We met with my son’s high school teachers last evening in preparation for class registration in the coming weeks. He’s a sophomore taking Spanish 3 Honors. His teacher recommended him for Spanish 4 Honors, but he has minimal interest in progressing further with the language. In fact, while working at a local food pantry he’s become friendly with an elderly deaf woman and he’d really like to take ASL 1 & 2 during his junior and senior years.
My question, do schools that “recommend” 3 years of a language accept Spanish 3, or would Spanish 4(his 3rd year of high school Spanish) be necessary?
BTW, his Spanish teacher indicated that she believes colleges require 3 years of high school Spanish.
Are there schools that want 4 years of the same language?
It’s the level of the language so Spanish 3 is fine. Colleges do not necessarily REQUIRE 3 years but it can be a differentiator in the application. There are some schools like Harvard that look for 4 years of a language (but not too many).
It is very dependent on the college. If you have any idea of colleges you may be applying to just call their admissions office and ask. We did that about language requirements. Turned out for us going through Spanish 3 was fine even though he took some in middle school (but for HS credit). There are some colleges that do things differently so calling and asking doesn’t hurt at all.
Level achieved always matters to colleges looking for “N years of foreign language”.
Number of years in class in high school sometimes matters. If you want to know about how a specific college considers it, ask it directly if its web page is not clear.
The intended major matters a lot as well. STEM won’t care nearly as much as LAC, particularly if you’re in a scheduling bind and dropping Spanish 4 lets you add something more relevant to your future plans. (Not the case for OP, but very true for D21.)
The level, not the total number of years taken in high school, is key. If he completes Spanish 3, he will meet any 3-year language requirement or recommendation. Nevertheless, there may still be advantages to completing four. One, obviously, is that taking a language AP class and then an AP exam can lead to college credit. But having 4 years can at some colleges have other advantages. An example is UIUC, whose LAS college has a four-semester college language requirement to graduate from college, but that 4 college semester requirement can be met entirely by showing completion of the fourth level of a foreign language in high school.
He wants to learn ASL. Let him ditch the Spanish and take ASL. When he gets to college if there is a language requirement, he will be able to pick up Spanish again and/or continue with ASL, or even start something completely new depending on his goals at that time. Don’t let the “is Spanish 3 good enough” question get in the way of him learning a highly useful language that he wants to learn.