<p>Article by Justin Pope:</p>
<p>Language</a> study surges on college campuses -- chicagotribune.com</p>
<p>Interesting. I know I have heard lately of more than one student studying or planning to study business AND mandarin.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. Forwarded to S, who is taking one additional language for sure and considering another as a minor.</p>
<p>Sadly, Russian is my son's foreign language, and it is being squeezed out by Arabic and Mandarin. The kid is out of date, I guess.</p>
<p>Some families are getting an even earlier start...</p>
<p>
[quote]
Driving the need more aggressively is the desire among ambitious parents to ensure their children’s worldliness, as such parents assume that China’s expanding influence will make Mandarin the sophisticates’ language decades hence. </p>
<p>“Our clientele is middle and upper middle class,” said William L. Gertz, chairman of the American Institute for Foreign Study, which oversees Au Pair in America. “They see something really happening, and they don’t want to be left behind.”</p>
<p>The last two years have seen an astonishing increase in the number of American parents wishing to employ Mandarin-speaking nannies, difficult to find here and even harder to obtain from China. </p>
<p>Au Pair in America, the 20-year-old agency that sponsored the two young women in Connecticut, had received no requests for Chinese au pairs until 2004, said Ruth Ferry, the program director.</p>
<p>Since then, it has had 1,400.</p>
<p>The agency said it expected to bring 200 more au pairs to this country before the end of 2007, and other companies in the business are beginning to recruit in China, all taking advantage of relaxed standards for cultural-exchange visas for Chinese.
[/quote]
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<p>Do you think this makes it easier or harder for a candidate to gain entry this year to undergrad collleges? Someone in my circle is expressing interest in Arabic as her major, and wants to become a translator. Should she emphasize this on her apps, since obviously majors can change. She chose her list based on where the programmatic offerings were strong in Arabic.</p>
<p>Put differently, is the student demand ahead of the supply?</p>
<p>I have a d who just started taking Russian (she's a freshman). At the last minute, she decided that she didn't want to continue with Spanish (she had four years in high school) and wanted to try something new. My family is of Slavic ancestry, so she figured she'd try Russia. So far, so good. So far, she enjoys it and is considering going to Russia for study abroad. I took Russian in high school (late 60s/early 70s); at that time, it was offered in numerous high schools. Today (without the impetus of the Cold War) it's not offered as much at the high school level. Don't know if that's the same at most of the LACs today.</p>
<p>^^re Russian: even here in midwest college town, our high schools do not offer Russian. My son went over to the public flagship university to take it while in high school. Even there, it is part of the German dept, and that is true at the well-known private university which he now attends.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my 10th grade daughter, who would like to start taking Russian (same tactic as brother), was looking into a small private LAC last night and discovered that they do offer Russian.</p>
<p>Did you know MIT does not offer Russian? Perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised to discover that, but I was.</p>
<p>Interesting update article in Inside Higher Ed:</p>
<p>"Hype vs. Reality in Arabic Enrollment Boom"</p>