Hello, and I apologize if this has been asked and answered somewhere.
I am ethnically Chinese (born in China, but now a US citizen so not an international student). We speak 90% English at home, but my parents will sometimes converse in Mandarin. I am proficient in Mandarin (courtesy of Chinese lessons from elementary school) and got 2 years of Mandarin credit via exam in high school. I took Mandarin 3 and Mandarin 4AP, and scored a 5 on the AP Chinese exam.
I’ve heard that if you are fluent in a language, those language credits don’t count in the eyes of some selective colleges? Can someone confirm or deny this? If this is true, what should I do on my application?
Additionally, I’m planning on checking English as the only language spoken at home, especially because my parents never taught me Chinese, I went to Chinese lessons.
But English isn’t the only language spoken at home - you already said that your parents speak Chinese. I suppose this is a grey area, since it sounds like they don’t really speak Mandarin to you at home, but it feels a bit dishonest.
That said, it doesn’t sound like Mandarin is really your native language - English is, and Mandarin is your foreign language. You learned it primarily through classes and lessons (that you just happened to take from a very young age) rather than learning it from the ground up as a baby, it sounds like.
“Additionally, I’m planning on checking English as the only language spoken at home, especially because my parents never taught me Chinese, I went to Chinese lessons.”
THAT I would not do cause it’s not the whole truth .
That I agree with 100%. It’s fine to say you speak both at home.
Anyway back to the original question. it’s really a question of semantics - one is your main language and one is a foreign language. You don’t indicate when you moved from China, but it sounds like you were really young.
BTW, just because one speaks a foreign language at home does not mean that it does not “count” as a foreign language. Many heritage speakers of Chinese (or Spanish, etc.) could “speak” the language (and not always grammatically correctly), but could not read/write the language without lessons.
I was under the impression that “spoken at home” means the main language you speak at home, and since I don’t speak to my parents in Chinese it also doesn’t feel right to check that box either. My younger siblings exclusively speak English as well.
I don’t really have an issue checking both, but my main concern with checking “spoken at home” with Chinese is that it would make it seem like I took the easy route with foreign language.
Many heritage speakers do need formal school work for reading and writing, since learning the language at home tends to give listening and speaking proficiency more than reading and writing, unless your parents actively taught you reading and writing. Your high school record indicates that you skipped the beginning courses but did take the higher level courses in your heritage language, which is not that unusual a profile.
I also think this is probably ok. You did take 3 and AP4. If your parents are truly proficient, enough to speak English nearly full time, maybe the GC can mention this.
Don’t try to circumvent the system. You can’t predict what AO’s will think anyway. If you have an Chinese last name, or indicate Asian as your race, they might assume it anyway, but most likely will not.
One other thing that I meant to mention in my earlier post: colleges often use terminology to cover most, but not all, contingencies. “Foreign language” generally means “Language Other Than English” (LOTE). For foreign students, English often is the foreign language. But really what colleges are staying is that they want proficiency in English and some knowledge of an additional language. For pretty much all colleges, you are covered. Don’t overthink this.
