Foreign language requirement for High school (4 yr)

[j3mom]

This is my first post here on the highschool forum, although I have been reading here for quite some time, educating my self on the future. I am very very thankful for all the knowledge that you share here. It is very helpful.

My question is regarding to my DS(11) currently talking 2 highschool level foreign languages. He is in sixth grade and is currently enrolled in Lone Pine Latin 200 and Honors Spanish 200 (with Ray Levens). (He took both of the 100 levels last year). He really enjoys both of the classes, he picked them out of his own interest and wants to continue with them all the way.

However I started to educate my self on all the highschool requirements, since I did not grew up in this country. And found out that some of the top colleges (just keeping all options open for now) recommend to have 4 years of one foreign language during highschool. As of now, my son is on a track to be in AP level in both languages in 9th grade, freshmen year of highschool. We can stall Spanish with conversational Spanish in his 7th grade (next year) which would put AP Spanish in 10th grade. As of now we are not looking into graduating HS early. Would this pose a problem for him with top college admissions? Do they require to have those 4 years all done in highschool? I would hate for my son to take 5 years of each (Latin and Spanish) and then being in disadvantage for admission purposes that he would lack the 4 year language requirement during highschool. Although he would not mind to take another language in highschool, he would not have time to take another 4 years of a language then. (Besides he is most likely headeding to the science, math and engineering world.)

I know that this is a long ways away, but since he is on this train now I want to make sure that it will lead him where he wants to go, and it will not close doors for him just because he is ahead of the schedule. ;-)

I appreciate any information that you may provide. Thank you

[madteaparty]

I may end up having this same problem as DS will go to a brick and mortar high school. In the ones we are considering sending him, he will be post AP in one language (french) and neither school offers his second language (arabic). I don't know what to do as the schools are very specific he needs x years taken *in the school*. I suspect we continue arabic outside of school and he starts a third language (the schools do all offer multiple languages). I wish there were post AP french classes he could take but alas.

[Tsuga]

My high school only offered two years so I took an independent literature study my junior year and was a TA my final year. My suggestion would be that if he intends to continue one in college, I would do a practicum for Spanish by volunteering and doing a write-up once a week for one year, and then a lit study (mild) for the last year. You don't have to keep going through those. Or he could do dual-enrollment for the fourth year.

 

I am not sure about admissions but I do think there are alternatives to book series for those who finish the series before high school's up.

[Starr]

I wouldn't worry about it now. Over time I would see what his colleges of potential interest require. 8th grade counts for High School for most colleges. By then you might find a tutor who will do a lit class in Spanish with him. 

[yvonne]

Could you call the admissions offices of the universities/colleges you're looking at and ask them to clarify... do they want the student to take four years of the same language IN grades 9-12?  Or do they want to see evidence of the student reaching the level of four years of study in one language? If it's the second, does a 4 or 5 on the AP exam for that language fulfill their FL requirement for admissions?  If your student can take the AP exam in 9th and fill the FL requirements for admission, he'll have more time available to take other classes in 10-12, so it's worth finding out directly.

(And please post what you find out if you call!  We're in a similar boat. My oldest will take the French AP and the Latin AP this year, in 10th grade. My impression from what I've read/heard is that this will fill their FL reqmts for college admissions, and they do not plan to continue in 11th & 12th grade. They wouldn't mind continuing. They just don't have time schedule-wise to fit more in.)

[j3mom]

Great ideas, Tsuga and Star. I have not even thought about lit studies or teaching assistant possibilities. For some reason I thought that language is done with AP level and that is it. :-)  I will research this little more.

Yvonne, I will call and find out and will report back here.

Yes, I thought that taking the FL earlier would free up more time to take other valuable classes during HS.

Madteaparty, maybe the school will count his languages and he won't have to take another one at the school. Hopeful thinking ;-)

[Lanny]

This is the information for Tech (Texas Tech University). My guess is that their requirements are fairly typical. Notice the requirements for Home Schoolers are the same.   My belief is that normally high school requirements are to be completed during 9th through 12th grades, because of G.P.A. calculations, but I am assuming that to be the case.

 

^ If two years of the foreign language are not completed in high school, at least two semesters of a single foreign language will be required at the college level.

 

Homeschooled Students

Admission requirements are the same as for students who have attended traditional public or private schools. A transcript with all coursework, completed and in progress, is required with the application, test score, and application fee or waiver. Homeschool transcripts must bear a notarized signature of the parent attesting to the authenticity of the record. VisitUndergraduate Admissions for more information.

