My DD '21 was on track to continue taking Spanish all four years of HS until she missed a significant amount of school last fall due to medical issues. She was not able to catch up to the rest of her peers in her Spanish class and ended up needing to drop Spanish. Because so many colleges and universities require >2 years of a foreign language (she only has 2 years of Spanish completed), we decided to sign her up for online Spanish classes through our local CC. The high school will likely not accept her CC credit and/or include it on her transcript, although we haven’t specifically asked them to yet either. I’m not too concerned because she will graduate HS with plenty of other credits. So I guess my questions are, can we submit her CC transcript in addition to her HS transcript when applying to colleges? Also, since these classes are technically college classes, will they additionally count towards fulfilling the college foreign language requirements?
Not only can you, you (or rather she) must. Where transcripts are required with the application, all transcripts need to be sent.
That totally depends on the college. For privates and OOS publics, credit is unlikely for any CC course taken in HS, whether applied to HS credits or not. In-state publics may be more lenient. But again, colleges differ in policies. Having said that, almost every college that requires a FL to graduate will have a placement test, unless SAT/AP/IB scores already exempt one from the FL requirement. So while she may not get credit, she would not need to retake a class if she shows proficiency at that level.
Yes you would submit both transcripts. Schools may or may not accept the credit but if you’re looking to meet basic application requirements of X years of a language for admission, it may not matter in the long run other than you’ve spent some $ on a CC class.
Both of my sons had multiple college transcripts to submit with their applications. I think they each had at least three different colleges awarding credit during high school.
Every time they apply somewhere (grad school), they’ll need to submit copies of those transcripts.
To be perfectly honest, if she can re-enter Spanish at the level she needed to drop for health reasons last fall, and finish with three years of high school Spanish and a letter from her guidance counselor about her schedule change caused by health issues, that is the way I would go. This CC class will be on her academic record forever. She will have to keep track of the transcript and request it umpteen times during her life. If she struggles for any reason, then she will have that bad college grade on her record forever as well.
Not to mention of course that I just have to ask what you all are thinking with an online foreign language class. How much of it is live and interactive, just over distance, and how much is not interacting and communicating with a real human being?
My kid did this exact same thing as a homeschooler doing foreign language and submitted his CC transcript. He’s always received As in his CC classes. Every college he was accepted to took it no problem. He could request his transcript online for the CC, but once he matriculates to his 4 year, I doubt he will need to pull that transcript again.
It depends on how colleges look at the credit. The college my kid is attending requires a proficiency exam for language credit no matter what you’ve had prior. If you test out, you are “done” with the language requirement.
If he applies to graduate or professional school, or transfer to another college, he will need report and show transcripts for all colleges attended when asked for.
Be careful…College spanish takes 1 semester for what HS spanish would take 2 or more semesters to do. So it will be more intensive. Also, her grade will be in her college GPA.
So I would also ask her GC what are other options? Do they accept any online classes? Do they have summer classes?
@bopper Good points. She is currently finishing her first semester of online Spanish now and should end up with an A, provided she doesn’t bomb the final. Her GC is actually the person who suggested she take it at CC so that she won’t be limited in the colleges she applies to if their requirements are >2 years of FL. Apparently his son did the same thing. Her HS doesn’t have Spanish in the summer and it’s up to the foreign language department whether they will accept the credit on her HS transcript or not.
@happymomof1 I thought of having her re-enter at the level she dropped as you also suggested, but the problem is that she would have been away from that language for almost a year. I feared it would be difficult to pick back up without a refresher. Plus, because of her medical conditions she misses a lot of school and FL isn’t a class that lends well to catching up missed classes the way math, English, or science is. Thats why she’s doing it online. Believe it or not, she is excelling in the online format!