<p>Hi, so I'm russian-American and classify as a "heritage" speaker of Russian. When I was little, I was fluent in russian but my parent stopped speaking it to me, so I lost it. I started taking it again in middle school to regain fluency, and am now in my 4th year. Although I have a pretty good grasp of the language, I am nowhere near fluency, and occasionally speak russian at home and to communicate with my russian relatives, but English is definitely my dominant language.
The problem is that I have a distinct russian name and I'm worried that college admissions officers will think that I took russian for an "easy" class because I'm a native speaker (which I'm not). Should I write this down somewhere in my college application?
Second question- I'm not a dual citizen yet but will that affect my application too if I get dual citizenship?
Third question- I volunteer for a russian teacher and help the kids with russian, is this a good EC or should I start volunteering at a hospital/animal shelter as well?
Thanks so much :))</p>
<p>Common app lets you mark what languages you speak natively (and at home) and which other languages you speak and to what fluency. </p>
<p>Naturally, you’d put English as your first language and the language spoken at home, and Russian as the second language. </p>
<p>I don’t think you’ll need to mention it, but it sounds like it might make a good essay (searching for your cultural roots or something).</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>