<p>Can you all help with a disagreement in our district about language requirements?</p>
<p>Most students, because they have taken their preferred language in middle school, start as a freshman is level 2 or 3. Some counselors are advising students that as long as they have gotten to level 3 or in some cases 4, they have satisfied the requirement for most colleges who say they want to see three years of language. (Thus, a kid could stop after freshman or sophomore year.) Other counselors are saying that it's three <strong>years</strong> of language at the high school level that is important, so even if a kid starts freshman year in, say, French 3, he needs to take French 3, French 4 and French 5 or AP French in order to satisfy college requirements.</p>
<p>Yes, I know that recommendations should be standard across the board, but that's a whole other story!</p>
<p>How do you all interpret the language requirement for most colleges who have them?</p>
<p>I think most colleges mean Level 3 of the language, but my youngest despite very mediocre grades did do Level 4 of Latin just in case some colleges saw it differently. The B the teacher gave him was a gift. I think he did get some brownie points from the colleges for soldiering on at something he clearly wasn’t very good at, that college admissions committees think is difficult. </p>
<p>FWIW, I think languages are important enough that kids should be encouraged to take them all four years. Unless there are very good reasons not to.</p>
<p>If you are not sure, contact the colleges. Both of my kids took Spanish in middle school. They completed honors Spanish 4 in 10th grade. Neither took a foreign language in 11th or 12th grade. Both colleges they attended required 3 years of high school foreign language (Boston University and Santa Clara University). It was not a problem.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I would agree with you about language study IF the high school courses of study were decent. Ours were not. DD took one term of Spanish in college to satisfy her requirement, and said she learned MORE in that one term than in grades 3-10 total.</p>
<p>Thanks. My D is also in Spanish 4 honors as a sophomore and very interested in languages. She has the choice of not continuing with Spanish and picking up another language (she is also taking Latin), or continuing with Spanish into 5H and AP and continuing with Latin, and not picking up the third language. She would like to get a little exposure to a third language and her counselor is telling her that it’s fine to stop with Spanish 4, but her friend who is in same class and same situation is getting opposite advice. </p>
<p>Hard to contact schools at this early stage as we have no idea what schools we are talking about yet!! However, here’s what one school says on their website:</p>
<p>Foreign language: a minimum of 2 full-year courses of one foreign language</p>
<p>If you are a California resident, note that California publics effectively look for level of proficiency achieved in foreign language, since they say that a higher level of high school foreign language validates the lower levels, and that a sufficiently high score on an AP or SAT subject test in a foreign language, or passing a sufficiently high level college foreign language placement test, or high school attendance where the main language used is not English counts to fulfilling the requirements.</p>
<p>You might want to at least start with your state universities, and other common destinations for students at your high school, if the student does not otherwise indicate any interest in specific schools, or specialty academic programs or majors that point toward specific schools.</p>
<p>The conflicting advice might be a function of conflicting goals. Most public high school students will end up attending an in-state public, so the gc’s should be well informed about what the state public is looking for. </p>
<p>But private colleges may have different requirements, and in general the elite privates like to see a high school curriculum that shows continual growth and challenge. They often will state their admission requirement in terms of what is “required” vs. “recommended” – and basically to be competitive for admissions at those colleges, a student is well advised to go with the “recommended” route and then some.</p>
<p>But it depends on the student and what is available in the curriculum. So the question may come down to: if the student has opted not to continue with a given language, what courses is the student taking instead? </p>
<p>As to your daughter: if she is interested in languages and wants to continue to study languages in college – then I think it would help her if her high school record demonstrates that. I’d suggest that you focus on quality of instruction available at your school rather than what colleges are looking for. My son had 4 years of high school French, but at his high school the 3rd and 4th years were taught in a combined classroom, and the teacher really wasn’t able to differentiate instruction that much. So the 4th year was a waste- in hindsight perhaps my son would have been better off to take the art class he was looking at instead. </p>
<p>Thanks again. BTW, what I posted above came from the Northwestern website - so even a selective school isn’t always clear! The instruction at our school is very good for all classes I think and the higher levels of Spanish are not compromised in any way like your French example. It’s just that there is no room to fit a third language in and the question is really…is it better to keep going with the first one or branch out? I’m thinking the former at the moment.</p>
<p>Ready, my gut says stick with the Spanish, simply because 2 years of a language isn’t really enough to gain proficiency. Also, there is added value in taking the AP class and exam. Basically I think that colleges probably prefer to see students continue to whatever the highest level of a course series is at their school. </p>
<p>But its a close call – if your daughter has a strong desire to take up the study of a different language, or if you run into a scheduling issue where the AP Spanish conflicts with something else important she wants to take – then I think she’ll really be fine either way.</p>
<p>My daughter broke a whole lot of “rules” in high school about what courses to take, and when, and in what order. She followed her interests, challenged herself in a narrower, focused kind of way – and got into excellent colleges. </p>
<p>It’s a lot better if you let your daughter make the choices she feels most comfortable with, and when it comes time to developing a college list, look for colleges that fit your daughter’s interests and profile, rather than trying to overthink things early on. You never know where those choices might lead. </p>
