Question About UVA Admissions and Foreign Language

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I appreciate the poster who posted the information from UVA's website. That is extremely helpful and I will share it with my child. I think we have the answer and the risk seems too high not to take the foreign language class.

Yes, I appreciated the Dean blog post as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We will let you know. My son only went through Spanish 4 (in 8th through 11th grades), and he applied EA to the College of Engineering this fall.

He took a foreign language his junior year. OP’s kid doesn’t want to take one after sophomore year. That’s different.

This is the OP. My child also went through Spanish IV - only difference was that they completed Spanish 4 in 10th Grade (7th-10th grades).

I understand that. But whether they admit it or not colleges, including UVA, give less weight to language courses taken in middle school than high school.

Look, you are going to get all kinds of responses. You are going to get folks jumping in and saying they have kids who got in without taking a foreign language for four years in high school. That’s great. That doesn’t change the fact that majority do take a foreign language all four years and that UVA make it clear that that is the option that they prefer. Those are the facts. Allow anecdotes that differ to sway your opinion at your own risk.

When my kids were in high school and considering UVA, none of them had any interest whatsoever in stem. That did not stop them from taking four years of math and science up to and through the AP level. They did that because they knew that UVA wanted to see that kind of a transcript. It makes no difference that the student is interested in stem and wants to forego non-stem high school classes.

I hear you, and I think I am reaching the unfortunate conclusion that they will need to take two more years of Spanish in order to be competitive, but I find the whole thing ridiculous because they took two years of language in middle school while others did not. It is not quite the same thing as math, social studies, science, and language arts - all middle schoolers had to take these core subjects but they did not have to take a foreign language in 7th and 8th grade. My child chose to take a foreign language in addition to their other core classes in middle school and should be given credit for doing so.

Ok that was a mistake you made. I chose not to have my kid do foreign language in middle school because (1) it’s a joke of a curriculum (2) my kid wasn’t interested in it. So I said, we’ll save it for high school when it matters.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure about UVA's School of Engineering, but I wrote a recommendation for a student several years ago, who applied to the College of Arts and Sciences from out of state. She was rejected. One of the reasons I was told by someone in the Admissions Office was that she didn't complete 4 years of a foreign language. (I'm an alum and was friends with several admissions officers.)

She eventually went to Tufts and then transferred to Brown. So, she was smart.

[Anonymous]

Where do you locate the “high school profile” that the Dean is referencing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where do you locate the “high school profile” that the Dean is referencing?

When you say "high school profile," are you referring to the high school itself or the student's high school application? If you're referring to the high school, the UVa Admissions Office has a profile of every high school where students applying from. These profiles list what are the hardest courses students can take at those schools, what classes are weighted or not, etc. The Admissions Office uses these profiles to see if the applicant has taken the most rigorous classes the schools have to offer and excelled in them. Some schools offer a lot of AP/Honors courses while other don't offer as much. Admissions officials in all colleges and universities use these profiles to help them judge an application beyond GPAs and test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I thought the normal course sequence is Language 1-4, then either AP or DE for the language in year 5. How do you take 6 years of a language?

Two of mine who had 6 years took two years of the FL as IB classes. Another went from a very strong public MS in Arlington to private HS and had to take a test at the HS to see his level of proficiency, along with two other friends going from the same public MS to the same private HS. Despite having 3 years of FL in MS they all tested as if having only 1 year. Generally MS foreign language is not as strong as HS and UVA likely knows that.

+100

My kid who does extremely well in languages- was similar. They tested into honors but lost a year which is fine. MS language courses are not as strong.

Nobody really cares about middle school anyway. They were 11-13. If you switch to private nothing from public MS is on your transcript anyways. Colleges only care about the 4 years of HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you locate the “high school profile” that the Dean is referencing?

When you say "high school profile," are you referring to the high school itself or the student's high school application? If you're referring to the high school, the UVa Admissions Office has a profile of every high school where students applying from. These profiles list what are the hardest courses students can take at those schools, what classes are weighted or not, etc. The Admissions Office uses these profiles to see if the applicant has taken the most rigorous classes the schools have to offer and excelled in them. Some schools offer a lot of AP/Honors courses while other don't offer as much. Admissions officials in all colleges and universities use these profiles to help them judge an application beyond GPAs and test scores.

The high school counselor sends the high school profile with transcript to the schools kids apply. They don’t have a profile on every high school in the us and abroad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you locate the “high school profile” that the Dean is referencing?

When you say "high school profile," are you referring to the high school itself or the student's high school application? If you're referring to the high school, the UVa Admissions Office has a profile of every high school where students applying from. These profiles list what are the hardest courses students can take at those schools, what classes are weighted or not, etc. The Admissions Office uses these profiles to see if the applicant has taken the most rigorous classes the schools have to offer and excelled in them. Some schools offer a lot of AP/Honors courses while other don't offer as much. Admissions officials in all colleges and universities use these profiles to help them judge an application beyond GPAs and test scores.

The high school counselor sends the high school profile with transcript to the schools kids apply. They don’t have a profile on every high school in the us and abroad.

