<p>How important is it to go through 4+ years of a foreign language in high school if my focus is physics and math?</p>
<p>I dropped French sophomore year. I've completed up to French 3. No French 4-- I hated the course and thought it wasn't important. After all, colleges wouldn't want me to take courses I hate, would they? Instead, I've pursued physics, math, and other things that interest me. </p>
<p>Thanks for any info/ advice.</p>
<p>Usually, colleges require 2 & recommend 3, so I don’t think a 4th year is that important. You should check the requirements for each college you’re applying to, though.</p>
<p>There are some schools that recommend 4yr. If you don’t want to take French 4, it is okay for most schools. It may be important for a small number of schools when your other credential is on the border line. Otherwise, it should be fine.</p>
<p>Some colleges will require proficiency in a foreign language. Depending on the school, 4 years at the high school level may work, or they may require you to take a placement test to demonstrate proficiency or receive AP test scores of 4 or 5-otherwise you may have to take a foreign language at the college level for a year. It depends on the college. As a physics or math major, you might have to meet such requirements in order to graduate- less likely if an engineering major. The benefit to taking foreign language in high school is that it will generally be easier than a college level course since spread over 4 years and since class meets daily; and, it frees up space to take other courses/electives in college.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think going through 3rd year language is sufficient.</p>
<p>it depends what schools you’re aiming for. Whether you hate a class or not is not a concern for admissions - colleges actually want you to take a class you’ll hate and do well in it since it shows persistence (you’ll have quite a few classes that are hard and which you don’t like, in college). Reaching a 3rd level and no higher won’t penalize you for universities and LACs ranked 50+, however for universities and LACs ranked 1-50 it will penalize you and you’ll need to have something pretty good to offset that - for instance, doubling up in sciences one year. In addition, if you’re applying to some tech schools (RIT, CMU…) foreign language won’t count as much - not MIT, Harvey Mudd, etc, though.</p>
<p>But this OP (is that what you guys call it) only completed two years of high school French - although his second year was French 3. Many colleges want actual years of foreign language – we learned this with our D who was applying to colleges that required 3 but recommended 4 years. She had already taken Spanish 1-3 and AP Spanish as a junior (with a 5 on the AP Span exam and a 780 on the SAT subject test in Spanish). Despite that, three of the schools she emailed still recommended that she take a 4th year of Spanish, so she took AP Span Lit this year (killer of a class, ugh!) I would recommend that this OP really take a serious look at the colleges that he or she might be interested in and ask the hard questions – how many years of foreign language do your typical applicants take??</p>
<p>Not to disagree with @Momof2back2back, but I’m going to disagree slightly. Certainly ask the question of the colleges to which you are considering. That said, colleges will not hold it against the applicant if the school does not offer classes past AP Language, which most don’t, and I’m including AP Spanish Lit in that group. If a student took AP French as a junior, there is really no expectation from colleges that s/he take a language as a senior.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Which colleges? What would they say if there were no more Spanish courses at the high school, and more advanced college Spanish courses were too difficult to schedule while still in high school?</p>
<p>In any case, there may be foreign language graduation requirements that are higher than admission requirements. I.e. a college may admit a student with high school French 3 as the highest level, but require a higher level of proficiency than typical high school French 3 to graduate.</p>
<p>Note also that math PhD programs often require a reading knowledge of French, German, or Russian, as math research papers may be found in those languages.</p>
<p>I’d like to clarify. Although I’ll apply to a lot of colleges, for the sake of this question I’d like you to assume I’m applying to HYPSM next fall.</p>
<p>My goal with Foreign Languages is to do the minimum to 1) not be at a disadvantage compared with the rest of the applicant pool and 2) not have to take a FL in college</p>
<p>@Momof2back2back I’ve taken 2 years in high school (French 2+3) and, at my school, French 1 is a course spread out over 7th and 8th grade. </p>
<p>@skieurope I’ve asked only MIT, who say they have no foreign language requirement. However, I don’t know if their typical applicants have 4 years of FL. I could ask. </p>
