<p>Hi, I am a rising high school junior and I have been doing some college research for the past couple of days and I had a question about the SAT Subject Foreign language tests.
My parents are both from Korea but I was born in the United States and lived here my entire life. Most kids like me, who have lived in America their entire lives, do not know Korean very well, but I am very fluent. I can read, write, and type very well also. My parents only speak Korean to me so it just came to me very naturally.
I have read on some forums that colleges will look down on you if you take a SAT Foreign Language Test on you native language, but does this apply to me? I am technically American because I have American citenzenship.
I want to show colleges that I am billingual by taking the SAT Korean with Listening test in November, but not if they will look down on me. I would appreciate your opinions!</p>
<p>It depends. I am half-Japanese, half-Chinese, but my last name is Chinese. I am more proficient with Japanese than Chinese, so I may want to take the Japanese SAT subject test over the Chinese one. There are two reasons for this: one, that my last name won’t give away my Japanese nationality, and two, that Japanese is a difficult language to learn, and thus more uncommon in colleges. If your last name is ambiguous enough (such as Park or Kim) where a person could mistake you for being either Korean or American, I would say you should take the test. Otherwise, don’t.</p>
<p>Another thing: if you do take the Korean SAT, I would recommend to not give out your ethnicity on your application.</p>
<p>Thanks for your opinion. I’ll think about it.</p>