Foreign Language accepted?

[MerryAtHope]

What's been your experience with colleges that say the foreign language requirement can be fulfilled by 2 years of the same language in high school--did they accept your student's homeschooled FL as fulfilling this requirement? 

[G5052]

With the schools my oldest applied to, they said that foreign language had to be somehow verified by a test like a SAT II/AP or by an outside class. These were selective schools that wanted 3 and recommended 4 credits, so that's a factor.

 

I'd ask the school directly. Some just want to see the credit, and some are picky. 

[Bootsie]

Are you asking about high school foreign language requirements for admittance?  Or, are you asking for high school foreign language fulfilling university required language courrses?

[Farrar]

I only have my own experience (which is obviously a little dated) but my college required that you take an exam - they said it was equivalent to some years of foreign language in high school, but you could be, say, a native speaker and take it or have done self study. If you spoke a language that wasn't tested, you had to apply to the dean somehow.

[Guest2]

State school accepted home school transcript, no further testing needed. For a B.S. Two years high school was all the language need, B.A. Requires additional language.

[cbollin]

deleted.  OP was asking a different question than I answered.  :)

Edited December 29, 2015 by cbollin

[snowbeltmom]

What's been your experience with colleges that say the foreign language requirement can be fulfilled by 2 years of the same language in high school--did they accept your student's homeschooled FL as fulfilling this requirement?

Yes. It was not a problem with any of the colleges on his application list.

[MariaT]

Same with us. DS18 did 4 years Spanish, with a tutor, which I documented in our course descriptions, but he did not take an SAT Subject test. His school recommends FL in college, but it is not a requirement. If he wants to pursue Spanish he has to take a placement test, but it does not affect admission.

Maria

[GoodGrief]

Colleges who would reject a foreign language homeschool credit would probably be difficult about other sorts of credits too. I don't think it's a common problem. That said, we did try to validate my daughter's foreign language via a university class.

[hopskipjump]

So far, the universities dd has applied to have stated that there just needs to be 2-3 years of FL on the transcript. Testing would only be done if she were to continue the language at the university level.

 

If it turns out that the language is a requirement for her degree or university, she will have to just start over. lol She finished 3 years of FL early and lacked time to continue it for 11th or 12th grade. If anyone asked her to take a test in that language, it would be a dismal failure. If you don't use it... you lose it! :p

[MerryAtHope]

Are you asking about high school foreign language requirements for admittance?  Or, are you asking for high school foreign language fulfilling university required language courrses?

 

Sorry I wasn't clear! I was asking about high school foreign language fulfilling university required language courses. I was looking at a state school that said one of the grad. requirements was a year of FL, but that 2 years of high school FL in the same language could fulfill the requirement. I wondered if schools that say something like that commonly accept FL from a homeschool transcript as fulfilling that requirement. 

 

State school accepted home school transcript, no further testing needed. For a B.S. Two years high school was all the language need, B.A. Requires additional language.

 

Interesting, good to know at least one state school was willing to waive the need for college FL based on the high school transcript. Thanks!

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

Sorry I wasn't clear! I was asking about high school foreign language fulfilling university required language courses. I was looking at a state school that said one of the grad. requirements was a year of FL, but that 2 years of high school FL in the same language could fulfill the requirement. I wondered if schools that say something like that commonly accept FL from a homeschool transcript as fulfilling that requirement. 

 

 

Interesting, good to know at least one state school was willing to waive the need for college FL based on the high school transcript. Thanks!

 

That varies from school to school.  I've seen some that take a transcript and some that require you to take their placement test (typically online over the summer or after May 1).  Sometimes that placement test requirement is not well mentioned until after you are filling out forms for enrollment/first year.  I've seen it implied in admissions that high school courses suffice but then in the details later are that those courses are what you need to pass the placement exam.  I've seen others where classes on the transcript are sufficient proof.  Keep in mind that for some schools AP and SAT IIs may or may not replace their school specific placement test-different schools treat that issue differently.  Also, be sure to read the fine print-some schools only accept certain languages/disallow certain languages.