I don't know why you are splitting threads. the fact is that ANY applicant to ANY college in the US is sent a student profile by the high school to tje institution with the kids transcript. It is what it is. This is how public and privates in america can say (hah) to parents "well we don't rank" but the colleges can figure it out in less than 30 seconds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. I appreciate the poster who posted the information from UVA's website. That is extremely helpful and I will share it with my child. I think we have the answer and the risk seems too high not to take the foreign language class.

Yes, I appreciated the Dean blog post as well.

YES, UVA wants to see four years. Then UVA (after admittance) will want to see at least another year of college level foreign language. this is because it (correctly) thinks it is educating citizens of the world who will have to deal with many languages in the workplace. The only applicants that get out of this are the occasional stem students who are URM or first-generation or have some other statiscial data point that the university seeks. this is a fact. My college was the same. Yes, you will find people saying otherwise but if you delve into the situation (which you cannot here) you will learn that the student is not a normal case.

FWIW my UVA kid entered with (belligerently) four years of Spanish and then when faced with the UVA offerings for language (HUGE! amazing! UVA must keep a huge number of foreign language specialists ready to teach! Urdu? no problem) picked German. Loved it and traveled to Munich for a winter semester aboard. And now he's overseas for graduate work ther. You have no idea where these languages might take them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where do you locate the “high school profile” that the Dean is referencing?

Check your high school’s website. It is usually posted, you just have to dig around.

If not, email the college counselor (or regular counselor) at your high school and ask. Very easy simple document.

[Anonymous]

4 years of language is probably accurate. My guess is because there’s no room in their curriculum for foreign language to continue at UVA and graduate in 4 years. The Eschool is a pretty structured class schedule all 4 years. I believe this may be the reason Dean J says it’s considered a core subject.

[Anonymous]

Adding that I’m just referring to only the Engineering majors at UVA. However I cannot confirm this to be true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here it is straight from the horse’s mouth. It cannot be more clear.

http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2020/10/course-rigor-is-not-number-in-uva.html?m=1

She does not appear to say anywhere in that specific link, or on the insta linked within, that 4 years of language in HS is relevant for admittance. Instead she states that proficiency is important to graduate UVA. Hence I don’t think it’s an absolute admission requirement to have 4 years of language, but as some have said, nobody knows for sure. Of course, to be cautious is perhaps prudent.

From personal experience, the number of years can be substituted by demonstrated proficiency: mine took only 1 year (AP) in HS and was admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here it is straight from the horse’s mouth. It cannot be more clear.

http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2020/10/course-rigor-is-not-number-in-uva.html?m=1

She does not appear to say anywhere in that specific link, or on the insta linked within, that 4 years of language in HS is relevant for admittance. Instead she states that proficiency is important to graduate UVA. Hence I don’t think it’s an absolute admission requirement to have 4 years of language, but as some have said, nobody knows for sure. Of course, to be cautious is perhaps prudent.

From personal experience, the number of years can be substituted by demonstrated proficiency: mine took only 1 year (AP) in HS and was admitted.

Sorry, but you’re an absolute idiot. Nowhere in that site does she say anything at all about “proficiency.“. All she says is that she expects students to take classes in all of the core subjects and that it doesn’t “look good” to double up on the core subjects that you’re interested in at the expense of others. And that is EXACTLY what OP says her daughter wants to do: stop taking foreign language classes and instead double up on math or science.

The right answer here is just so crystal clear that anyone that can’t see it someone who just plain refuses to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you locate the “high school profile” that the Dean is referencing?

When you say "high school profile," are you referring to the high school itself or the student's high school application? If you're referring to the high school, the UVa Admissions Office has a profile of every high school where students applying from. These profiles list what are the hardest courses students can take at those schools, what classes are weighted or not, etc. The Admissions Office uses these profiles to see if the applicant has taken the most rigorous classes the schools have to offer and excelled in them. Some schools offer a lot of AP/Honors courses while other don't offer as much. Admissions officials in all colleges and universities use these profiles to help them judge an application beyond GPAs and test scores.

The high school counselor sends the high school profile with transcript to the schools kids apply. They don’t have a profile on every high school in the us and abroad.

I don't know why you are splitting threads. the fact is that ANY applicant to ANY college in the US is sent a student profile by the high school to tje institution with the kids transcript. It is what it is. This is how public and privates in america can say (hah) to parents "well we don't rank" but the colleges can figure it out in less than 30 seconds.

How do they figure out rank in 30 seconds if the school profile indicates that they don’t rank and it doesn’t list GPA percentiles? Unless a majority of the school’s students apply to a particular school (with a transcript for each ending up in the hands of the admissions committee), it would seem difficult to make heads or tails of the profile.

On the subject of “figuring it out”, we know that The College Board and ACT have monetized their data and sell test scores to colleges and universities, which allow them to market to potential applicants whose test score(s) fits their profile. Wouldn’t it be easy, then, for schools to reference that data to link each applicant to their test score(s), even if they applied TO?