<p>I know this is a very general question. Here is the background. We are sending our son to a high school that does not have russian as a language. He will be in 9th grade. He has completed 2 years at the middle school level and get’s 1 high school credit of russian for high school graduation. Here is the question and his choice…He has requested to omit any more language and focus on every business class he can take ( he needs 5 ) to get the advanced regents diploma (New York ). </p>
<p>Because he is fairly certain he wants to study business ( at least as certain as a 15 yr old boy can be…) would college admissions frown upon the lack of language if he still could show the “advanced regents diploma” with a focus on business rather than language? Thanks in advance for ANY advice.</p>
<p>As I understand it, the two middle school years of Russian will count as only one high school level year. Also for regents diploma you need math, science, English, social studies, and other usual high school courses but you need only one year of language and he wants to get a technical endorsment by taking business courses, at least some of which will likely be vocational courses.</p>
<p>If intent is to get into a four year university after high school, even if it is the university’s business college, then there are two problems (a) many require at least two and some three high school level years in the same foreign language and high ranks usually recommend three or four high school level years, and thus having only one year of language can mean the difference in being rejected or admitted (in fact if the college requires two or more years, it will be an automatic rejection for failure to meet a requirement), and (b) focusing in high school on taking business courses is not a good idea and will not get you in even to the business college of such universities; in fact, if they are vocational business courses, they won’t even count in the consideration for admission (for majority of universities, English, math, social studies, foreign language, and lab sciences and grades in such courses are the only courses that count in determining admission and that includes to such universities’ business colleges). </p>
<p>Note there are many colleges that require one or no years of foreign language but the path you mention will be a significant restriction on the choice of colleges to which he can apply and have a chance of admission.</p>