<p>Hey!
I was thinking about college admission process, especially Ivy League... Does it help if you know quite a few foreign languages? Do you have to demonstrate that on tests? Learning languages is easy for me. Latvian (mother tongue), Russian, English, French, some Italian and, since I'm only a sophomore, I would love to learn more, and I'm sure I will. If I did, would it help me?
Thanks! :)</p>
<p>I’m sure you could probably talk about it in an application essay.</p>
<p>As an interviewer, I’m always more interested in the story behind the language learning: What motivated you? What’s your personal history that lead to the multi-lingualism? What does speaking all those languages do for you? How has it helped you? Changed you? Speaking several languages is nice - but the ‘juice’ is in what lies behind it.</p>
<p>in general, I think it’s an advantage.</p>
<p>“As an interviewer, I’m always more interested in the story behind the language learning…”</p>
<p>I agree—that’s the interesting part. Whenever I watch the news on TV and some reporter interviews some “man on the street” in Kabul or Baghdad or Bengazi and the man speaks English, I find myself wondering how did he come to know English. This is because many of the persons interviewed often do not seem necessarily to have a high level of education, and possibly had limited exposure to English-speakers, yet they took it upon themselves to learn English. Where did they learn it? Formal classes or self-study? How did they go about it? Books? Tapes/CDs? Watching American TV and films? Voice of America? BBC? While their English is not always perfect, they understand and make themselves understood—such a contrast to us linguistically-challenged Americans.</p>
<p>I’m a polyglot myself and am a graduating senior, so I think I can help. Being multilingual is definitely an advantage, especially if you are truly fluent in the languages you mentioned (i.e. you are comfortable carrying on a long conversation, you can essentially read and understand anything in the language, etc.). Unfortunately the Ivies are so unpredictable in their admissions that multilingualism is not going to be a big boost in your admission chances at all. I scored 5s on the AP English Language, Chinese Language, French Language, and Spanish Language tests, and just got done taking the English Literature and German Language AP tests (I’m confident I have a solid chance of getting 5s on both as well). I also had a 750 on the SAT II Literature, 800s on SAT II French and Chinese with Listening, and a 790 on SAT II Spanish. My Common App essay was about a triggering experience I had while acquiring my first foreign language (French), and I’m assuming it was at least okay since it won a Silver Key in the Scholastic Writing Awards. And then I also did a lot of language-related ECs, such as being a Spanish T.A., proofreading, translation, etc. </p>
<p>I didn’t get into HYPSM - any of them. I didn’t get into UPenn either. Basically, I was flat-out rejected at all those schools and am currently waitlisted at Columbia. My objective academic stats were pretty solid (3.8 UW and 2350 SAT I), so I don’t think I was being totally unrealistic. I’m not trying to scare you, but this is just to give you an idea of how competitive Ivy League admissions are these days. Knowing many languages makes your app interesting for sure, but it can’t guarantee your acceptance, so don’t feel too bad if things don’t turn out the way you want. That said, I wish you all the best for next year! :)</p>
<p>My d speaks Spanish and French fluently, is understandable in Arabic and Hebrew and can read Latin. 4.8 W GPA, 4.0 unweighted, valedictorian of her IB class, 2300 SAT and didn’t get into Brown, Columbia or UPenn. She is also a state ranked volleyball player and started a club to raise money for the Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation. There is no accounting for who does or does not get into the Ivies. She had wonderful choices who did want her and she will be going, happily, to UVA as an Echols Scholar.</p>
<p>If you really speak 3+ languages fluently, you have something infinitely more valuable than an elite school name on a resume. I sincerely congratulate you and hope you broaden your horizons with that knowledge. Also, keep exploring - non-European languages will be an entirely new experience in terms of cultural and literary knowledge.</p>
<p>Dang, I’m struggling with learning french, which would be my 3rd. Knowing 5 definitely sounds impressive to me!</p>
<p>@ pam-d: I am absolutely shocked that your daughter didn’t get into any of those 3 schools! I’m so glad she’s happy with UVA though. Wishing her all the best! As for me, I’m going to try to get off Columbia’s waitlist because Berkeley is very expensive for my family and we really need financial aid.</p>
<p>@ lullinatalk and NuclearPenguins: Who are you referring to, me or pam-d’s daughter? She’s really impressive herself…</p>
<p>^ The OP, but you two too. Don’t worry if you don’t get into Columbia (I was rejected too!) because hell, you speak 5 languages and can make 250k a year just translating stuff.</p>
<p>Here’s the funny thing - everyone who’s given me career advice has urged me not to take the translation route because apparently translators don’t make much money. According to them, languages are a useful tool, but it would be best to combine them with some kind of technical knowledge. So right now I’m totally lost as to what my major in college will be. I’m not bad at math and LOVE physics, but I strongly dislike biology and chemistry. I probably won’t be a pure math/science major and medical school is totally out of the question for me, given my hatred of the life sciences.</p>
<p>And wanting to get into Columbia is more for the financial aid than for anything else. Lord knows my family can’t pay $50K in tuition a year (I’m a Canadian citizen and thus an international student), especially since they also have my younger sister to worry about.</p>
<p>Didn’t mean to sound whiny (it does, on retrospect). My daughter is perfectly happy with the choices she had and wasn’t sure she could afford to go even if accepted. I really just meant that the Ivies are such a crapshoot that it is impossible to determine what they are looking for each year.</p>