My daughter struggled with two attempts at foreign language pre-High School. When she hit High School, I told her not to bother with that old saying that two years of foreign language is required to get into College. I figure if a College wanted her as a student, they’d take her whether or not she had two years of French under her belt. She has very good grades, lots of other activities, and doesn’t want to go to a big State school (which I figure would be the least flexible) Well, today her guidance counsler told her she “has to” take two years, but of course, she’s finishing her Junior year next month.
Does any one who actually knows about college admissions from the inside think I should resign my position as father?
I wouldn’t take the guidance counselors word for it. I’d check with the colleges she intends on applying to. I don’t think state schools even have that kind of requirement.
So between senior year, summer, other activities and grades, this isn’t a dealbreaker. But you should act now to correct this. Colleges will look well on a year of high-school Spanish plus summer study - they won’t look kindly if your daughter blows the whole thing off.
State schools do have that sort of requirement. The UC system requires two years of a foreign language (ultimately one of the reasons I didn’t go to a UC school) and so does the University of Utah. Private schools, however, vary. Most schools I’m familiar with will accept a student if the student completes their requirement their freshman year–which is how my sister got into the U of U without taking language in high school.
You need to double-check the requirements for each of the schools she is interested in. If they do require two years, it’s not the end of the world. You have options. Contact the school and find out if they’ll let her take a year as a freshman. Or enroll her in a class at the local JC. You can have her take a class this summer, then her second class her senior year.
Because ultimately, here’s the thing. The best schools will have fierce competition. Do you want to give them any reason to reject your daughter? She’s not going to be so special that every school will want her, regardless of whether she meets their criteria. If she is identical to another applicant in every single way, except the other kid has 2 years of a foreign language, what do you think is going to happen?
If you’re looking at summer instruction, you might even get her an advantage by looking into a more “foreign” foriegn language. hands-on intensive summer teaching can take people a lot further than in-school classroom teaching.
I’m not so sure about how necessary FL is to get into school, even as a marginal thing that will put you over the top, although I certainly could be wrong.
However.
Many schools, including many state schools mentioned, have a foreign language requirement to graduate, even from Engineering.
Do you know how time-consuming foreign language classes are in college? Probably at least double other courses with equal credit hours, according to everyone I know. I myself never took a FL in college, despite having gone to Cornell and UCF, since I took 4 years of Spanish in high school and middle school.
But if I hadn’t, I would have had to take those 8 semesters worth of classes in 2 semesters!
So if the school she will be in requires FL to graduate, it would be good to take one in HS as a chance to opt out of some of it, or if not possible, to get a head start on those killer college FL courses.
I don’t what to turn this into a great debate. I think more people should speak a second language, especially more Americans. I just don’t think ALL Americans need to do it. So here’s a general question follow up. Are two years of langauge more valuable on a college application then two years of another electives, such as journalism, drama, or vocal jazz?
Not so much valuable as expected. If they don’t see it, they will wonder why. Most colleges expect that people should be well-rounded and many,probably most, will require her to take language instruction at the university level. She will certainly be able to use any FL experience there.
Yes, probably. Good grades in a foreign language tell admissions officers that the student has strong study skills and a good grasp of how language works. A foreign language class is also a known quantity – a course with demonstrable academic rigor that’s pretty much the same everywhere – while electives are all over the map. At some high schools journalism is a serious and challenging class, at others it’s a complete joke. Your daughter’s high school may have an excellent program, but unless the college admits a lot of people from that particular high school, the people working in admissions don’t know that.
That said, excellent grades in elective courses would probably trump lousy grades in a foreign language, unless the school has a hard-and-fast foreign language requirement.
*“Well-rounded” * is a term that you should keep at the very foremost of your brain when considering how to aim your daughter’s school career.
It’s not one thing or the other, but everything put together to create the image that the colleges will see. Consider things such as languages, extracurricular clubs, sports, music, volunteerism, summer jobs, what have you. AP out the wazoo, too, if you’re in the US and you can swing it.
From a personal note, if she has trouble with foriegn languages, don’t have her take anything too exotic compared to English. Asiatic languages would be a no-win for her most likely. The third time I took Japanese in college (with several years between each, but some retention from previous times), it was still the hardest class I’ve ever taken. And I’m fairly good at languages (got an A-). I spent about four hours a day, every day on homework for that one class.
Although I realize the point has already been made, I’m going to chime in with additional perspective on needing the foreign language to get through college, even if you somehow get in without it. I’ve done some tutoring for college Spanish. Most of this tutoring was with student athletes. These are kids whose academic background didn’t necessarily prepare them for college, but their athletic talent, generally good attitude, and perhaps some sympathy about the obstacles they overcame in subpar schools got them in. Anyway, they really struggled with the language requirement, especially the ones who had taken no Spanish before. College foreign language is taught with the expectation you already had 2+ years, and even then a lot of students feel the material moves very quickly.
I hope she finds a way to get some enjoyment out of foreign language study. She may like it better the second time around. I know that was true for me with some kinds of math. My brain just needed to mature a bit before I could tackle some of those topics.
wow. I’m pretty sure that in Canada, no foreign language courses are required for acceptance into post-secondary education. (Quebec school’s could be an exception.) The opposite, in fact, occurs at the University of Waterloo. There, students, even Ontario high school graduates, must pass an ESL test before they are fully accepted.
To my knowledge, admittedly only speaking about Ontario schools, foreign language requirements only come into play when you start looking into graduate programs.
(Any Canadians here ever hear of undergraduate schools having a foreign language requirement for acceptance?)
Supposedly - and I stress, supposedly, because I’m out of college and just read about admissions occasionally these days - some colleges are losing interest in the idea of a well-rounded student who tries everything, preferring a student who has a passion and pursues it. Foreign language is standard at this point, but it doesn’t mean a student who doesn’t have it will be rejected. It does mean she’ll probably have to do more of it in college.
This doesn’t strike me as GQ material, so I’m going to move it to IMHO.
Not all schools have that requirement. It was pounded into my head in high school that it was definitely a plus, but just the fact that 100 levels in foriegn languages exist go to show that not everybody in college came in with language experience.
Wow - granted my experience was back in the dark ages [1980] I really don’t remember any requirement for a second language ever being mentioned to me, but I got 4 years of french and 3 years of spanish in, so it would have been moot. I ended up having to take algebra2/trig and geometry my senior year [after having taken AP chemistry and calculus because for some reason the outgoing and incoming guidance counselors sort of missed that glaring absence on my records :smack: :smack: :smack: ]
I agree that not everyone came in with language experience, and actually posted about an example of when that tends to happen, but most students in 100 levels of foreign languages are learning an additional foreign language. For example, they took French in H.S., couldn’t master it, and thought Spanish would be easier. Those folks at least have some knowledge of conjugation and such. However, they tend to be wrong about it being a good idea to switch languages, in my tutoring experience. There are also folks who already know French and Italian or whatever and now want to learn Spanish. They’re in there raising the curve in Spanish 101.
I think it’s interesting if Canada has no foreign language requirement. Usually the U.S. is the one getting chastized for being full of monolingual slackers.
I just checked my kids’ school admission policies. Two of them require at least two years of a foreign language in high school. The other two don’t list a language requirement, but they don’t list any specific requirements other than “successfully completing high school.”