<p>Hope I put this in the right thread.</p>
<p>Does teaching yourself a language (I taught myself Dutch and Afrikaans) make you stand out among other applicants at many of the top schools? (Georgetown, NYU, UMich, UWisc, UIUC)</p>
<p>According to statistics, I am a pretty average applicant for all of these, so I was thinking this might make me stand out. All though I'm sure lots of kids self-study languages. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s actually pretty cool. If you write essays on how you learned multiple languages, that would be phenomenal. Learning languages aren’t that easy, and since you self taught yourself Dutch and Afrikaans, that is extremely impressive. If you can speak both really fluently, have conversations with people in those languages, then you are definitely unique. </p>
<p>it’s good. but because of our time period, speaking 2 languages or even 3 is becoming more common.</p>
<p>But the thing is, speaking 3 languages (English, 1 at home - natural language, 1 - learned) is the mainstream. It’s about quality not quantity. Dutch + Afrikaans? That is unique to the max. If the person was a natural Dutch, speaking Afrikaans is definitely impressive as well. </p>
<p>Actually those two languages are related.
<a href=“Afrikaans - Wikipedia”>http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans</a></p>
<p>
Hardly; the two languages are more or less mutually intelligible. It’s comparable to a native Swedish speaker understanding Danish.</p>
<p>Afrikaans was developed by Dutch people living in Africa, but the similarities end there.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, those are some very interesting languages to pick up and I’d definitely make it aware.</p>
<p>It would make the essay interesting, but you need a way to proof your proficiency to make it further useful on your application.</p>
<p>Thanks to all…@billcsho, what would you advise for proving my proficiency?</p>
<p>You need to have results of a test by an impartial recognized authority. That could be something like the National French Exam, a placement test taken at the department of languages at a university, or a notarized affidavit from the South African or Dutch consulate.</p>
<p>Your best bet is to get tested by a University with a Dutch (and/or Afrikaans) language program, even if it is a combination of a proctored situation at a local college or your high school (University sends test to local high school or college proctoring center, who administers test- times it, watches so you don’t cheat- the special ed department of your high school will have access to test proctors) and a Skype interview if oral mastery is to be assessed. These university departments routinely have placement exams already prepared and available for their students.</p>
<p>This is a creative solution, not at all routine, and will take some legwork; but kind of cool to have, regardless- your own mini-AP exam!</p>
<p>@ItsJustSchool Interesting, thanks so much.</p>