Taking Online Community College Spanish Classes Count in High School Year Requirements to Colleges?

Hello, I’m a Junior in High school and I took Spanish 2 and am thinking of taking Spanish 3 (SPAN 2A) at my community college. The classes are both ONLINE and UC/CSU transferrable, but I was wondering how both public and private colleges would view me taking these classes, at least in terms of foreign language high school requirements. Even though it’s at a community college and it’s ONLINE, would all colleges still see it as having taken 3 years of foreign language in high school?

And I’m still debating with myself on this topic, but if I hypothetically took AP Spanish 4 in my Senior Year, colleges will view me as having taken 4 years of foreign language no matter what classes I took beforehand, correct?

Lastly, as a side-question, do most colleges accept online Spanish community college classes for transferrable foreign language credits, or do the classes usually have to be in-person classes?

Taking an online Cc class counts as part of HS preparation. Especially this year.

Completing level 4 or AP in fewer than 4 years counts as 4 years.

Transfer credits vary by college. In general, cc credits, online or in person are not accepted by private colleges or out if state publiics.

For UCs and CSUs, you can look up the community college on https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist to check equivalency.

Note that the equivalency in California is typically considered to be the following, due to the faster pace of college foreign language courses:


High school     College         College
(year)          (semester)      (quarter)

1               <1              1
2               1               2
3               2               3
4+              3+              4+

Check with the college whether you have sufficient knowledge of Spanish from high school year 1 and 2 to take college semester 3 (only 3 out of over 100 California community colleges use the quarter system). If you take Spanish at the college, you may as well continue taking it at the college afterward (you could also take the AP test in case you are concerned about transfer credit, although if you just want placement into higher level Spanish courses later, most colleges have their own placement methods).

When you say “high school preparation,” this refers to how colleges view the number of years completed for each a-g during high school, correct?

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Taking an online Cc class counts as part of HS preparation.

When you say “high school preparation,” this refers to how colleges view the number of years completed for each a-g during high school, correct?

Since you refer to “a-g”, you must be referring to UCs and CSUs. UCs and CSUs count college courses taken while in high school toward applicable a-g requirements. See https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist . For example third semester Spanish at a California community college will probably count as “Language Other Than English 4+” (i.e. equivalent to high school Spanish 4 or higher) for the purpose of foreign language preparation when UCs and CSUs look at it (check the linked web site to verify).

Other colleges may view things differently, but they do look at college courses taken while in high school to determine how you met required or recommended college prep course work.

Sorry, I meant in general of how colleges (including private and out of state) view the number of years you’ve spent on each of the core subjects. All I really need to know is if community college courses generally are used to determine how many “years” you’ve spent on the specific subject. Thank you for all the replies!

Yes, they will consider college courses taken while in high school, although it is possible that different colleges assume different equivalency. Transferability for credit also differs, in that some private colleges are restrictive in credit transfer of college courses taken while in high school and/or online/distance courses.

This refers purely to transferring COLLEGE credits, correct? Because if that’s the case, I’m fine with that. I’m not looking for college credits, I’m just trying to build and increase my level/years of Spanish. I just needed to make sure that most/all colleges accept this community college approach to foreign language classes over taking “face-to-face” classes offered by the high school itself.

During the oandemic, I doubt any college will have issues with online courses.

The Spanish 1B (Ohlone College, 2020 Spring) and Spanish 2A (Chabot College, 2021 Spring) classes I took/plan to take have both been online asynchronous classes.

Thank you all so much for the help and I’m happy to hear that these classes will count towards my years of high school foreign language!