Okay, so I heard on here, contrary to my parents’ opinions, that levels of a language are what count for years rather than actual years.
My school only offers one language that I took level one and two of freshman and sophomore year. During sophomore year I found a language that I’m more passionate about and plan on continuing to learn in college. I’m taking that language junior year and this year.
That makes four total years of taking a foreign language, but only up to level 2 for both of the languages I’ve taken. How bad does that look?
Depends upon which schools you are targeting. If they state 3-4 years of FL are recommended or worse required, you do not meet that requirement since it needs to be the same language up to level 3 or 4.
I honestly would not worry about it. My son took two and I am not the least bit worried. Take classes you enjoy. If they don’t accept you its their loss and was not meant to be.
Agree with @Gumbymom. Check your target schools requirements. If you don’t want to take a high level of language, you can also adjust your list. No need to waste money applying to schools where you don’t meet the minimum requirements.
It depends on the schools you want to attend. You can look up the common data set for any school you are considering applying to (google “common data set XYZ college”) and look at section C. It will give you information about the required/recommended classes for each college. It is the level you attain that is important so you will be considered to have 2 years of foreign language if you take 2 languages for 2 years each.
Keep in mind that if you are looking at top tier colleges the acceptance rates are quite low and many many applicants would have met all of the required and recommended coursework.
Thank you for the responses, and a big oof on my part. Anyway, I have a follow up question: Why is foreign language measured through level taken and not number of years taken like other classes are?
It’s just like math, sequential, unlike history or science which is “blocks” (us history, world history…)
So, when colleges say 4 years of math they don’t mean business math, statistics, remedial math, and algebra1. They mean algebra1 and 2, geometry, precalculus - because it is sequential. It’s not the number of “blocks” but how far in the sequence you got.
It is measured that way because: 1) colleges are looking for students to get a certain level of fluency in a foreign language and 2) from an academic standpoint the study of a foreign language gets more complex/involved as a student goes up in level – in an extreme example, taking one introductory year of four different languages would not amount to the same degree of difficulty academically as following through with one foreign language sequence to complete level 4.
Top colleges will look for a math sequence that leads to calculus (or at a minimum pre-calc) and in science they typically look for students to complete coursework in bio, chem, and physics.