 

Keep in mind that if a university is asking for you to take 2 years of a foreign language at college level (i.e. through 2 200 level courses) that would typically equate with 4 years of high school study.  (So yes, 1 year would equal two years in high school.)  I'm sure that equation would be different if your "high school" course were actually DE courses. 

[GoodGrief]

Ah, I see what you are asking now! I would guess that, like acceptance of AP credits, etc, the answer probably varies widely according to school. I suspect the more clearly you can explain your program, the more likely it will be accepted. Outside validation in the form of testing, competition awards, or DE credit would possibly help too.

[MerryAtHope]

Thanks! Yes, I was mainly looking to see what the various experiences were--how many found schools "just accepted" the courses listed on a transcript, versus how many found they had to provide additional proof through testing. 

[Bootsie]

Sorry I wasn't clear! I was asking about high school foreign language fulfilling university required language courses. I was looking at a state school that said one of the grad. requirements was a year of FL, but that 2 years of high school FL in the same language could fulfill the requirement. I wondered if schools that say something like that commonly accept FL from a homeschool transcript as fulfilling that requirement. 

 

This will vary widely from university to university and perhaps even from major to major within a university.  Some universities don't require any foreign language.  If a foreign language is required, often a student can provide documentation through testing of a particular level of fluency.  This often does not depend on the number of classes a student has taken; a student who has had a great deal of exposure to a foreign language (even if not formally enrolled in class) may be able to pass a level of fluency required at a school.  I did teach at one university that required two semesters of a foreign language at the college level, regardless of the amount of previous foreign language education; a student who had studied Spanish, for example, could enroll in the next level Spanish courses for a year.  Or, the student could take one year of another language.  

[J-rap]

Our most recent experience is that my daughter's 4 years of language in high school were accepted to get in to college.  However, once in college, she still has to take a language test to see if she can actually pass out of the level that they require.  She still hasn't done this.  She will need to study up because it's been two years now since she graduated from high school!

Edited March 8, 2016 by J-rap

[FaithManor]

Dd  - two years of Latin and two years of Spanish - applied to at least ten schools (might have been twelve) and U of MIchigan was one of them. No one blinked an eye at her language credits. DD was not required at that time to take a foreign language, but would have taken Spanish again in college if she had needed to do so. She was a chem major (BS degree), and also went to paramedic school.

 

Ds 1 - the current college freshman - three years of German - no problems, two years of Latin - also no one questioned that. However, U of MI for the BA requires two semesters of the same foreign language in college and the only out one has is dual enrollment credits from a school they accept credits from...there are some CC's and low ranked regional U's that they don't accept transfer credits from due to what they feel is low academic quality. I did not check to see if they took AP since ds did not take the AP exam. At any rate, he took the first semester of German and loved it - I was not at all unhappy about him repeating some material because I knew the professor (a former German citizen) would take him to a depth he didn't study here as well as provide a lot of cultural and historical information that his text did not cover - and is now in the second semester and loving it too.

 

Ds 2 - High school senior, admitted to four of the five schools he has applied to, waiting to hear on U of Rochester - two years of Icelandic, and one year of Danish - he had faculty interviews at two of the four schools and they thought his language choices were pretty cool! He will be a BS major in Ecology/Environmental Science/FreshWater Biology and Conservation, and will not be required to take college foreign language at these four schools. I don't know yet what University of Rochester will require. We'll see if he gets accepted. That school was a less certain possibility for him than University of Michigan.

 

Ds 3 is taking French and will study it for three years. My sister, currently working on her PH.D in translation at the Universite de Caen, is his skype tutor. She will take him further than any high school instructor here, and very likely any undergraduate college professor in this state. But, he is only a sophomore, and we haven't explored the requirements for graduating with a robotics engineering degree. We have a short list of schools, however I just haven't had the time to look up their catalogs and see if they require foreign language from their BS degree seeking students.