All my years of study will amount to 5 years of French and 4 years of German, will colleges be impressed?
My hope is to major in French. I am currently and officer of the French club, the French National Honors Society, and I volunteer at a French school in my area. Along with those, I have always scored high on Le Grands Concours, a college recognized French test that tests your knowledge. Will these French-realated EC’s help me get into the college of my choice to major in French?
Help!!
While commendable, it takes a lot to impress admissions officers. This is but one facet of your application. Alone, it is not enough to tip the scale. Good luck!
Have you taken SAT Subjects in both French and German? If not, do you have time to?
Yes, colleges will be impressed, but it depends what caliber colleges you’re aiming for.
Middlebury will like it but only if you get, say, 740+ in French and 680+ in German. Colleges like Dickinson, Macalester, and St Olaf will like that a lot if you have two high scores (without being as demanding as Middlebury). Honors programs at your flagship will, too. But it won’t offset a 1560 CR+M+W SAT score, or a bottom 25% GPA for their their applicant pool.
Where are you thinking of applying?
Nope, I have yet to take my SAT. If I may say so, I am extremely good at both languages… I am sure I will do well.
Middlebury was actually one of the colleges I thought about…
Okay, plan to take both. I don’t think that French is offered each session and German is only offered twice a year, so check the subjects offered to make sure you take the subject tests on a date both are offered. You could take a third one (if you’re the caliber Georgetown wants), and if that 3rd one isn’t good enough, you’d have plenty of time to retake in the Fall.
Obviously, you need to take the ACT with writing, or the SAT Reasoning, too.
What’s your GPA?
As I said, being extremely good at two languages won’t offset a poor GPA.
In addition, you should load up on 'literary" classes - AP English Lang and AP English Lit, for example, AP Euro History…
Finally, since you’ve reached those levels before the end of high school, is there a 4 year college nearby that would offer 4th semester and higher classes? If you could take 4th/5th semester level college classes in both languages, THAT would be really impressive. Some universities may even have such classes over the summer, but it’s rare at that level, most summer classes are at the 1-2-3 level.
I think if you want to major in French then you are doing the right things to prepare. Much like hopeful engineers take Calc and Physics. However, others do that too! So those things are necessary, but not sufficient to gain admissions. Like all students, apply to safeties, matches and reaches.
Any other EC’s related to French that I could start doing?
Is there a program sponsored by the cultural center or embassy where you could intern (check with your local university)? Can you start a French film club or a French cultural club where students read a book by a French author (in English) and discuss it, or students watch a French film and discuss it? What about creating a charity race you call “Le tour de …” (town) and the winner gets a yellow jersey from a popular brand? You could of course raise money to go spend a summer abroad, or spend a semester abroad via Nacel or other groups. You could go to Québec, to France…