That shouldn’t be a problem.
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It shouldn’t matter. All that matters with foreign language is the level you reach in the end, not how many years you took to reach it. As long as the student is meeting graduation requirements for HS (if there is a language requirement), colleges will consider the highest level achieved, not how many credits earned in HS to get there. And the student did point out that foreign language credits taken in MS are listed on the HS transcript. Usually, those credits are listed to verify that the student took HS-level coursework, but it is less common for them to count toward graduation.
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It would matter in the case of a Florida state school for Bright Futures. M/J classes that are not high school credits do not count; it wouldn’t matter if they happen to also appear on the high school transcript! They must be designated high school credits (worth 0.5 or 1.0) towards the diploma, even if the classes were taken during middle/junior high school.
I agree that there wouldn’t be any issue with most private institutions. Meerakat should check with each college he/she plans to apply to.
Point made about Bright Futures for instate FL applicants. Please move on.
Reminder that debate is not permitted outside the cafe and the political forum.
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I think what I will do is take the AP literature class online since it is not offered at my school, and then dual enroll for another class, just to ensure that I took 4 years of the same language in high school. I am not sure if they’ll view this as 4 years, or as rigorous.
Why ?
Call the schools. Ask
Don’t jump to conclusions if you are unsure. Otherwise you are wasting time and taking away from more important things, like your applications.
You already have two more languages.
Unless you’re in Florida and using Bright Futures as @maijem11 noted, most here think you are making something out of nothing.
But call and confirm to give yourself peace.
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A. You’re overthinking
B. Unless you are planning on majoring in Spanish or Comparative Literature, or you have a strong desire to read Peninsular and Latin American Literature, or are a heritage speaker, I’d steer clear.
AP Spanish Lit is like AP English Lit, but in steroids and in Spanish. The reading list is extensive and required
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Take AP Spanish Literature if you are interested in the subject. Azulejo, Anthology & Guide to the AP Spanish Literature Course by M. Colbert et. al. is one textbook available.
Again, verify with each college. 4 years doesn’t necessarily equal 4 credits, in terms of admissions recommended or required preparation.
Could you explain what you mean by that?
Take the class if you are interested in the subject matter.
Sorry, I meant by the last part.
If a college requires or recommends four years of foreign language study for admission, this could mean years taken before high school, regardless of whether those classes counted or not as official high school credits. For example, in a middle/junior high school that offers Spanish, you could have students that have taken Spanish I, II, & III (M/J, non high school credits) and ready for AP Spanish Language in 9th grade, first year of high school. By completing AP in 9th grade, most private colleges will view this as equivalent to four years of study, even w/o the Spanish I, II,& III credits & even w/o taking any previous Spanish, in the case of a strong native speaker.
However, if four high school credits are recommended or suggested, that’s not the same thing.
Same thing with other kinds of subjects: e.g. Algebra I could cover the same content as M/J Algebra I but the latter wouldn’t earn you any high school credit toward a diploma.
I think this issue has been beaten to death on this thread. So far the only schools that have this requirement are the FL schools.
@Meerakat could you please let us know if you are or are not a resident of Florida so this part of the discussion can stop?
Otherwise, do as suggested, and contact admissions for your colleges of interest. Ask them if all four years of your FL must be taken in grades 9-12. It is my opinion, the answer will be no…except the one example given here already.
That comparison isn’t even relevant. Florida’s Bright Futures requirement calls for two consecutive years of the same language (which OP satisfies), but more importantly, OP isn’t even located in Florida.
When experienced members share advice that’s completely inapplicable, it only confuses the students looking for actual help.
The tangent about algebra adds zero value to the thread and is inaccurate without the proper context.
With apologies to @momofboiler1
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The only reason I responded is because Meerakat asked me for further explanation.
Also apologies to @momofboiler1.
So here is a discussion from Yale which is representative of other things I have seen AOs say:
In relevant part:
HANNAH: This is absolutely critical for our evaluation of many parts of your application, including your transcript. We know there is an enormous range of courses that are available at different high schools and sometimes an enormous range of what’s available to different students within the same high school.
MARK: Because of that, the single most important thing to remember about our review of your transcript is that we can’t expect you to have taken a course that’s not offered in your high school.
HANNAH: Mm-hmm.
MARK: A lot of the questions that we receive, Hannah, revolve around this kind of thing. My school doesn’t offer this. And as soon as we hear that, we kind know, OK.
HANNAH: OK.
MARK: If your school doesn’t offer that, how could we expect you to take it? I think the next important thing is that we know that there are many different good reasons why a student might not be enrolled in a particular course in their high school.
HANNAH: That’s why you’re not going to find us spelling out specific curricular requirements when you’re looking what are the requirements to apply to Yale. You won’t find anything that says, you must take four years of a foreign language, or you should have physics, chemistry, and biology. There would just be too many exceptions, and we don’t want well-prepared students to disqualify themselves just because their circumstances or what may or may not have been available to them prevented them from having that specific profile.
MARK: OK. So with all that context, let’s boil down what we like to see when we review your transcript.
HANNAH: Mm-hmm.
MARK: Number one, we like to see that you are consistently enrolled in at least five core academic subjects each year. This would be things like English and literature, foreign language, math, science, and social studies or history. And we’d include things like computer science and engineering and other reading and writing-intensive courses that maybe aren’t English or literature in that group as well.
HANNAH: We also want to see that you continuously step up to the plate and challenge yourself in as many of these areas as possible as you progress through high school so you’re increasing the rigor in these areas whenever you can.
. . .
[Asking question] Hannah, I just completed my third year of Spanish, but I’m really interested in learning Chinese too. Can I switch languages in junior or senior year? I know that you want to see that I’ve taken at least four years of the same language, right?
HANNAH: Not necessarily. What we recommend is four years of foreign language in general, but that doesn’t mean four years of the same language. You’re welcome to change your mind and start something new. You’ll also be able to do this when you get to college. So, yeah, if you want to switch up languages in junior, senior year, go for it.
So how to interpret all this?
I don’t think the best interpretation is that the Yale Admissions Office, or similar, would simply say taking two years of language in high school that ends at the highest level available in your high school was the exact same thing as taking four years of that language in high school.
I also don’t think that is the right question. As they explained in general, these are recommendations and not requirements precisely because there are so many possible exceptions that they couldn’t possibly enumerate them all.
And then in this particular podcast, they articulate two possible exceptions to taking four years of one language: by implication, they discuss running out of more advanced courses to take at your high school, an extremely common sort of exception I have seen AOs discuss many times, and also possibly switching languages during high school due to changing interests.
Given all that, I am completely confident the OP’s case (ran out of Spanish to take after two years, then did other languages) would not be a problem for Yale, nor any other similar college.
I don’t think the right way to put that, though, is that the two years of Spanish ending with AP Spanish was exactly the same as four years. It just doesn’t need to be that.
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This is what I got out of that. OP did it all.
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Both of my kids took through L4 by junior year and chose not to take L5. They had pretty good outcomes, a NESCAC and an Ivy. The reason to take L4 I think is not so much a language requirement but an indicia of rigor for selective schools.
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Exactly. I think the OP did exactly what Yale, or any other similar college, would hope the OP would do in their particular circumstances.