took 4 years of foreign language). He did have more interesting ECs and I think better recs. His counselor advised him that it was OK to drop the Latin if he was going to do something useful with that time–he took extra AP science classes–but not to stop if he was just going to take a study hall instead.
I would not worry too much about the language issue. You’ve had 2 years of Latin. That’s fine. Getting into or being rejected by a college won’t ride on whether or not you took language. If you reported to colleges that your plans were to major in language than only having two years would be a problem. i take it that isn’t your plan. Many students have scheduling issues or have too few slots to take everything they’d like to take. Taking exactly what everyone else takes is not necessary and being different can work in your favor anyway. Take what you think will help you develop the skills you think you need.