<p>I am new here and I don't know what to do to help my s to select his course. </p>
<p>My s is going to high school this fall and I heard it's not good if he is Chinese and taking Chinese as foreign language. I know his top choices will be ivy schools with Engineering as major, and he is taking Spanish 1A in middle school which cannot qualify him to take Spanish 2 in 9th grade. So he spent several months to take online High School Spanish I. I don't know if school can accept that or not. He can start Chinese 3 in 9th based on the placement test since he takes Chinese school every weekend. I am so worry what language that's best for him to pick. Thanks.</p>
<p>I go to a high school in So. Cal. and we have lots of Chinese. Chinese is one of the languages you can take at our school. However, none of the top academic Chinese kids take Chinese because they know it will make them look bad when they apply to college. Most take Latin. A few take Spanish. </p>
<p>My best friend from last year is Chinese and someone told him that someone on a college advisory board told him that colleges already see Chinese as grade grubbers. If a native speaker of Chinese took Chinese, then I think that would look bad. My friend wouldn’t even take the AP Chinese exam for the same reason.</p>
<p>It depends a lot on what else he is doing. To console you, I’ll mention that my son, also an American-born person with some family heritage speaking Chinese, is taking Chinese as his main language class right now. What he does to be ready for a competitive college program in his area of interest is study that interest area intensely. We’ll see what his admission results are in the next year. Right now he is taking college-level Chinese classes at our local state university. There are very few high schools here with strong Chinese classes.</p>
<p>My daughter did not take Chinese at high school, but she took Chinese on her SAT II and got a 670 which is kind of low. However, she is still accepted by UCI, UCR, UCD, UCSD. She also took English Literature (730) and Math 1 (730). She also took Chemistry (690).</p>
<p>My D is also a chinese american. At high school she has taken Spanish AP instead of Chinese. It does look bad if a chinese american takes chinese as a FOREIGN language in high school. D got accepted by MIT EA this year.</p>
<p>I am seeking help here because he needs to turn in the 9th grade course selection this week. I thought people in this site is very friendly. Anyhow, thank you for your comment.</p>
<p>tokenadult,</p>
<p>Thank you for posting these links and they are very useful. But my concern is even you don’t self-identify yourself when you apply, the admission officer still can tell your ethnic from your last name. Is that right?</p>
<p>Well, no one will think my son is Chinese from HIS family name (which is mine), but anyway all applications are decided in context. If a child grows up in a Chinese-speaking home in a Chinese-speaking community (some parts of California can definitely be described as Chinese-speaking communities) then maybe taking Chinese will look like taking the “easiest” foreign language unless the learner achieves a high level of literacy. But at the very most selective colleges, all course recommendations for high school are just that–recommendations–and any of them can be waived. It’s possible, although not particularly likely, to be admitted to the most selective colleges in the country with no foreign language study at all. </p>
<p>Harvard’s overall philosophy about its recommendations for high school subjects are well described in a document Harvard wrote some years ago. </p>
<p>Other colleges of similar selectivity would have a similar approach. Summer study can speed up a student’s learning of foreign languages and help them reach a higher level faster. (My son uses his summers to learn more mathematics.) What your family can afford and what the language community is like in your town makes a difference, so not everyone reaches the same answer to your interesting question.</p>
<p>Although no college would probably admit this, it’s most likely true in most cases. It certainly isn’t fair though since Chinese is one of the hardest languages out there to learn (read, write, and speak). I’m a Chinese-American born in a generally Chinese-speaking household (both parents are proficient in English). However, before taking Chinese as my foreign language, I had no clue how to write or read any Chinese characters. Even though I spoke Chinese at home, my Chinese was not even good enough for general conversational speaking. And it didn’t help that the dialect I spoke was different from the one the schools taught. It required a lot of effort to get good grades in Chinese whereas learning Spanish for me was relatively much easier since all English speakers pretty much know the entire Spanish alphabet already.</p>
<p>In the context of college admissions, there’s definitely a general disadvantage for some students in taking Chinese, and even more so if you’re simply Chinese. If I had taken Spanish instead of Chinese, my grades would probably be much higher. However, I’m glad I picked to study Chinese (even though I could have gotten sophomore standing in Spanish) despite the potential negativity. There’s just so much I never knew, and I think it will definitely help me in the future. I suggest that you should just let your son decide which one he likes. The ultimate goal shouldn’t be getting into an Ivy League college, especially since he’s only becoming a freshman. And overall, taking Chinese as a student of Chinese heritage probably won’t be the factor that will put him into the accept/reject pile anyways.</p>
<p>May I offer an alternate viewpoint? As I understand it, from conversations with admissions officers at several top colleges, the primary purpose of the “requirement” (or call it a “recommendation”) to take at least 3, and preferably 4, years of a foreign language in high school is to acquire fluency in a second language. A secondary reason is to be exposed to the literature and customs of another culture. These two objectives are also the ones presented on the Harvard link cited above.</p>
<p>So why is being able to read/write Chinese fluently somehow no longer applicable as a “foreign language” if you are of Chinese descent? Yes, you may well have had more opportunities to hear and speak Chinese if your relatives speak Chinese. Then again, your family may have been in America for several generations, and English may be your parents’ first language too. How is this any different than my son taking Italian? (His grandparents are from Sicily but the colleges don’t know that.) Here in Arizona, it is very common – in fact, the “norm” – for the top Hispanic students to take Spanish for their foreign language requirement in high school. After all, if the point is to know two languages (English + one other) by the time you graduate, why should they be penalized because they already know two?</p>
<p>I myself would be far more impressed by a Chinese-American who reads and writes Chinese FLUENTLY and scores a 5 on the AP Chinese exam, than a Chinese-American – or any student, for that matter – who gets a 3 on the AP Spanish Language exam.</p>
<p>I am inclined to side with worried_mom’s opinion here as a Chinese student living in a predominantly-Hispanic neighborhood. Spanish native-speakers gain a tremendous advantage when applying to college not only because of their race, but also because of their probably decent scores on the Spanish AP and SATII exams. Why can’t Chinese native-speakers have this similar advantage and why should they be recommended to take a completely foreign language when they already know English and their native language?</p>
<p>My s tends to take Spanish 2 if he’s accepted by his teacher; otherwise he would like to take Chinese 3. He thinks taking Chinese 3 will be much more impressive than Spanish 1 in 9th grade. He likes both languages, but he’s struggling to get the opinion before the due date.</p>
It’s perfectly fine to plan course selection. It’s not fine to project a college major for a child who is still in eighth grade. He has the whole world ahead of him and so many experiences to enjoy over the next few years. Let him find his way without being stuck in a box.</p>
<p>I knew a significant amount of Spanish going into high school (my mom speaks Spanish, but refused to speak it to me for the first few years of my life) and was planning on taking French to change things up, but my school started to only offer Spanish and Latin beginning with my year. I had no desire to take Latin because I felt that if I couldn’t converse in Latin, what would be the point? I chose Spanish and I do not feel as if this had any effect on my college acceptances as I’ve already been accepted to an Ivy League school…</p>
<p>I have, however, learned two other languages over the course of these four years and made a point of showing this in my applications. If your son really loves Chinese then he should take it and not worry about the implications that the other posts say are so grave. If he likes languages and has an interest in Spanish, then he should definitely take it at the highest level that he can. Make it about his interests, not about what the colleges want to see… but you do want to try to take four years of a language, no matter what level you end at.</p>