[momma2three]

Are you planning on having him stop studying the language after the AP level, or can he move into studying more literature in that language?  

[ktgrok]

He could always take college courses at a community college in a language in highschool. But I think showing he's made it through AP level is plenty. 

[j3mom]

I did not realized that there are continuing options to study foreign language after AP level and AP test. That is a great idea, and I will have to check more into that. I am assuming this would be done at College as Dual enrollment. Do these types of classes still count as Foreign language?

 

 

[kiana]

I did not realized that there are continuing options to study foreign language after AP level and AP test. That is a great idea, and I will have to check more into that. I am assuming this would be done at College as Dual enrollment. Do these types of classes still count as Foreign language?

 

Yes. If you run into a college that won't recognize them, they probably are too unused to dealing with academically talented/accelerated kids to be a good fit anyway.

 

Latin would actually be a great one to continue because of it being a non-spoken language. You can probably find a classicist somewhere who would be interested in doing an independent study/reading via correspondence with a talented and enthusiastic high school student. I mean, you'd still have to pay them, but it's the easiest to do via correspondence.

 

By the time he gets to HS, another option for continuing foreign language study might be a summer exchange program, if it is financially and otherwise feasible.

[j3mom]

He could always take college courses at a community college in a language in highschool. But I think showing he's made it through AP level is plenty. 

 

That is what I was thinking as well. DS's current plan is to finish both (Spanish and Latin) to AP, which would mean 5 years for each. But only portion of it would be done in the actual highschool years, althought both are at a highschool level, from outside sources.

 

Message has been left at a university, so hoping to have some answer soon.

 

Everybody's input is very much appreciated. I see it is true, one can always count on the Hive ;-)

[j3mom]

Yes. If you run into a college that won't recognize them, they probably are too unused to dealing with academically talented/accelerated kids to be a good fit anyway.

 

Latin would actually be a great one to continue because of it being a non-spoken language. You can probably find a classicist somewhere who would be interested in doing an independent study/reading via correspondence with a talented and enthusiastic high school student. I mean, you'd still have to pay them, but it's the easiest to do via correspondence.

 

By the time he gets to HS, another option for continuing foreign language study might be a summer exchange program, if it is financially and otherwise feasible.

 

Thank you Kiana,

that makes a lot of sense. I love that idea of continuing. My DS can not wait to read the actual works in Latin, and although I am sure that some of that will be done in the future years at Lone Pine, he would love to continue like this on his own under a supervision. I will check with his teacher, maybe she has some prior experience with this already.

[j3mom]

On Stanford website I found the following:

"

Stanford students are to complete one year of college-level study of a foreign language (or the equivalent). How do I meet the language requirement? By being placed into a second-year course (or beyond) through on-campus placement testing or By completing the third course in a first-year sequence or By presenting an AP score of 4 or 5 in Chinese, French, German, or Spanish or an SATII of 630 in Chinese, German, Italian, Korean, Latin, or Spanish; of 640 in French; of 620 in Japanese; or of 540 in Hebrew. Or by presenting an IB High Level score of 5.       "     Based on this, the good AP score of 4-5 would be sufficient to even get out of the one year FL study during college. So I am reasoning that it may be sufficient for HS as well? Am I on the limb here?

[JanetC]

The usual advice for those "aiming high" for college is 5 academic solids per year. In the academic rating game, PE, music, driver's ed, etc. don't "count".

 

This is usually: Math, science, history and social studies, foreign language, and English.

 

However, if he has AP tests in foreign language, he will have had the equivalent of 4 years of that language before 12th. That means he could "double up" elsewhere: take both history and economics one year, take both biology and environmental science another, etc. Or, as has been suggested, he could do advanced work with the language, such as reading literature written in that language, study abroad, etc.

 

Also, while 5 solids per year is the ideal, not all kids will have that. The minimum is 4 years each of math and English, 3 years each of science, social studies, and foreign language, and enough electives to get to 20 or 21 classes. This will have him ready for an academically solid school, just maybe not competitive for the schools that reject 90% or more of their applicants.

[Luckymama]

I would make an effort to have him continue studying Spanish at a post-AP level so that he doesn't lose the language skills. It's easy to let things slip ("oh yeah, I'll get to reading that short story next week" or "I'm too busy this week to chat with a language partner") without a registered class, you know?

[Corraleno]

I did not realized that there are continuing options to study foreign language after AP level and AP test. That is a great idea, and I will have to check more into that. I am assuming this would be done at College as Dual enrollment. Do these types of classes still count as Foreign language?

