@GoatMama et al., If the CC linguistics club ever happens, I want to “listen in.” If I had had the sense when I was young to follow my natural abilities, I might be a linguist, too. Anyway, I still love to wonder about language/mind questions, and I must confess to being pleased yesterday when my daughter started talking about the languages she would like to learn next.
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@CaliMex, here is one SPS “con” for you: 
although the school offers 2 classical (Greek and Latin) and 5 modern languages (Japanese, Chinese, German, French, and Spanish, all with study abroad options), it doesn’t offer Russian or Arabic.
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However, many BS students enter with enough knowledge of Spanish, French or Latin to enter the third year of a language. So it’s quite common to see a student study, say, Spanish 3 & 4, leading to four years of study of the same foreign language, although not all of those years were during high school.
Likewise, a student might, say, finish up four years of Latin in sophomore year, start Classical Greek in junior year, and then continue studying both languages as a Classics major in college.
Particularly in boarding school, students come from many different school systems. A student entering from a European system might be particularly strong in French, for example, able to start as a freshman at an advanced level, whereas a student entering from a US state that does not prioritize foreign language training might have had three years of French, but be best served entering French 2.
And then there are high schools that do not offer four years of a language. This is a public school problem, usually, although some languages, for example Greek, might only be offered to the second level, for students who have a firm basis in Latin. I do believe colleges when they state that they consider students’ transcripts “in context.”
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Agreed, although the person asking the question did not state whether or not that is the case. Even if it were starting at level one for each language, 3+1 would not be a death knell for those colleges; like you said, it’s all in context.
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I covered this on another thread. These “flavor-of-the-year” languages tend to go in and out of fashion. Pity the poor student who started the sequence only to have the program yanked halfway through. Russian and Japanese were far more commonly taught (although hardly ubiquitous) a generation ago; few schools offer them now. Even the schools that offered Arabic post-9/11 soon discontinued them due to lack of interest.
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Ask at revisits. Schools do change their language offerings from time to time. Northfield Mount Hermon offered Russian not long ago, but does not now.
Sometimes a school will phase out languages gradually, while allowing their current students to complete their language career. If you see a school offering second year Arabic, for example, it would be logical to ask if the school is discontinuing that language.
Even then, however, I would not worry about college admissions consequences. I would make certain the school counselor’s report detailed that the applicant’s Russian career was curtailed because the school dropped the language after sophomore year. Again, admissions officers look at work “in context.” I suppose the applicant interested in Russian could demonstrate a continuing interest in the language through summer work.
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If a student has three years of Latin and two years of Greek, since both of these languages are in the Classics department, would this count for the four years of the foreign language requirement that so many of the top schools “strongly recommend” ?
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I’d recommend asking the college placement office at the boarding school. They would know all the details. If a student completes a certain level of Latin and Greek, some schools award a “Classics Diploma.”
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Check with the college(s) in question to confirm, Since the recommendations are for a single foreign language, generally it would count as whatever the highest level completed was. So, Latin 3 & Greek 2 would be 3 years, while Latin 4 (even if only 3 years were taken in HS) & Greek 2 would be 4 years.
Having said that, one should view a college’s suggested HS preparation as a guideline, not a checklist. Colleges will view an applicant’s courseload in context. Note that many boarding schools have requirements for art/music/PE/philosophy and many on a trimester schedule limit students to 5 courses per term. As a result, it is physically impossible for some students to meet a college’s suggestion without going into course overload or taking summer classes, both of which have its own disadvantages.
So bottom line, a 3+2 Latin/Greek option is fine, IMO as long as the total 4 year schedule is relative well-balanced.
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Growing up a gazillion years ago, my K-9 private school required 3 years of Latin (5th-7th grades). It was not considered a “Foreign Language”, just a subject to which they felt every student should be exposed. French or Spanish started in 7th grade.
Both of my kids have taken French since elementary school, which IMHO is the time to start learning a modern/spoken language. Those early years were conversation & culture-based, with grammar and writing coming much later. Although they love French, I truly wish that they had been able to study Latin simultaneously, at least for a couple of years.
