University of Michigan requires 2 foreign language and 3 social studies years. But they recommend 4 foreign language and 4 social studies. How important are their recommendations?
Not so familiar with this school in particular, but generally, you can interpret this as “you can skip our recommendations only if you are doing something compelling in their stead.” This is what they want, so you can do the minimum but you may want to explain. If you speak another language at home and are passionate about robotics and have spent time on that, for example, you may be fine. Can you reach out to your admissions rep?
They wouldn’t recommend them if they didn’t want people to take those classes, so it’s probably pretty important to follow these recommendations unless your school doesn’t provide these classes or you have a scheduling conflict. If you really want to take subjects that aren’t recommended in place of those that are, then that’s your choice. People are probably admitted all the time without following the recommendations if they have an otherwise compelling application. But if you want the best chance possible of admission, you should probably do what they’re asking of you.
I expect that these minimums are the minimums required for graduation from a public HS in the state of MI, and that as a public university the U of MI is not permitted to require more than what the state department of education requires for graduation in order that students from small public schools with limited resources and class offerings are not automatically locked out of the U of MI. If your school only offers that many years of those courses, or if your personal scheduling situation is so tight that you can’t fit the extra years in, then MI won’t penalize you for that. However, if you are attending a school that has more resources, and offers enough sections of everything that you aren’t likely to have a lot of scheduling conflicts, then as mentioned above, you would be best off trying to meet the recommendations unless you have something else interesting in your profile.