 

A high school AP foreign language class would be roughly equivalent to a 4th semester college class. At most of the colleges I've looked at that grant credit for AP foreign language, a 4 or 5 is credited as four semesters (e.g. Spanish 101, 102, 201, 202). But there are still many 300 and 400 level course options that involve reading and analyzing literature in the language.

 

Your student could do those courses via DE, private tutoring, or online correspondence, as someone mentioned upthread. For example, Lukeion's Latin 4 = AP Latin, but students can continue Latin with them via independent study. There's no AP Greek, sadly, but my son will finish Greek 4 this year and will be doing Greek 5 with Regan as an independent study next year, focusing on Homer.

[j3mom]

The usual advice for those "aiming high" for college is 5 academic solids per year. In the academic rating game, PE, music, driver's ed, etc. don't "count".

 

This is usually: Math, science, history and social studies, foreign language, and English.

 

However, if he has AP tests in foreign language, he will have had the equivalent of 4 years of that language before 12th. That means he could "double up" elsewhere: take both history and economics one year, take both biology and environmental science another, etc. Or, as has been suggested, he could do advanced work with the language, such as reading literature written in that language, study abroad, etc.

 

Also, while 5 solids per year is the ideal, not all kids will have that. The minimum is 4 years each of math and English, 3 years each of science, social studies, and foreign language, and enough electives to get to 20 or 21 classes. This will have him ready for an academically solid school, just maybe not competitive for the schools that reject 90% or more of their applicants.

 

Thanks JanetC, that makes a lot of sense. My initial thoughts were that he would have Foreign language out of the way and that would free up some time to take other classes. But I don't want to close any doors on him, that is why I am checking into this. I am very new to the HS planning and any info is very appreciated.

 

I would make an effort to have him continue studying Spanish at a post-AP level so that he doesn't lose the language skills. It's easy to let things slip ("oh yeah, I'll get to reading that short story next week" or "I'm too busy this week to chat with a language partner") without a registered class, you know?

 

Yes, that is a good idea to do. I can speak from my own experience, as I can hardly speak any German anymore...."use it or loose it". Fortunately we live in Florida and here are lot of opportunities to speak Spanish. However, Luckymama, you brought up a good point with scheduling and keeping it up if you really don't have to, and it is something to keep in mind while contemplating the "big plan".

A high school AP foreign language class would be roughly equivalent to a 4th semester college class. At most of the colleges I've looked at that grant credit for AP foreign language, a 4 or 5 is credited as four semesters (e.g. Spanish 101, 102, 201, 202). But there are still many 300 and 400 level course options that involve reading and analyzing literature in the language.

 

Your student could do those courses via DE, private tutoring, or online correspondence, as someone mentioned upthread. For example, Lukeion's Latin 4 = AP Latin, but students can continue Latin with them via independent study. There's no AP Greek, sadly, but my son will finish Greek 4 this year and will be doing Greek 5 with Regan as an independent study next year, focusing on Homer.

Thank you for breaking it down for me. It is good to know that there are options for post AP language study.

Just out of curiosity, Lukeion has AP Latin as a year 4? Lone Pine AP has it as 5th year....Interesting.  Your son's independent Greek study sounds interesting :-) I could totally envision something like this for my DS down the road.

 

 

Meanwhile, I spoke to Princeton's admission (one of the school that has 4 years of FL, and actually returned my call already):

  and the admission lady said if the student achieves mastery and it is shown with a high grade on a test (AP) or if the student runs out of options to continue studying the language (higher classes not available at the school), the university does not require the whole 4 years. I explained my son's situation with the two languages, and she said that that would be totaly fine, if he does not continue FL during the all 4 years of HS and just finishes with AP levels when he does. :-)

[Corraleno]

Just out of curiosity, Lukeion has AP Latin as a year 4? Lone Pine AP has it as 5th year....Interesting.  Your son's independent Greek study sounds interesting :-) I could totally envision something like this for my DS down the road.

 

Yes, Lukeion covers Wheelock's in Latin 1 & 2, then Latin 3 is reading excerpts of Cicero, Livy, Pliny, Ovid, and the Vulgate (Wheelock's Reader), and Latin 4 is AP Vergil & Caesar. They use college-level materials but at half the pace (1 yr Lukeion class = 1 semester college class).

 

Their Greek program is similar: Greek 1 & 2 use the Athenaze texts, then in the 3rd year they read Lysias's Murder of Eratosthenes and various authors in the JACT Greek Anthology, and now in Greek 4 they are reading Plato.