<p>My S has picked W&M over U of S Carolina Honors College. He scored a 5 on his AP French, and an 800 on the French SAT II, and is very fluent in the language. One thing that initially attracted him to USC was the willingness of the French Dept to give him a customized placement test. Just based on is conversation in French with the Dept head during a visit last year, S was told that he would probably get a one on one placement test, and maybe be placed into Junior level classes.</p>
<p>Is there any hope of that at W&M? When I was a student there 25 years ago, flexibility and willingness to work with students on customizing their major was unheard of. I am concerned that he will be placed in French 201 because that's "just the rules."</p>
<p>He hopes to perhaps double major in Computer Science and French, minor in Arabic, and alos take a lot of math. His eventual goal is to work as a crytographer of foreign language person for the NSA.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that he'll be exempt from French 202 and will be allowed to take any of the higher level classes. At W&M all you need is 4 years of a foreign language in high school to be exempt from the 202 level. Since your son scored a 5 on the AP test I assume he has taken 4 years but even not I believe the AP test secures the exemption. It will be no problem getting into the higher-level French courses. If all else fails he can just talk to someone in the department and get instructor approval to go to the class.</p>
<p>I just looked in the course catalog and depending on which French test he took (Language or Literature) he gets credit for French 206 or 210 automatically meaning he won't be stuck in any of the language learning classes.</p>
<p>Cool, he took the French language exam. He had the equivalent of six years of French in HS because of block scheduling. He took French 1-4, plus AP French and Avanced Conversation.</p>
<p>yea... 4/5 years in high school puts you past 202, which is 4th semester, of any language. The AP test will get him credit, and then he will be ready to go into the "junior level" classes, if that's what you want to call them. If you figure 101/102 and 201/202 for fresh/soph year, then everything after that is "junior level" or higher, even if they are 200 level.</p>