<p>Yes, school systems/GC’s need to clarify the middle school language start vs four years 9th-12 of FL. It is needlessly confusing.</p>
<p>My D did 2 years of Spanish in MS (7th, 8th counting as one), then 9th, 10th and 11th and ended at Spanish 4. She talked a lot about doing AP Spanish, but really wanted to switch to the newly offered AP Micro/Macroeconomics, where her interest is. The down side is she’ll have to meet the college language requirement now, but this can be done.</p>
<p>For what it is worth, my father came one course short of his masters at Columbia University thirty plus years ago: he couldn’t complete the language requirement. He just couldn’t get the writing enough, and had lots of mouths to feed in addition which drew his attention. Who knows, maybe my D will pick up where he let off…oh to be so privileged, yes?</p>
<p>School systems vary in their offerings. They also vary in the competitive makeup of the students.</p>
<p>Like other who have posted, our system counts the middle school language years as the first year of a language. 9th grade is the 2nd year.</p>
<p>In our highly competitive school district, one child I know, who had taken an AP language in 11th grade, in a language that offered 2AP’s, suggested to his GC that he would rather not take the 2nd AP in senior year, and would rather take a different AP. GC STRONGLY suggested that the student stay with the language because it is what the top schools would want from a kid at our school with his stats. (Kid stayed with the language and did get in EA to one of HYPMS…if those are the top schools the OP is referencing.)</p>
<p>My son is debating whether or not to take ap spanish next year as a junior. He is currently in spanish 4 as a sophomore (having taking high school spanish 1 and 2 in middle school and spanish 3 as a freshman). There are many kids in his class at the same level as him, most have had enough of FL and will drop it next year.</p>
<p>Our school counsels through at least language 4 for all college bound students with the first year in middle school the kids are technically through level 4 at the end of junior year. Some take the AP senior year, others opt to stop after junior year. My humanity loving older 2 took two languages both only through 4 (one language grade 8-11 and one grades 9-12) and my youngest will take only 1 but go through AP senior year. Middle school grades and classes are not on the transcript. Language is indicated for example as French 2, French 3, French 4 etc. so it is quite obvious that the example of French 1 was completed prior to high school 9th grade.</p>
<p>If you read my post, you would see that what counts is not the number of years but the level. Your child got to French 3, not French 4. That is what colleges notice.</p>
<p>^^ Like Seiclan and others my current HS Freshman is in Spanish III. Her school’s next level is AP Spanish, she has already stated if they dont offer Spanish IV her Sophomore year she is done.</p>
<p>She’s seen quite a lot of kids not doing well in AP Spanish even native speakers and I think this has scared her.</p>
<p>I however told her, that her job is to start looking at schools she may be interested in and research what their requirement for FL is.</p>
<p>I’d like to bite. Going past AP will take the student beyond rote memorization, exercises in grammar and writing skills, etc. to a class where students can focus on other factors including but not limited to culture in the [insert language here]-speaking world, literature, history of the language, and so forth. Most important, the opportunity to practice communication without the constraints associated with AP standards (in other words, learning the language as it’s truly used rather than how it’s viewed by the College Board.) I suppose that’s only relevant, however, if the student is interested in the language. Unless the student is looking for a GPA boost often associated with upper-level FL courses and the course is an easy A, better to stay out after AP if there’s no interest in the language.</p>
How are the levels being evaluated? For example, if my child takes French in 7th grade. Then she does not take it in 8th (because her school doesn’t offer it in 8th grade. They learn French and Spanish alternately.) In 8th grade, we get her a tutor and she learns it privately at home with the tutor. In HS there’s french being offered but because she has been tutored so she tested out freshman French and learns 2nd year French. and so on. So by the time she is a junior, she has taken 2 years of French (7th Grade, Sophomore, and Junior) with school yet her level is higher than those who take 3 years.
How does she show her real French level? Is there a way to test? Or by taking SATII or AP French, the colleges can see it?</p>
<p>I don’t know whether there is a good way to test. But our school administers a placement test into 9th grade.</p>
<p>My son, like his classmates, took Spanish for two years before going to high school. In fact, because of scheduling issues, he missed one hour out of four per week during 8th grade. Yet, when the class was tested for placement into the appropriate level in high school, the majority of the class were placed either in Spanish 1 or 2. Only my son and another student were recommended for Spanish 3 (the other student chickened out and took Spanish 2).
