My daughter completed Spanish 4 her sophomore year of high school. AP Spanish Lang and AP Spanish Lit are both offered at her high school. She would prefer not to take them. She went to a Spanish immersion elementary school and continued Spanish through 10th grade. After 11 years of Spanish she is done and wants to use her electives to pursue other interests in science and art. Colleges require/recommend 2-4 years of a foreign language in high school for college admission. Technically she has only taken two years of high school Spanish, but she has completed level 4. Do colleges consider the level or just the years taken in high school? We know colleges also look for students to challenge themselves with the highest academic classes that their high schools offer, so will it look bad that she chooses not the take a Spanish AP class after all her years of Spanish?
She is looking at small liberal arts colleges (top 100, probably not top 20). No specific majors in mind, but definitely not a language major.
Depends on the school but in most cases it will be seen as four years. There could be exceptions, however. So once you have a list you can check. Honestly, it’d only be at the tippy top schools you’d need to check.
Since you say top schools aren’t on your list, you’re more than fine - even if you didn’t go through four years (ie through Spanish four) of language but only 2-3 for not top LACs.
Spanish 4 is considered equivalent to four years (it’s not like English or Science, in which case they want to see four years in high school). If your D were thinking about highly selective schools, I would add that it would be preferable to go beyond that and take at least one of the AP Spanish offerings. But if she’s not aiming for those schools, reaching level 4 should be fine, as long as she’s challenging herself in other areas. Check the CDS for potential schools to be sure (look at their preferences for number of years in each subject area), but I expect that she’s going to be fine with Spanish 4.
She will be likely be ok for these schools. But, to put her mind at ease, she might reach out and ask this question to a few of her admissions officers at schools that are likely to be on her list. It’s a good question to ask and starts building a relationship with her AO.
In this case and I don’t know the qualify of your students app, but in most cases, these schools will need your daughter far more than you’ll need them. In other words, if she’s an average or better student, she’ll likely be in good shape - and moreso if you’re a full pay family although most these schools will throw money to get butts in seat.
I agree with the advice here that many/most schools will consider Spanish 4 to be 4 years of language for purposes of admission. She’s almost certainly fine for that. For top schools an AP would be a good add. One other consideration…my D completed Spanish 4 as a junior and got in to her top choice school but only placed out of 2 semesters of Spanish on the placement test, which she took 1.5 years after her last Spanish class in HS. The college requires 4 semesters of a language (or place out of 4) so she had to take two more semesters to complete the graduation requirement at her university. Not that that is a bad thing - just putting it out there as a data point for consideration.
OR if she’s applying to highly selective schools, OR if she is applying to schools with language requirements that she would like to test out of with an AP, OR if she’s simply interested (which it sounds like she’s not). There are lots of reasons to continue to study a language, but it’s far from mandatory.
