UVA, VT and years of foreign language
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Anonymous
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DS24, reached AP Chinese in 10th grade, and did not take any other language classes in the last two years, got in UVA EA. To the previous post, W&M admission mentioned specifically, as long as you got IV in foreign language and showed in your high school transcript, you are fine, even if you took it at middle school.
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Anonymous
| DD took five total years of French, through AP senior year. Accepted to VT, not interested in UVA. |
Anonymous
| DS took Spanish 4 in 11th grade. Did not take AP Spanish senior year. Accepted into VT College of Engineering (with CS intent) and waitlisted at UVA. 4.4 wGPA, 1500 SAT, varsity sports, and other normal ECs. |
Anonymous
| My DS took AP level language junior year and was accepted to UVA Engineering. Didnt apply to VT. |
Anonymous
| What I don’t understand is how people are saying if you got through Spanish 4 by 10th and then dropped it for science APs in 11/12 that this is inferior to someone who took through level 4 senior year of HS. |
Anonymous
No one else has responded on this but I would be interested to hear other thoughts. I’m a former college admissions counselor from a long time ago fwiw (though my info is outdated). I have a 9th grader who took Alg 1 in 7th and languages is just not his thing. I let him wait until 9th to start. My current 6th grader is better at languages and likes them and he’s “only” taking honors math 7 next year. He considered taking a language in 7th and I said to both - I hear colleges want to see 4 years of lang in HS regardless of whether you take it in MS, so you might want to try other electives in 7th. I may suggest he takes a lang in 8th tho. |
Anonymous
So I’m the former college admissions counselor - but at a less selective college, and with outdated info. What I recall was that we looked what was your English for 4 years, what was your social studies, what was your science, what was your math, what was your lang, etc. After that I think we would consider it an elective. But also - I separately stopped interviewing for my Ivy League alma mater because no one I interviewed ever got in. At least I knew before my kids were born that elite college admissions is a lottery these days. |
Anonymous
My sons had Spanish in MS, but the Spanish exemption exam for their private HS placed them in Honors Spanish 1. The teacher/class was very rigorous. The amount of Spanish texts, fiction, non-fiction, textbooks I had to bit for level 1 was more than all other courses combined. My youngest who is great with languages will go up to Honors Spanish 3 and then take AP Spanish Senior year. |
Anonymous
| So if the 4 years were on your HS transcript though 2 years were in middle was that okay? |
Anonymous
Ok so that’s a difference between schools but I still don’t see how you can argue that a kid from your private that made it to Spanish 3 in 9th has less rigor than the one that made it in 11th, |
Anonymous
It’s not really a question about what we are arguing. It’s a question of what colleges want to see. If they ideally want to see 4 years of a language in HS, it is what it is. |
Anonymous
From our experience, it is fine, at least for UVA A&S, DD got admitted this year in EA round. She took AP foreign language class at 10th grade. I b |
Anonymous
UVA prefers to see 4 years of language all through high school. So, for example, if you "max out" and take AP French in 10th grade, then pick up another language for 11th and 12 grades, like Latin 1 and 2 (or German or Chinese, or whatever looks interesting). This is NOT a requirement, but UVA definitely recommends it to be a strong, competitive applicant. |
Anonymous
Thank you! |