<p>I am a high school junior attending a very small program. For this reason, they don't offer Foreign language on-site. Instead, they offer it through a cyber provider. In 8th and 9tth grade I took Spanish, but just wasn't learning anything (cyber language just doesn't work for me), so stopped. Now that I am looking at colleges, I've realized that schools can't see my 8th grade year of language, which puts me several years behind the 'recommended' amount of FL at selective schools. </p>
<p>However, in lieu of the language class, I opted to take an extra AP Social studies class (my area of interest). Here are my stats if that matters:</p>
<p>UW GPA: 3.95 (One A- in Freshman year)
Will have taken 12+ AP's by graduation - remainder were honors
ACT: 33
Good EC's and Service</p>
<p>Will not having ffour years of language make me non-competitive at top LAC's (ie:Swarthmore, Amherst, Haverford, Bowdoin, etc)?</p>
<p>It’s your guidance counselor’s responsibility to make it clear in his/her counselor statement that foreign language wasn’t offered at your school. Politely remind him/her when you ask for the counselor statement. </p>
<p>No one can say definitively that it won’t be a problem at every school you apply to, you should reach out to the admissions office when you choose which schools you’re applying to. But chances are it won’t really be an issue.</p>
<p>Well, I can relate to an extent. I took a foreign language with formal education at the high school for two years, my freshman and sophomore years. After that, however, I decided to take outside classes during my junior and senior year. I explained that the reason I only had two years of formal education in a language rather than the recommended three was because my school’s system of teaching the language was very poor, and so I took classes outside of school. I think so long as you explain your reason for not doing the recommended number of years will make the colleges understand (on the ‘additional comments’ section of your college application if it has one, and hopefully it does). Good luck!</p>
<p>OH. And looking at your current standing in school, you seem to have a pretty good chance of acceptances. I got accepted to all my universities (UCB, UCLA, UCSD) with an ACT score of 26 and SAT score of 1750, most likely because community service and ECs balanced it out, so with your 33 and good standing in service and EC’s you should be in good shape. :)</p>
<p>Your risk of not having at least 3 years of foreign language will hurt your chances at selective schools and will really hurt your chances at highly selective schools, like those you have listed. If your high school program provided you the cyber option and you stopped on your own, despite the fact that they continued to offer foreign language through that medium, then you have added risk to your acceptance at many schools, but especially those that you listed because they have so many qualified applicants as it is.</p>
<p>If you plan to major in engineering, you may be able squeak by with 2 years, but each college has different criteria, and the closer you call it, the more risk you have of being put in the ‘other’ pile on the initial screen. The schools you listed are liberal arts colleges, and they do put more weight on foreign languages.</p>
<p>I would suggest you take a summer class and then also sign up for one more year of foreign language for your senior year to strengthen your chances. Your GPA and ACT are clearly in the ball park, don’t waste your chances by being short on some basic requirements.</p>
<p>Sonybd:That’s what I’ve been doing for my last few college visits. Interesting, the Vassar admissions officer thought that it would be a problem, but Amherst did not - I definitely will be asking that of other admissions officers.</p>
<p>No one in their right mind can possibly believe that cyber instruction for foreign languages is adequate for the typical beginning student. Yes, it can work more-or-less with extremely highly motivated students who have no other option whatsoever for language study, and it can work as a decent adjuct for classroom instruction, or as a brush-up for students who desire to recover previous language skills. But for a typical student, no. Just plain no.</p>
<p>biker77, ask your counselor to specifically address this issue in his letters to the colleges and universities that you are applying to. Your situation will become increasingly common as high schools around the country cut FL teachers in order to save money. The admissions offices need to know that this kind of thing is going on, so that they can begin to adjust their expectations.</p>