While I was filling out the CommonApp profile, I noticed a section called “language” in which I can list, in great detail, all the languages I can know. However, they give really specific options, such as “speak”, “read”, and “write”. Obviously, I can speak, read, and write English (my native language), but I have trouble with deciding how to mark other languages.
I'm an Asian male and I technically learned Chinese before English. However, I'm illiterate in Chinese and my English is much better. So I would rather mark English as my "First Language" because it's my best, even though I learned Chinese first.
I lived in Norway for a couple of years when I was younger, so I can speak Norwegian without a problem. I can also read and write it well. However, the "problem" here is that I have no trouble reading Danish since the languages are written so similarly, but I can't speak or write it since I've never studied it formally. I guess it would only take me a week or so to learn, but I don't think that's a good use of my time. So should I say that I can "read" Danish and not mark "speak" and "write"? Or should I just leave it out entirely? I can also understand quite a bit of Swedish, which is also very closely related to Danish, but slightly more challenging to read.
If I put too many languages, I fear that I may end up looking bad. I'm already putting English, Chinese (I'm marking it as a "speak at home" language), French (studied for 5 years in school), and Norwegian. But if I choose to put that I can "read" Danish, I would also want to put that I can "read" and "write" German, because I actually studied German for a few years and I can still watch German TV with little difficulty. What level of proficiency is CommonApp even looking for? And do colleges even look at this section of the CommonApp? If they do, how much does it weigh, compared to other sections? I'm applying to US colleges within the top 20, for reference.
Additional information: I might write a few essays about languages and I’m also involved in a few language EC’s, but my main focus is engineering (what I want to study in college)
The level of proficiency they are looking for is close to fluent, if not fluent. Mark English, Norwegian, and Chinese. Do not mark languages that are just similar to languages you know; that does not count as knowing the language. I would not mark French either, since even students who have taken French at the AP level are not usually proficient in French.
Here’s my take:
I would not list as being proficient any language in which you are unable to carry on an extended conversation with a native speaker on any subject, with a rich vocabulary without struggling to find a word.
Let’s look at it another way. In my country, which is not unique, students generally start learning English in the 3rd grade. So by the time they apply to college they will have had ~8 years of English courses. However, if they have not spent an extended period of time in an English-speaking country, if they live in a country where American movies and TV shows are dubbed, not subtitled, if the pop singers record in their native language instead of English, chances are they are not proficient in English. Have you ever had a conversation with a Japanese or Brazilian HS student? I have. Proficient is not the adjective that I would use to describe their English skills. So if a student with 8+ years of English experience might not be proficient, and HS student with 5 years of French who never lived in a Francophone country probably isn’t either.
Also, proficiency in languages is a not case where the applicants with the most languages wins. So while it’s great that you had the opportunity to live in Norway and experience a different culture, most college admissions officers will be very aware that there is some degree of mutual intelligibility with Norwegian/Swedish/Danish. So while claiming proficiency in Norwegian is fine, I would not suggest claiming Danish or Swedish proficiency.
Additionally, with the possible exception of doing research for a doctoral dissertation, I can think of no instance where only reading knowledge of a language would amount to much.
From my own personal experience from applying to colleges last year: I took 3 years of Spanish in HS, scored 5’s on the AP Spanish Language and AP Spanish Literature exams, and spent a summer studying Spanish in Spain. I did not say I was proficient in Spanish.
The professional CVs of academics (especially historians who have to be able to read a bazillion languages for their research) often list multiple languages various qualifiers. For example:
And you are smart to not list Chinese as your first language. Occasionally admissions officers see that and suddenly ask for a TOEFL score. Crazy, yes, but I know of more than one case when that happened.