My aim is to get into a top tier US/UK/Canadian college, As a disclaimer, I am already fluent in Chinese (scored 790 on tjhe SAT II Subject Test). I recently moved back to Canada, a curriculum that is much more specialized than liberal-arts based, after a year and a half of living in California. Because I am moving from a non-semestered school to a semestered school, I had to drop French for a semester. However, back in California, I’d only completed half a semester of French 3 (got a 94 first semester, it’s one of my stronger subjects). French is much more difficult in Canada, as they expect students to be fully fluent in the language by the time they graduate from French 12. I talked to my counselor, and they cannot guarantee that I will be placed into French 11 next year, but if I am heaps ahead of other students the department will allow me to go on to French 11.
However, there are several concerns. One, though French is one of my stronger subjects, I do not want to take up two elective spots for a language that I probably will not use after high school and one that isn’t even relevant to my anticipated majors (economics, political science, or geography). If I take French those two years, I will not be able to take stats or current affairs, which are classes actually relevant to my major and will make me a more competitive applicant for Canadian and UK colleges as they are much more concerned about an applicant’s preparedness for one specific major rather than the depth in applicants’ curriculum. Two, if I do take French, I risk lowering my overall average for a relatively frivolous elective because learning French in Canada is very different from learning French at my old Californian school: there is a much greater emphasis on oral communication, my weakness, and the variety of French learned is Quebecois French, not standard French. The accent is very different, as is much of the vocabulary. Three, I am already fluent in another fluent language. Would that satisfy the requirement for the most selective private American colleges?
How important is taking 4 years of a foreign language to universities, really? And, while we’re on the topic, since I’m applying as a social science major, do you think I could get away with taking only Biology, Chemistry Honors, and AP Physics, without a fourth year of science? I’m taking all math classes available at my school at the highest levels.