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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No. But if one had to rank.. Latin would be at the top[/quote]

Mandarin Chinese is not only more difficult for a native English speaker to master, but pragmatically it’s not even a fair fight. Latin will come in handy when you’re planning to storm the Vatican or if you ever gain access to a time machine … for literally everything else, bet on Mandarin Chinese.[/quote]

Anytime we need Mandarin, we are going to use a native speaker who speaks English, not some white American who stumbled through four years of high school Mandarin.[/quote]

It’s about pursuit of a rigorous program, and frankly, a student choosing Spanish or French (assuming Chinese is also available) could be viewed as taking the easiest way out for those four years of FL coursework.

If I was looking at otherwise identical students and one completed four years of Mandarin Chinese as their FL and the other completed four years of Spanish - I mean, if you understand the fact that the former is far more complex to master, you would have to tip the scale to that side, if think.

And then as to your last point, I guess it depends on how far a student pursues native fluency. I know of students who completed a Mandarin Chinese immersion program in the K-5 period, then returned for HS (with, as another poster pointed out, a class full of classmates surrounding them who use the language daily at home, as their primary family language) and some of them are very, very, very capable of reaching effective native fluency at 17 years old, with no indication in accent or otherwise.[/quote]

Whether any of these languages is relevant at all depends on the intended major. I'm really doubtful that unless you actually intend to major in foreign languages, that a college will care a lot which language you took. The committee is going to regard four years of [i]any [/i]language as "rigorous" for the purpose of assessing your curriculum's rigor. [/quote]

You may very well be right for many schools, but I can tell you from very recent firsthand knowledge (as a parent accompanying an athletic recruit minor through the pre-read process) that at least one T20 school (and really, a T3 school) completely 180'd on the previously active recruitment process b/c the highest level of STEM courses available through his school (Calculus B/C and III, Linear Algebra, Physics C) were not on his transcript at the end of 11th grade. It didn't matter that 1/2 of those courses are on his plate for his senior year, or most importantly ... that he has a very specific non-STEM academic plan that's evident in his ECs and that obviously doesn't involve CS, engineering, or math). It didn't matter. Rigor, rigor, rigor.

This might be an anomaly, but it was literally our experience three months ago.[/quote]

Your assumption that this transfers to language choice is wrong. Sorry, they don’t care if you took Spanish or French or Chinese or whatever. 
[/quote]

Again, what do you base that statement on?

Otherwise, as reader, I'm only left to conclude that you are a panicky parent trying to convince yourself it doesn't matter.[/quote]

And what do you base your statement that they [i]do [/i]care what language they took on?

If you're the PP with the kid who didn't get recruited, that doesn't support your case at all. You didn't even mention foreign language at all in your single kid sample size anecdote.[/quote]

You refuse to answer the question of how you know they DON'T take FL choice into consideration, but instead ask me to defend a statement I never made?

Nobody in this thread, including me, has made a statement that the AOs or admissions process DO take the FL selection into consideration. The furthest I've gone is in asserting that they should, based on the unifying theme of academic rigor.

Now that we're past those pleasantries, how about you share with everyone how you know they DON'T (since you HAVE asserted that they don't care)?[/quote]

DP: I've been to a ton of college admissions events over the years for my 3 kids, youngest visiting schools now.  I have NEVER heard a school say they rank languages based on their rigor and parents do ask such things.  Many want to see 4+ years of the same language in high school.  People don't choose their languages based on how hard they are--they choose them based on what is available/strong at their school and what they think will be useful to them.   Also, even if a language has a higher difficulty rating for English speakers, it doesn't tell you how difficult the class was at their particular school--they just might not progress as quickly through the language as they do with an easier one.  [/quote]

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