Most US high school students are fluent in English and nevertheless find value in four years of H.S. English classes, right?
That’s because they are studying English-language literature and learning to write well.
The same is true for speakers of other languages. We know Ivy League and Stanford students who grew up speaking Spanish or Chinese at home and chose to take advanced literature classes in those languages rather than start a new language from scratch. They were admitted despite not having a third language, so I’m not sure what @menloparkmom is an official policy at those schools.
Look into American Council. My son participated last summer in an intensive language program in Taiwan and obtained 2 course credits and advanced his Chinese by 2 College semesters. There are opportunities for high school students. https://www.americancouncils.org/programs/national-security-language-initiative-youth
@Calimex: but OP was wondering about Beginning classes in high school. History, Geopolitics, Literature courses are of course totally ok nd very valuable.
Yeah, OP should place out of beginning Chinese and focus on more advanced literacy …
A tangential but possibly relevant anecdote: at one of the school info sessions we attended at a school that “recommended” SAT IIs, they recommended not providing a SAT II score for a heritage language exam as one of the 3. Not quite the same as the discussion above, but certainly an indication that it’s not entirely taken at face value as a foreign language.
I agree that the OP should find out what level class fits with what the OP knows already. It may be Chinese 3. I’d do whatever level that is and the lang dept should be able to help the OP figure out which is the right level.
My son only did 2 years in high school for a total of 3 years of one language (not spoken at home) and it may have kept him from being admitted one one school in particular but he got in a bunch of good schools, so I think that things vary a lot and that schools seemed to look at him holistically in general. I’d pay attention to what the school says about preferred and requirements. Wesleyan, for example, told us at the info session that when it says, ‘preferred’ it should mean required in the sense that they can easily fill a whole class with their preferred classes/etc. Not all schools, even equally or higher ranked ones, are like that, though.
[quote="suteiki77;c-22722720"Wesleyan, for example, told us at the info session that when it says, ‘preferred’ it should mean required in the sense that they can easily fill a whole class with their preferred classes/etc. Not all schools, even equally or higher ranked ones, are like that, though.
[/quote]
“Preferred” or “recommended” is typically interpreted as meaning “required unless it is not available to you”, unless you are a really special applicant in the college’s eyes (e.g. major development applicant, top level recruited athlete).