<p>Also, there’s a possibility that French 4 won’t fit in next year’s schedule. If so, problem solved, no French 4 for me. However, I have skipped out on French this year and instead I have 3.5 study halls. Maybe I should’ve taken French, but I really hated it. And I don’t think colleges will see that I could’ve fit French into my schedule this year. </p>
<p>{quote] for the sake of this question I’d like you to assume I’m applying to HYPSM next fall.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, that’s a game changer. With such low acceptance rates, I’d posit that 3 years vs.4 will not make a difference, The strength of the rest of your application and the quality of your essays will determine if you are accepted or rejected. Nobody here will be able to determine that.</p>
<p>Okay, that’s what I wanted to know. </p>
<p>3 vs 4 years will not make a difference. </p>
<p>Although I don’t think 3yr vs 4yr foreign language will be a determining factor at all, I do think one would make the application as strong as possible for any competitive schools even if it may increase the chance only by a hair. Making the application stronger does not necessarily mean taking another year of foreign language as recommended, but to put your class schedule together wisely. For your intended major, taking an advanced level math class may mean more than French 4 particularly when you have no interest in the latter.</p>
<p>@billcsho, so if it comes to choosing between a math/science course and French 4, take the former. But try to take both? </p>
<p>I think I have already answered your question. Try to make your application as strong as possible is the key.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>3.5 study halls would not look like a “most demanding/rigorous” selection of high school courses that highly selective colleges like to see.</p>
<p>For foreign language graduation requirements, you can look on college web sites. For example (using schools you listed):
<a href=“http://handbook.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k95151&pageid=icb.page584293#a_icb_pagecontent1262246_2”>http://handbook.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k95151&pageid=icb.page584293#a_icb_pagecontent1262246_2</a>
<a href=“http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/foreign-language-requirement”>http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/foreign-language-requirement</a>
<a href=“http://odoc.princeton.edu/curriculum/general-education-requirements#FLR”>http://odoc.princeton.edu/curriculum/general-education-requirements#FLR</a>
<a href=“https://www.stanford.edu/dept/lc/language/requirement/”>https://www.stanford.edu/dept/lc/language/requirement/</a></p>
<p>I wanted to kick myself when I took German 2 in college after skipping German 4 my senior year of high school. I was completely lost and my professor kept publicly accusing me of not doing the homework because I seemed so stupid in class. I really should have started all over again.</p>
<p>3.5 study halls rather than foreign language when that was a choice may get you “cut” right there at schools as selective as HYPSM. If you don’t take AP foreign language, you could take the SAT subject test and try to score 640-700’s to demonstrate proficiency, while doubling up on STEM subjects senior year, but those 3.5 study halls junior year will hurt you anyway.
To give you an idea, the Princeton requirement equals 1 semester post AP5, same thing at Yale (or 2 semesters if you took the AP class but didn’t score a 5), AP 5 is sufficient for Harvard (no extra class), and Stanford has lower requirements that you can demonstrate with an SAT Subject test. All of Princeton, Yale, and Harvard assume you went up to AP level. However, if you didn’t, there are pathways but those would be very time-consuming. MIT doesn’t have a language requirement although they do have a near-open curriculum with very broad distribution requirements (you can probably take philosophy or linguistics rather than foreign language).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call MIT an open curriculum school. See its General Institute Requirements:
<a href=“Welcome! < MIT”>Welcome! < MIT;
<p>At least 8 humanities, arts, and social studies (HASS) courses are required, including one each in H, A, and SS and a 3-4 course concentration in an area within these fields. Foreign language and literature is an option here, but not required.</p>
<p>Yes that’s what I meant by near-open: they require a certain number of courses, but they don’t prescribe the courses nor the departments. URochester, which is considered to have a real “open curriculum” functions much in the same way (“primary writing” + “2 clusters” would be very similar to the HASS requirements.
<a href=“About - University of Rochester”>http://www.rochester.edu/aboutus/curricula.html</a> )</p>