My kid is now at 7th grade and we have to choose her 8th grade electives. Our choice is basically choosing Engineering vs. some foreign language.
My kid is bilingual in English and Greek. She has earned certifications in Greek and she is continuing to pursue more advanced certifications. She also took a world language exam at school and received 3 foreign language credits for high school.
However, Greek is not taught as a foreign language in our county. I spoke with our middle school counselor and she said that if we’re going to aim high in colleges, she would likely need to start a 3rd language next year such that she is able to get an AP language exam at high school and basically “tick the box” in a competitive college application. However starting a 3rd language from scratch is not easy. This will be a huge time investment, and likely at the expense of other STEM classes. The advisor also told us to explore the possibility of somehow adding AP Greek in her HS transcript.
So my question is if an official language certification could count as AP language for college application purposes?
There is no such thing as AP Greek. The high school can’t simply make up AP courses.
Your kid could be fluent in 5 languages, and top colleges will still expect foreign language study in high school, although not necessarily to AP level. No US college is looking for specialists in high school, and they’ll roll their eyes at any “explanation” that says foreign language study impedes their ability to take classes they prefer, particularly if it’s engineering as an 8th grader.
If you can afford it, you might want to look into whether LanguageBird offers Greek at a high enough level. They offer individualized foreign language via online instruction and are fully accredited to do so. They claim their courses are accepted by colleges.
My son’s very rigorous high school accepted language bird classes for high school language requirements.
Thanks for your reply. To clarify, what our school counselor suggested, was to find some college or university that offers Greek as a language and take one class after approval from the high-school, which would then be transferred to her HS transcript as AP. But I thought that since finding this is hard (and it will have to be online), maybe a certification would serve as a substitution.
I’m also puzzled about what you say that “your kid could be fluent in 5 languages, and top colleges will still expect foreign language study in high school”. Does this mean that in this (extreme) example where a kid has documented - certified fluency in all those 5 languages, those colleges still expect from the kid to take the effort and start a 6th language up to AP in high school?
Anyway, this extreme example was me. My high school strongly recommended that I either continue with one of the languages I knew (and they taught, which eliminated two languages as options) or start a new language from scratch.
Anyway, in your kid’s situation, taking the coursework at a university, even if online, would work. But they can’t call it AP. The challenge is very few colleges teach Modern Greek.
That’s not how AP works. AP has 39 courses and you can’t just add one, transfer or not. College Board would put a stop to that right away. I think what your counselor is actually suggesting is dual enrollment. That will be credit from high school and college. But that is seen at the same rigor as AP, so it’s fine.
Being fluent in a language (especially a heritage language if that’s the case with your D) is NOT the same as formal language study. There are kids who grow up essentially bilingual in Spanish speaking homes who struggle with reading Cervantes and the other “classics”. You can be fluent in French-- and perfectly at home in Paris ordering in restaurants, conversing with people on the street, and not be able to craft an essay in French examining the historical roots of Voltaire’s world view.
This is what college level foreign language study is- which is why “on the street” fluency is not seen as a substitute for rigorous language study.
I have no idea what your kid’s fluency encompasses- so if indeed it involves grammatical writing, understanding the literary context of the works she’s read, etc. then I agree that finding a college course would be the way to go. If not, why not start Spanish next year?
Why does your kid need to study “engineering” next year? (How is it even possible to study engineering before physics and calculus I wonder…)
Ok I understand now. Sorry I didn’t know that an AP course has to be among those 39 ones.
So is dual enrollment possible only through a university? Can it be done with an accredited service as @MMRose posted above?
That is not a thing. You can do dual enrollment language classes through a community college or four-year college, however. That is totally fine to do, if you can find a local college offering Greek.
That is also not a thing. An AP class is a specifically class with a set curriculum. You can’t just make up AP classes. That’s not how it works.
Your high school schedule should, as a general rule, be balanced between STEM and humanities classes, ideally including all five core class each of the four years (math, science, social studies, English, and foreign language).
By the time my D graduated high school, she spoke 5 languages, 4 fluently, including taking high school Mandarin through AP level. Sure, it’s not easy. That’s the point. Colleges like students who challenge themselves and learning new languages is a fine demonstration of that, especially for a student who may generally be more focused on STEM.
I agree with what you say. That’s why my original question was about a “certification”, which implies truly mastering the language and not just speaking it everyday.
Our middle school offers engineering and other STEM classes, which is great for my kid since she is very STEM oriented. I believe that starting a 3rd language from scratch would be a huge time investment (not just for 8th grade, but for high school also). That’s why I’m questioning the purpose of doing this just to “tick the foreign language box” in a competitive college application vs. continuing learning the 2nd language she already speaks.
Dual enrollment is generally done through a community college or university. I don’t know anything about that program, so someone with more knowledge on it will need to answer your question.
If that is her preference, then the best thing to do would likely be to see if any local colleges offer Greek and to take a college course or two in the language. Two years of college-level Greek would likely cover you quite well, even for competitive admissions.
The majority of college bound students take 3 - 5 years of FL in middle/high school. Has she studied Greek in classes or just tested out with a heritage language?
Right, but my kid took the language exam this year offered by our school system and the received 3 language credits for high school. Wouldn’t that be sufficient for the balance purposes?
So let’s compare the scenario where she continues her Greek language up to a very high level (which will probably be even higher than college level) vs. the scenario where she starts a 3rd language in 8th grade. Do you think that the 2nd scenario would make her college application more competitive?
So on the positive side, even very highly selective US colleges will likely not care if she starts at the most basic level in HS and does not get through, say, the AP level in HS. As others explained, this really isn’t a question of being fluent in multiple languages, it is about the academic study of languages as a core part of a well-rounded education, and she can very likely satisfy what they are really looking for starting from the beginning in a new language.
The fact this will mean she cannot take as many STEM classes will, for most highly selective US colleges, not be seen as an issue as long as she is at least doing one Natural/Lab Science and one Math a year. In other words, most of these colleges ordinarily would prefer to see the ongoing study of a language than a third Science or Math class, if that is the choice.
In my opinion, no. You can take or disregard that opinion.
I think she needs to take actual, structured language classes at either the high school or college level. Either is fine. If you can find a local college that offers Greek at an appropriate level, then I think that will be fine to do. Two years of college-level classes in Greek would approx. equal four years of taking high school language. If you can’t find a college with Greek classes, then your other option is to take a new language, ideally for all four years of high school. That will make the most competitive application.
But your daughter needs to do what’s right for her because the thing is you can do all of this and still not get into a competitive college. There’s rarely just one factor that makes or breaks an application. But you do give yourself the best shot if you take rigorous classes spread across the five core areas, which includes foreign language. You can shoot your shot with the testing certification, but I don’t think that will be the strongest application that you could put forward.
She has been going to a Greek school on Saturdays since 2nd grade and she is also progressing with the certifications. But that school is a private one, i.e. those classes are not offered through the school system.
By the way, is Latin an option? I ask because Latin and Greek is a fun combination for a lot of possible academic interests, including actually science. And because it is not a modern spoken language but is relatively consistent in terms of rules, Latin tends to be a relatively easy language for left-brained/STEM-types.