Because of scheduling conflict, my son did not take Spanish again until junior year, so he reached level 4 by the time he graduated. By the end of junior year, my son indeed had four years of Spanish AND had completed Spanish 4. But his former classmates spent more years learning Spanish; yet because they started all over again in Spanish 1 in 9th grade, they reached Spanish 3 in junior year, 5 years after beginning Spanish.</p>
<p>Colleges are not interested in pants-in-seat time. They’re interested in the level one has reached in a particular field.</p>
<p>Agree with Marite, the colleges look at the level of language. It’s pretty clear from a transcript what language levels have been completed. HerandhisMom, get a copy of the transcript and see how it “looks.” My guess is your school probably lists it like most schools: French I, French II, French III, French IV, AP French and so on. Just look at the transcript and it should answer your question. If you don’t want to bother the school for a transcript just look at the “course name” on her schedule for the most recent French class taken. It’s generally pretty straightforward. Most likely she took French II or French III depending on where she was placed as a sophomore and then French III or French IV as a junior (from what you are saying that she’s a level ahead of the kids that took French I, French II, French III as Freshman, Sophomore, Junior sounds like she took French IV) but just look at the name of the class or how it is named on her transcript.</p>
<p>marite, I would think that the schools would notice that he completed French 3 as well but his guidance advisor at school said that the colleges would only see the years taken in HS. I tend to think that colleges might not look so closely at a HS transcript to see where a student left off Fr. 2 or Fr. 3. </p>
<p>I will have to call a few to see what they say, do they actually take the time to review each class on the transcript or do they just look at a list of completion and see 2 years of language completed.</p>
<p>As I said, the number of years do not matter. It’s the level. Your son completed French 3, not French 4.
Although the recommended level is four years, i.e., French 4, it’s a recommendation, not a requirement, so take it as you wish. But if I were an adcom, I could not care less how many years your student took to complete French 3, whether starting in kindergarten or in 9th grade.</p>
<p>I don’t think it matter whether you have French 3 or 4 or AP, or nothing at all, on your high school transcript as long as you have a good standardized test score. If you can show 700 or so on SAT subject test, or a 4 or 5 for AP, why should the college care about anything else?</p>
<p>After all in college, placement or exemption is only based on SAT or AP or departmental placement test results. That shows how much credibility they give to high school course grades.</p>
<p>I agree with this, but I do not think many students take the SAT-FL or the AP test in FL. Many are intimidated by the native speakers. So, at the time of application, most students will only have their transcripts, which will record both level (not total number of years unless the high school includes middle school classes) and grades.
S tested out of FL requirement with Latin 3 but not with Spanish 4. He did pretty well with French, too, despite never having taken French (I gave up trying to teach him when he was 4 and I could not stand his American pronunciation).</p>
<p>agree with marite on the levels. Any Junior kids in AP should consider the subject test this spring, or at least ask your AP teacher how kids usually fare. While the subject tests are difficult for non-native speakers, strong AP kids usually do well, at least on my readings on cc.</p>
<p>bt: senior parents should plan on having their kid take the Subject Test in spring if the kid’s chosen college has a FL requirement. Some colleges will allow a score as low as 550/600 to pass out of it’s FL requirement – not earn course credit, but just ‘fulfill’ the requirement.</p>
<p>“Many are intimidated by the native speakers” </p>
<p>There seems to be no discerning of native-speaking students’ progressing in the system, giving a natural edge over non-native. Many higher level (year 4 and AP) FL classes are taught by native language teachers. I often hear from SASL students that they can’t understand the teacher or the conversation between teacher and native speakers. My own D did not take AP Spanish, even though she was strong grade wise 1-4, due to the class reputation on this issue (although she wanted to take a different AP class too).</p>
<p>All children/teens have differing cognitive aptitude for languages. Everyone knows this. For me, it is more important to repeat a Spanish 1 or II class and have the basics down before going on to immersion reading which draws so much on vocab, grammar, syntax etc. Switching schools can shake languages up too, and not having a placement exam certainly can result in a leap of faith based on presumption of language comprehension with a not so great outcome. Clearly these points need to be worked out if possible.</p>
<p>Colleges may seek four years sequentially, but the reality of truly learning the language with good basics seems to be a much better goal in FL fluency. Slow and steady is necessary at times.</p>
<p>I have read repeatedly that the curve for Spanish and Chinese is brutal because many of the students who take the SAT in those languages are native speakers.
I don’t know about slow and steady. My S’s Spanish teacher (a native Spanish speaker) thought he was ready for Spanish 3, and his performance in that class bore this out–as did his performance in Spanish 4, despite one year hiatus.</p>
<p>My son took German 4 as a senior only after a great deal of pressure from his father and me. He complained bitterly about it. He was admitted and attends a highly ranked LAC. He took the German placement exam and didn’t do all that well. He was then pleasantly suprised when he discovered that he was not going to have to take any FL in college because he had taken 4 years from grades 9 to 12. All of a sudden he was very happy that he had taken that last semester of German. FL taken in middle school would not have counted at this school. I will always encourage students to take that 4th year.</p>