When I applied to college, HYPSM, the UCs, and Caltech were perfectly OK with the two years of high school foreign language that I had. I submitted a high Subject test score to demonstrate proficiency. That same test score fulfilled my foreign language graduation requirement in college (although I ended up taking a different foreign language for fun).</p>
<p>As long as proficiency is demonstrated, i.e., high marks on the AP exam or Subject test, I can’t see admissions officers making a big deal about a student taking less than 3 years of foreign language in high school.</p>
<p>I think it would be better to stick with Spanish through the AP level, in terms of her actual facility with the language. </p>
<p>My S took Spanish and French through the AP level, and picked up a third language in college.comlete (Although for scheduling reasons he was unable to pursue that one past the first year, unfortunately.) Since then he has dabbled in a fourth language. Perhaps more to the point, his proficiency in French has enabled him to study at a French university, and he may be taking a second year master’s in journalism in France through a Columbia program.</p>
<p>I’m unclear about the progression of classes in your HS. The normal progression I’m familiar with for languages is language 1-4, followed by AP. Does you school have a fifth year <em>before</em> AP? If so, she is probably less advanced than “Spanish 4” might indicate, more the equivalent to third year elsewhere (A scenario in which kids take two years to complete Spanish 1 in jr high, then take Spanish 2 freshman year.) Which argues for continuing in the same language.</p>
<p>For admissions purposes, I think what Bartleby says is accurate:</p>
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<p>The reason MOST students drop one language and start another is that they are bad at the first one. It would need to be clear that that wasn’t the case.</p>
<p>Would she consider dropping Latin in order to add a modern language? What language did she have in mind?</p>
<p>@consolation - yes, our school has a 5th level before AP which I think may include Spanish culture and literature. Thus, many kids don’t get to AP because you have to place into Spanish 3 as a Freshman and some only place into Spanish 2 despite the middle school instruction. (Also, of course, some kids choose not to go as far as AP.) </p>
<p>Also, D currently has an A+ in Spanish 4 honors so she would not be dropping it because of performance. She just really likes languages. </p>
<p>Totally off topic but how do you quote someone on here? Cannot find the button…</p>
<p>Oh yes, it was quite clear from what you said that not doing well in her first FL was not the issue in her case! :)</p>
<p>I was just reinforcing what Bartleby said about showing proficiency. The best way to do that is to get an excellent score on a standardized test, such as the SATII or AP exam.</p>
<p>Ugh…I hope it didn’t sound like I was bragging about her. I hate people who do that. </p>
<p>I’ve actually been concerned about the SAT2 because, as well as she seems to do in Spanish, I have heard many times that unless you are a native speaker, it is difficult to score well (perhaps there are too many native speakers taking the test, which pushes down the curve?)</p>
<p>Also - thanks for the quoting instructions!</p>
<p>P.S. She wants to add Chinese but French isn’t out of the question. Our school is not large and sometimes it’s a scheduling issue. Chinese was her first choice this year but they couldn’t fit it into her schedule so she went with Latin, which she actually loves.</p>
<p>I think there are two different questions being discussed here:</p>
<p>One is – "Will it be ok if the student drops language #1 in order to pursue language #2?</p>
<p>The other is: “Which course of study will look better to the college?”</p>
<p>My daughter got into top colleges even though she had only minimal math and science required (3 years high school math, through algebra II, 2 years lab science). She also took honors English and honors US history instead of the comparable AP classes. Was that ok? Obviously it was, as the colleges accepted her.</p>
<p>Would any college counselor in their right mind have advised her to follow that track? Probably not.</p>
<p>My d. had a good reason and explanation: she spent a semester abroad in her junior year, and faced all sorts of scheduling difficulties. The math & science classes were the hardest to schedule. She got into the top colleges because, in her case, the colleges focused on her strengths and not her weaknesses. We did do a little bit of work to target schools that were likely to want students with that particular strength. </p>
<p>Will the OP’s daughter be OK if she switches language? Yes. </p>
<p>All things being equal, what will the typical ad com at a highly selective college prefer? Most likely, the preference would be for the student to continue with language #1 through AP level. </p>
<p>It won’t really matter to colleges that aren’t in the upper range of selectivity – these nuances become important in settings where the colleges are turning away as many or more well-qualified applicants as the ones they admit. Either way this student will be presenting a strong academic profile. </p>
<p>Spanish is the “default” foreign language for most high school students in the US who do take a foreign language, so the number of heritage speakers as a percentage of the test taking population is likely small (unlike some other foreign languages that have a higher percentage of heritage speakers and fewer high schools that offer them). So the averages may be lower for that reason.</p>
<p>Can she talk in Spanish to native or heritage speakers in unstructured environments (e.g. other students outside of Spanish class, ordering food at an ethnic restaurant associated with a Spanish-speaking ethnic group, etc.)? Can she read Spanish language material outside of those given in Spanish class (see the links several posts above)? I.e. how proficient in the Spanish language does she feel?</p>
<p>If her high school has AP level as level 6, it may not be covering as much material as some high schools where AP level is level 5 or even 4. That may be an argument for continuing, if she is not proficient enough to “self study” by talking to other Spanish speakers in unstructured environments, reading Spanish language material, etc…</p>
@ReadyToRoll: I don’t have any experience with the Spanish Subject test…but the Latin Subject test was fairly straightforward. I stopped taking Latin at the end of my sophomore year and took the Latin Subject test in the fall of my senior year with a day or two of review of Wheelock’s Latin. The test curve was very favorable. Despite not answering the last 5 questions on poetry analysis (which I was told would not be on the test), I earned an 800. <em>shrug</em></p>
<p>I’ve heard that it is difficult to do well on certain foreign language Subject tests on account of competition from native speakers. If your daughter takes the Latin Subject test, she won’t have to worry about that. :-)</p>