We had a whole thread about the 3 years in high school/1 year in middle school/requirement or recommendation of 4 years of FL! IIRC it was possibly started by one of the people on this thread - was it you @socaldad2002 ?
@CAtransplant , yes. http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/2121562-are-4-years-of-a-foreign-language-critical-for-top-colleges.html#latest
DS has done six years of Latin (6th-11th grade), for senior year, he could drop Latin IB HL and do IB chemistry SL. In the end, he really likes Latin and loves his Latin teacher, the course would be a lot easier for him, so he chose the easier route 
At a recent UVA presentation the admissions rep said 4 years in all five core academic areas. She definitely wanted to see foreign language as a senior. If your school doesnât offer it, then thatâs different of course. She said they donât want to see you drop a core area even if itâs to double up in one area like science. Each school makes their own decisions but I feel like we heard this at other schools too. And anecdotally the kids at our school that take a language for all four years do better in admissions. And we can start in MS so you reach level 4 as a junior and then AP as a senior. Just a data point.
My kid took Spanish 1 in MS, 2-4 in 9-11, and no language Senior year. Didnât seem to hurt him. He is a sophomore at NCSU now.
At our school level 4 is AP. Which means many people top out as juniors.
I didnt know year 5 was AP at some schools until I was on CC
I have been to various college info sessions where they stated they ideally like to see the applicant take each of the five core subjects each year of high school.
Our high school recently added the four years in each core subject as a graduation requirement. They offer four years in foreign language. Seniors can either take honors 4 or AP for the language of choice. We opted for the honors version as child was already taking 3 very rigorous APs.
Also wanted to add there is also regular language 4. Most subjects have r
A regular level, honors level and AP level.
@holychild what happens if they took level 1 in 8th grade?
Our middle school has an amazing Spanish teacher and in recent years freshman have tested out of Spanish 1 & 2. And students often skip Spanish 4 to take AP Spanish. That leaves these kids 2 years of Spanish, 3 max. The first group wonât be hitting college apps until the year after our kids. Iâm interested to see how that pans out.
Our middle school is located next door to the high school and 8th graders can walk over to the h.s. to take Spanish, French, Chinese or Japanese 1. All four languages go to level AP. There is no skipping or other path, it is 1, 2, 3, AP.
Spanish has 5 which is the second AP.
But I cannot imagine a college penalizing students for starting the sequence in 8th vs. 9th
my kiddo only took 3 years of foreign language. (8-10th grades). wonât be looking at top schools I guess!
he had a speech IEP for 9 yrs. speaking in English was hard for him; let alone in another language. heâs a bright kid though; heâll be fine. 
Taking a year or two of foreign language in junior high is analogous to taking algebra 1 and geometry in junior high. The vast majority, if not all, colleges realize that some students start sequential courses before high school and donât penalize for that. Again, if anyone is concerned about their college, I would call the office of admissions and confirm.
Regarding the 5th year of a foreign language, at our school, AP Spanish 4 is Spanish language whereas AP Spanish 5 is Spanish literature. We have a regular and honors for 3rd year languages, regular and AP (no honors) for the 4th year of languages and only AP for the 5th year.
Just a general comment regarding Americans and foreign languages. As a non-English speaker myself, it is really interesting to see how foreign languages have been treated here. English as a de facto lingua franca could be a blessing and a curse. So many of my Asian and European friends are dual-, tri-lingual, while so few of my American friends (and my American son!) are. We Americans learn foreign languages too late and too little.
The windows a new language opened are many, in addition to make our brains more agile. The goal of learning a foreign language should not be to get into a top college and/or to test out of college placement.
My rant of the year. 
Agree with the sentiment in generalâŠbut its not just for foreign languageâŠthe goal of learning âany subjectâ should not be about college admission.
YETâŠthe process of college admission in US is so complicated, students can (and should) consider different approaches to meet the learning objectives while meeting the requirements of admissions. The FL questions might sound as if parents/students are trying to skip the learning part in search of college admissions (which maybe true in some cases) but that is not the case - majority of parents/students I interacted with know and agree with importance of learning languages - its just âwhenâ it should happen that is confusing. Also high school students have only so many hours/credits available and so many demands - they need to plan FL just like other subjects without sabotaging their admission chances. Honestly even college reps and experienced hs guidance counselors are confused on this aspect.
To answer the question in post # 6228. My child took Spanish in elementary school and is now a junior going into senior year. The options for her were Spanish 4 honors or AP Spanish.
At our elementary school Spanish is taught from Kindergarten. I think this should be done in every school.
There is always the option to start a 2nd language after exhausting the first one, particularly if 1st language was started in middle school. As a non English - speaking student in EU, I had to learn 3 foreign languages, 1st we started 2nd grade, 2nd in 5th grade an then 2 years of latin 7th and 8th grade. In high school and college we only continued one of the 3 languages studied 2nd-8th, or could start a 4th language. And neither of my friends,nor I made a career out of FLâŠbut all did go to grad school in fields as diverse as engineering, med school, architecture, art, etc
@holychild it seems weird that Spanish taught from kindergarten in your schools and Spanish starting in 9th grade in our school, both end up in the same class (Spanish 4 or AP) in senior year.