I am currently spending at least 2 hours per day studying Mandarin using a textbook series and language exchange partners, amongst other things. I also studied French for at least 300 hours or so Freshman/Sophomore year of high school, and I have spent quite a bit of time on Arabic and Korean, too. I can hold conversations and read intermediate texts in both Mandarin and French. But I have been told by many people that although languages are my passion and one of my biggest time commitments, it is not a good extracurricular since I have never taken an official class or program. If, to lend credence to my “EC”, I take the Chinese SAT II November of next year, senior year, and score very high on it, would languages then be able to be an incredible or unique part of my college application? There is nothing as interesting nor as fun to me as learning about a culture and speaking with someone in his or her native language. Not being able to have all of this time recognized just because it was not spent formally (a sport or college class) would be somewhat upsetting to me.
To a large extent, with regard to ECs I think that high school students need to do what they want to do, and what they care about, and not worry much about what “prestigious universities” think or are looking for.
Learning French and/or Mandarin and/or Spanish is a great thing to do. Being multi-lingual is something that you will find useful and/or interesting for the rest of your life. My wife is bilingual and has said that this has helped her get every job that she has ever had.
“There is nothing as interesting nor as fun to me as learning about a culture and speaking with someone in his or her native language.”
I was in the Loire Valley once on a business trip, with a free day to drive around the countryside. I visited a couple of castles. While driving around I saw a few signs “degustation”, meaning “tasting”. I stopped, and found myself in a kitchen of an ancient farmhouse, then in a cave, and then in some sort of slightly higher scale tasting room. In each case I was able to have interesting conversations with people who did not speak a word of English. I find in going to Montreal that as an American who is able to say one sentence in French I pretty much always find that people switch to English and give me better service because at least I tried.
I think that what you are doing is great. I think that Universities will appreciate that. Whether it will help you get into Harvard or Yale or MIT or Stanford I don’t know, I don’t care, and I don’t think that you should care either. Do what you want to do, do it well, and you will find a place that appreciates that and that is a good fit for you.
Meanwhile, also keep ahead of your homework, keep your grades up, and have some realistic goals. You might get some benefit from having test scores that demonstrate your ability in other languages. I am pretty sure that there is some test for French also, although I never took it.
^ “Do what you want to do, do it well, and you will find a place that appreciates that and that is a good fit for you.”
Sound advice.
The “best” ECs are the ones that you do for the love of them, without regard to how they look to colleges. Would you study languages even if you knew it wouldn’t look good to colleges, because “there is nothing as interesting nor as fun to me as learning about a culture and speaking with someone in his or her native language”, and that outweighs everything else? That sends a powerful message to colleges about who you are.
It’s even better if your ECs into your long term direction. Languages are tremendously useful skills that can be applied to a number of study areas, and they require long-term effort and discipline to master.
If I were you I’d continue full-bent with your language study, and make it the center piece of your application, which is your opportunity to present who you are as a person. There is no guarantee that you’ll get in to any particular school, but I bet it will be better received than pro forma participation in a lot of school clubs and standard activities that thousands of other kids do because they don’t know what else to do, or because they think it will “look good”. Even if it isn’t, you’ll have spent your time enriching your life and doing what interests you, instead of wasting it on things that don’t inspire you.
You might try to find opportunities to use your skills somehow more formally.
In your case, if languages are your passion, I think you could write a great essay about your interest. I would ask your recommender (maybe your FL teacher at school) to particularly mention your love of languages.
As far as using this as an EC, I can’t remember where I saw this, but there is definitely a website that enables to you to practice speaking other languages with senior citizens. So you want to practice your French, and there are senior citizens in France who will converse with you. Or you can help others learn English, etc… I wish I could remember what it’s called. Do some googling though, because I think that could be a way to beef up this passion as an EC.
Come apllication time, I think you should target colleges with particualrly strong foreign language departments.
Learning foreign languages isn’t really an EC, just a hobby. A real EC would be teaching English as a second language to native Chinese or French people. Another could be organizing an exchange program between students from the U.S. and China and France. Another could be a culture appreciation event at your school. Think beyond just learning stuff. That’s boring!
Is it possible to go to some type of language immersion program in the summer? Start a language club in your school?
I’d agree that learning a foreign language on your own is more of a hobby. And I say that because it is more of a passive activity – something you can do alone in your room. IMO an EC is about getting out in the world and doing things with others – be it a sport, community service, clubs, a job or anything else.
As others mentioned you can certainly talk about your passion for languages in your essay and highlight it that way and you can look for outlets where you can use your skills and turn them into an EC either by volunteer work, a club in your HS etc.
I agree that it is more of a hobby. EC’s seem to involve others: food bank, team sports, hospital volunteer, tutor, etc.
Why? You said you like it, so it shouldn’t matter that you’ve spent the time if you REALLY like it.