Greetings,
I am a high school student currently taking Latin. As I understand it, taking something as rare as Latin is invaluable as far as college admission is concerned, but the same can be said for such languages as Italian, Russian, Spanish (really), etc.
So my question is, aside from how many years the language is taken, how important is it WHAT language you take in high school?
Thank you in advance.
It’s not important which one it is.
Not important at all except, perhaps, if you were applying as a potential foreign language major to a college like Middlebury.
@JustOneDad How do you mean? You’re saying colleges view (persay) Latin, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, etc. etc. the exact same way?
Well, “exactly” is a powerful word, but, yes.
Any foreign language a person takes will be fine. I don’t think you will get “extra credit” for taking Latin if that is what you are asking.
I heard that anyone who takes pig Latin gets automatic admission to all of the Ivies!
Ixnay onway atthay
It doesn’t matter unless u are a heritage language speaker taking your heritage language to inflate your GPA. That looks slimy.
I know I’m going to get flamed big time for saying this: Latin is becoming increasingly irrelevant as no one needs to speak it conversationally; consequently, there is no urgency for live translations. Translations can simply be googled at one’s leisure. And please don’t bring up the utility of Latin in medical or legal terminology. Modern day Romance languages serve the same utility.
The only case in which the specific language would really matter would be if one intended to major in a given language. If one wants to major in Spanish but took 4 years of German in high school, it’s going to leave you at a disadvantage compared to students that took 4 years of Spanish.
The best choice is to go with the one that interests you most and will provide you with the most enjoyment.
“I know I’m going to get flamed big time for saying this: Latin is becoming increasingly irrelevant as no one needs to speak it conversationally; consequently, there is no urgency for live translations. Translations can simply be googled at one’s leisure. And please don’t bring up the utility of Latin in medical or legal terminology. Modern day Romance languages serve the same utility.”
Latin remains relevant as a language of scholarship for graduate study in several humanities fields, e.g., classics, ancient and medieval history and archaeology, history of science, theology and religious studies, comparative literature, English, Romance languages, linguistics, history of art, and philosophy.
For math, French and Russian matter a lot (and French is a lot easier than Russian).
Most graduate studies will require one foreign language, and graduate studies in the humanities will require two. English will often require two, plus Latin.
However, your foreign language in HS only matters if you continue it in college. Having a language that “fills a need” for diversity & to fill various language departments is not a boost or a tip, merely a small differentiator. In short, taking a language other than Spanish will elicit some interest if you intend to continue it in college and the college offers it but doesn’t have enough students in it. It won’t be super important though, we’re talking differentiator between two otherwise excellent applications. If you don’t intend on continuing Latin in college (and I would suggest you take a foreign language then - a romance language might be the easiest) it’ll be of no interest to the college.
This generally wouldn’t make a difference, except in some special programs. For instance, applying for a more unusual target language for the Huntsman program at Penn could be a big help. The pool of non-native Korean or Hindi speakers (with 4+ years of experience) is much smaller, and those students (if otherwise qualified) will likely be more attractive to the program, as they need students targeting a variety of languages.
Many kids take Latin because people say it will help for college-because it increases linguistic awareness that helps with tests like the SATs, that helps students acquire other languages. and that may make building a strong English vocabulary easier. Some people think studying Latin can make taking Spanish 1 easier --if you’ve had a few years of Latin you develop a better understanding of how language “works”. Other people say that if you put the amount of time and effort into learning Spanish that you’d need to study Latin, you’d be much better at speaking Spanish. A ton of students take Latin. It is not the least big unusual. Ancient Greek is not taught by nearly as many high schools. So a student who studies Ancient Greek and Latin, both for 4 years, and who gets consistent A grades, and especially someone interested in the Classics or Western Thought, would likely have a leg up. But that same student would probably be outstanding in everything so which classes were taken would not really matter.
The most competitive schools are looking for the strongest students. The strongest students shine regardless of what classes they take or what ECs they are involved with. Admissions can see right through all the details to the core-the strength of the student. The strongest students shine regardless of what they do. So, scoping out what specific language to take or what to do to look like what those schools are looking for is probably time wasted. If you become the strongest possible student you can be, the appropriate schools will likely admit you-not all of them but at least one, if you take a thoughtful approach to applying. And the appropriate schools may be those that are very competitive or they may be less competitive schools. Whatever happens, at least you will know you did not waste your time doing things for the sake of getting into college that were not meaningful to you in their own right.
I took a lot of Latin. And Greek. I wouldn’t be enthusiastic for NavalKid to do the same.
IMO Latin is a dead language. It doesn’t really help that much for pre-meds or SAT (aka you don’t need to study it in school as a foreign language to get the roots) but it’s good to learn anyways. My mom personally says Latin helped her a lot for nursing school but I didn’t really need it to remember the signa code for left ear is A.S. It’s more memorization than anything.
Nevertheless, you take what language you want to take. What are you passionate about? What do you think will help you the most in the future? If you want to go into the FBI, Chinese, Russian and Arabic are great. If you want to work international business, Chinese and Spanish are good. For medicine, Spanish is also useful. Colleges don’t care what language you take; they just care how LONG you’ve taken it and if you’ve achieved the highest level in it (Level 4/AP).
My girls loved Latin. One also did Ancient Greek, in college.
This may be a stupid question (even though I don’t believe there exists such a thing) but if I were to win awards for Latin, could that possibly put Latin a notch above? No other languages at my school have ways that students can earn accolades.
What kind? State-wide, nation-wide? Even so, nearly all the other popular languages have state-wide and nation-wide accolades and awards (Spanish, German, French, for sure) so even though your school doesn’t compete for them, doesn’t mean that other applicants don’t. I still don’t see it as being a ‘notch above’ in any way. Why not just take a language because you enjoy it and not because you think it ‘deserves’ to carry more weight in college admissions?