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@GMC2918 that was my kids private school. Spanish starting from day 1 - a few times a week through 5th grade. MS was Spanish 5 days a week (immersion) and Latin 2x/week.
DS1 ended up taking about 3 years of HS Spanish at his BS but it was through the 500 level. He is getting into some top colleges.
DS2 is deciding between Latin 2 or Spanish 2 for 10th grade.
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I loved Latin and took 4 years in high school, and the equivalent of 5 years of French. I also took one semester of Greek in college and one semester of Polish. However…
For those interested, for college students, there is a fully funded, Critical Language Scholarship administered by the State Department. From their website. <>
Here are the languages:
Select Your Language
Choose… Arabic Azerbaijani Bangla Chinese Hindi Indonesian Japanese Korean Persian Punjabi Russian Swahili Turkish Urdu Beginning, advanced beginning, intermediate and advanced levels;
•Arabic and Persian: Advanced beginning, intermediate and advanced levels;
•Chinese, Japanese, and Russian: Intermediate and advanced levels.
These are the languages the State Department is identifying as ‘critical languages’ and offer pretty robust scholarship opportunities for undergrads and graduate students. My DD was chosen as an ‘alternate’ this year for Chinese Program in Taiwan. Fingers crossed.
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@preppedparent
Interesting to see Punjabi on that list as it often referred to as a dialect of Hindi… In fact you are are fluent in Hindi, you can get the gist of a Punjabi conversation…
How are these ‘critical foreign languages’ identified?
EDIT: According to CLS, Punjabi is a critical language due to its widespread use in India, which they identify as one of the fastest growing economies… Hmm, interesting regardless :)…
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How are these ‘critical foreign languages’ identified?
@Atria. Not exactly sure but all the information regarding the scholarship is on the Critical Language Scholarship home pages in all media. My guess is that the State Department sees a working knowledge of these languages critical to national security now and in the foreseeable future.
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They are of critical importance to the state department. Because they need translators they can trust.
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Very much national security driven, which is pretty obvious looking at the list of targeted languages.
CLS is geared towards college students: http://clscholarship.org
National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) is geared towards high school students and encompasses a shorter list of Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Russian and Turkish : http://www.nsliforyouth.org
Both programs are merit based, fully funded grants. Hopefully, funding won’t be affected by the new administrations budget cuts. There’s been talk that these programs would be affected.
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As a supporting aside, the military academy pretty much slots cadets into those national-security-driven languages. ChoatieCorporal has been “forced” into Russian, but he’s actually liking it, so all is good, but cadets don’t take languages just for the love of a language.
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Just out of curiosity, @ChoatieMom, does your son have any idea how they decide to slot each cadet? Is it at all based on physical appearance, like, “hey, ChoatieKid could pass for a russian!”?
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FWIW, the State Department list of critical languages changes periodically as the intelligence need change. Many moons ago, I applied for a position with one such language, went through several testing stages, and when I finally interviewed for it about 6 months into the process, I found they’re interviewing me for another language! The original one wasn’t “critical” anymore. When I asked the interviewer for clarification, he was indignant, “Why would we be interested in X language?! They are our friends!” Well they obviously weren’t last year!..
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@doschicos, I’m really not sure what the process is. He was given a “choice” of two languages and decided Russian would be the least onerous, so he wasn’t exactly voluntold to take Russian, but the list of languages is definitely strategic and based on the Army’s needs. If I find out what the actual process is, I’ll report back.
I do know that the cadets undergo a Myers-Briggs-like battery of testing after they complete basic training and before the Plebe academic year starts. The Army determines each cadet’s aptitudes and abilities and relies heavily on those initial metrics to help them “choose” their majors freshman year and start thinking about which branches they might want to commission (i.e., where the Army wants to use them). It’s been kinda funny to watch our kid slowly turn from his initial pre-academy desire to what those tests indicated he’d be best at. The tests were spot on, but the Army and I have held our tongues and let him think he’s coming to these conclusions on his own. (So happy he’s no longer pursuing combat arms.)
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