<p>FYI, my older son took 3 years of Latin in HS and was admitted to Duke, Carnegie Mellon, USC, WashU St.L and similar. My younger son took only 3 years of a language and was admitted to Cal, UCLA, USC, Tulane, CMU, Case Western and many more. </p>
<p>Both did not major in language heavy majors like IR, art history, English, History, etc. Instead of taking a 4th year of language, they took advanced courses in their areas of interest–helpful to their college majors in fact.</p>
<p>I just wanted to add U Mich has had a tremendous change in admissions procedures from the time your D applied. Their EA has changed to the extent that last year, they simply deferred a huge number of students because they couldn’t get through the files by the deadline. In fact, those whose apps were submitted earliest may have had a bit of an advantage last year, although it was not rolling according to the school. It is very hard to say, as an OOS applicant, what changes internally may have led to the deferral. I would gently suggest that there are more systemic changes in that school’s process than we can guess at even in just these few years, so it isn’t possible to extrapolate too much from your S’s deferral this year.</p>
<p>My d., a homeschooler, only had two years of a foreign language, though one of those years was at the community college. She got in virtually everywhere (including #1 LAC), tested out of first-year French, and was a dual major in music and Italian, and is now in graduate school at Princeton in the same, and is fluent in Italian (and coordinates the Italian Studies Program), and has good working knowledge of French, German, and Latin. There’s no reason to believe your son wouldn’t be able to pursue a language-heavy major if he chose.</p>
<p>I don’t think your son’s decision hurt him in the least - ANYWHERE. If any thing, because he is more passionate about the sciences, it likely helped.</p>
<p>OP, it is difficult to make any judgement about how skipping the fourth year of Spanish might have affected your S’s chances without seeing the rest of his transcript. (Was he actually slated for Spanish 4 senior year, or Spanish 5? Normally, I would expect a good student to be in the latter, unless s/he actually started it in 9th grade.) Did he complete the full science sequence at the Honors or AP level? Did he take calculus? </p>
<p>More to the point, he is a bright and talented young man and I am sure that he will get into some fine schools and do well. There’s no point in second guessing yourself now.</p>
<p>That said, taking one of the steps suggested above–taking the SATII, getting a letter from the Spanish teacher, writing a letter in SPanish about his regret that he could not continue the language in HS and his excitement at goin to SPain soon (but PLEASE!! Ask the SPanish teacher to proof it first!!!), getting the GC to write a note–none of those things would hurt, and your mind would rest easy.</p>
<p>I really, really doubt the language had anything to do with it. After a deferral it’s natural to wonder what you could have done better but…honestly there’s no way to psych it out and you can drive yourself crazy with trying. My guess is that it has mostly to do with Michigan’s switch to the common app and the resultant rise in applications. By all means ask the GC to send a note with the mid-year grades…but-- it really is a crapshoot and if you can see it that way you can save yourself some suffering. It’s hard though-- I know from experience.</p>
<p>D completed Spanish 1 and 2 in middle school and did 3, IB 4 and IB/AP 5 in high school before dropping it senior year. We were able to move the 8th grade Spanish 2 on to her transcriopt to demonstrate that she really had taken 4+ years. She just felt done with Spanish for awhile, having taken it since 6th grade. As a prospective science major, though, she substituted AP chem (in addition to HL Physics) in place of the Spanish. She took SL SPanish and AP exam to demonstrate proficiency and will “pass out” of language requirement at some schools depending on where she attends.
We looked extensively at the different schools’ requirements before dropping, and there a just so many different ways of counting things that it can be hard to know. Unfortunately, some of that variability has the end result of kids overtesting. Kids are doubling up on IB and AP exams because credits are awarded so differently and many are also doing subject tests to cover all the bases for placement later.</p>
<p>If you skip a 4th year of a language to take a study hall, that is not a good thing. If you skip a 4th year of language to take an advanced subject that is more relevant to your intended major, that is a good thing.</p>
<p>My son didn’t take a 4th year of language because most of his high school language classes were awful, and instead he took a 5th AP class. He did struggle a bit when he started out in Spanish 3 in freshman year of college, but he caught up with some hard work.</p>
<p>I think it may also depend on your major. My son took 3 years of French, one in middle school and 2 in HS then dropped French to pursue other classes. He is a math/science type so it made sense for him and he was very happen to not go on in French.</p>
<p>If the course load has stayed rigorous, then I can’t see a school faulting your son for dropping language to take AP bio.</p>