My foreign language situation

our D23 switched schools fall 2020; from a large low SES public to a very small private. Did not like the public’s education reaction with covid. (they quit all teaching that march and we were worried going forward). We assumed it would be for one year only. Small school didnt have her FL she took 8th & 9th. So she didnt take any 10th grade year; and ended up staying and will graduate from the small school with only 2 yrs of FL.

she’s merit hunting; not elite. Our local jesuit U AOs told us that although she doesnt meet the FL language admission requirements, they will absolutely look at her situation as they know weird things have happened to classes of 21, 22 & 23. I’m assuming kiddo will have to take FL in college wherever she ends up. But hearing that made me hopeful that it wont be a stumbling block in our merit search. I guess my point was possibly schools will view this all differently and work with kids?

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I think that colleges are being more understanding about some issues as they relate to COVID. There are, however, a sufficient quantity of students applying to elite colleges who didn’t seem to have their high school experience unduly affected (with respect to grades, ECs, test scores, etc), that the “elite” schools still turn away many applicants with stats that are equivalent of those that they accepted (enough to replace the entire entering class at least a time or two).

At most colleges, this foreign language issue would not be an issue, or at most a minor one that they’re willing to work with an otherwise strong applicant on. The “elite” schools don’t need to compromise because they have far more demand than they have room. Only if an applicant is going for elite or bust is this issue a concern.

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I agree with you, key line being that it is fine for colleges in general, but elite schools are a whole different story. In general, what is good for colleges in general like standard ECs won’t matter too much for elite schools.

I regret enrolling into the level that I placed into. I should have done a lower level then progressed to AP junior/senior year. Or even better, I should have taken Spanish.

I already knew that my chances were already slim despite having strong academics (apart from the foreign language situation) and decent ECs, because I am an unhooked asian applicant from the bay area.

I will be applying to UCs + other privates + safeties.

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I’m working with a group of 4th and 5th graders, tutoring math. A few of these kids speak Spanish at home and I know they THINK in Spanish. The problem is they can’t read in Spanish, so we can’t test them in Spanish. One guy can do the math problems when we walk through them together (can multiple and divide correctly) but he scores very low on the tests as they ask the questions in English. “Choose the answer that best shows the equivalent of…” “Which denominator is…?” Equivalent? Denominator? He just picks an answer.

Should he talk Spanish in HS? I think so if he wants to be ‘fluent’ and be able to read at all.

My friend teaches lower grades and she said the biggest issue is that some students have had NO written instruction in their native languages, so not only are they trying to read for the first time as 3rd or 4th graders, they are doing it in a new language. They can’t read Spanish, they don’t understand English. It’s a real problem.

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Some US schools do offer courses specifically for heritage speakers of non-English languages emphasizing reading and writing, much like English courses for English speakers do.

You could take college or even grad level Chinese at a nearby college this summer and this coming school year. One of my kids finished AP in a non-heritage language and then did a 300 level lit class in the fall, and a master’s level class in the spring. You could fix the application issue by taking Chinese literature/culture classes in Chinese at a nearby college this summer and next school year. That would give you 3 years of Chinese in high school, and an impressive foreign language achievement. You could talk about it in the interview, that you really only had rudimentary “kitchen” Chinese from hearing your parents speak it, but how you challenged yourself to learn the language properly.

BTW, many colleges will let a high school student take one class a semester for free or for a minor admin fee.

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“or did i make a mistake in general taking a language colleges will assume i had an easy time learning? should I have taken Spanish in middle school and in high school done 2, 3, 4H, AP?”

At this point I don’t think it makes sense to review the past course selection for mistakes as others have pointed out. If you did take the other AP core classes as you said in the other thread including Calc BC in 10th, focus your app on those, and explain without blaming what happened with your f/l classes. You should be ok at most UCs outside of UCLA/UCB, typically applicants like yourself in the bay area get into one of two, but don’t assume you will. As for HYPSM, MIT is probably shot but that’s still going to be tough given as you said you’re an Asian in the bay area.

Our school district addressed similar issues with a dual language program. Starting in Kindergarten kids were taught all subjects in Spanish one day and in English the next day. Half of the kids spoke Spanish at home and half spoke English at home with no prior background in Spanish. Our D was one of the kids who did not know Spanish before the program. One core belief was that students only need to learn to read once. If learning to read in Spanish is easier for some, they will focus on this first and then apply their reading skills to English. For our daughter, it worked the other way. She was a bit lost at first, but by the time she “graduated” from the program in 4th grade, she was quite fluent in Spanish and could read and write. She did not learn a lot of grammar, so her fluency was good, but her knowledge of grammar was elementary. The district had an excellent ongoing program through middle school and high school, so students from this program could continue to take appropriate level Spanish classes and even some math and history classes in Spanish if they wanted.

Our daughter grew up speaking German and English at home and starting in 5th grade, we sent her to a school where most of her classes were in German. Unfortunately, Spanish was not offered there, so she started taking French. She went back to a typical American school for high school after she had learned to read and write in her heritage language at an 8th grade level.

She then decided to go all in with foreign language, taking both Spanish and French in high school. Placement in Spanish was quite a challenge. She still spoke fluently, but hadn’t taken formal Spanish classes since 4th grade and couldn’t explain basic grammatical concepts like the difference between “ser” and “estar”. She ended up in Advanced Spanish 3, where she excelled in oral assignments, but had to work overtime to catch-up on grammar. It all worked out in the end and she ended up taking 7 years of high school foreign language (4 years of French and 3 years of Spanish). She also took the AP test in German, perhaps just to prove that she can actually read and write well. Her focus on foreign language was not without sacrifice. It required her to take 6 majors each year, when 5 majors is the norm. She could not fit in as many STEM classes as she would have otherwise and she was busier than she would have liked. But, when she applied to colleges to study international relations having 7 years of HS foreign language and 5s on three different foreign language APs (including her heritage language) made for a consistent story and helped her stand out. She is graduating from HS now and is happy how her college process went.

For most students, spending so much time on foreign language classes would be counter productive. For my daughter it made sense. I think it is best for HS students to have at last 3 years of a foreign language in HS, but if you don’t, make sure you show that you used the time wisely that you did not spend on these classes.

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Don’t - that would have been worse. Doing that would have read as “took the easy way out by taking lower level FL classes as a heritage speaker”.
At least taking AP as a 9th grader will be understood as “took a Heritage Language at a challenging level”, which is positive - the negative is that you didn’t try to do anything with that skill for the remaining years of HS. If you volunteered in a club for older people who speak the language, tutored younger students taking Level 1-3, took a 4th or 5th semester college class in that language, that would continue to be understood as “challenging and academically strong”. It’s not too late to do one of these, BTW.