No. I stand by my wording (Art would be appropriate if a clear focus).
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Agree. If this family is looking at schools so competitive they’re worried that two AP Spanish classes weren’t enough to check every world language box, then that hole in their schedule should be filled with another academic class, or class that closely relates to their intended major.
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My S22 is attending UW-Tacoma – which is >50% non-traditional students (i.e. not fresh out of high school, 4-yr college attending with no other job). They have one “on-campus” (it’s actually across a street from the campus buildings, but so is the “gym” (which is actually a YMCA), so it’s an expansive idea of “campus”) “dorm” (it’s actually an apartment building which is entirely inhabited by UW-Tacoma students, and they’ll assign you a roommate if you don’t choose to pay extra to live alone, or you don’t have friends you want to double up with) building, but a lot of students choose to rent “off-campus” (like, literally, the same type of apartment buildings, with the same appliances, but you’re on your own to pay utilities in addition to rent, and stuff) instead.
S22 is in an off-campus apartment with a friend from high school (who is attending a nearby but not affiliated art school). S22 is accumulating a small cohort of friends who “keep being in the same classes with me” in addition to friends of his roommate (so, a fine grouping of art students). He also enjoys the classroom discussions as about half of the students in any given class have a whole lot of actual real-life experience to draw on.
I was really worried about the “not-residential/non-traditional” college experience, but my kid (who was always more social than I am) seems to be making a fine time out of it.
I think C25 wouldn’t be thriving in that same setting, so we’re hoping to find a slightly more “traditional” college setting for them.
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When do you do the financial pre-read? My students are the opposite of athletic, so I have no idea the recruited athlete timeline.
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No clue yet! Lol
@TonyGrace , I think that’s why i was questioning if she needed to take, for example, French 1, to give four years of FL. (My own opinion is that that seems lame, but I’m a rule follower…)
@curiousme2 , to be extra clear: she took AP Span Lang, and then two DE Span Lit classes. Her present HS does not offer AP Span Lit. But that’s slicing hairs, I hope. And the truth is, we are absolutely still sussing out what schools she is applying to…I just think that she’s my first kid, and I’m still trying to do it “right”. (Did I mention upthread I’m a rule follower?)
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I really don’t think so. But like I said, use the opportunity to stretch herself in an area of interest.
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Schools want to see all one language, not that you took Spanish 1, then French 1, then Latin 1, etc. She’s exhausted all Spanish levels so I think you’re done!
Is she planning to apply to uber selective schools?
You can look at college’s common data sets and see how many years of FL they require and recommend. That may put her at ease.
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Just pointing out that “schools want to see”-type advice is tricky.
Each college is looking for slightly (and sometimes substantially) different things. This is particularly the case for hyperselectives.
Yes, there’s a shared baseline. And yes, one year of each of four languages isn’t going to cut it for any of the selectives. But what colleges want in terms of things like level of language taken (more common, BTW, but not universal) vs. years of language instruction taken specifically in high school, or the preferred distribution of course subject areas, or whatever else (to say nothing of preferences in EC activities!), that’s going to differ from college to college, and in fact it’s going to vary for any given college from admission cycle to admission cycle.
This is simultaneously a problem and a positive. It is a problem because selective and especially highly selective admissions is a black box, with no way to know whether you’ve positioned yourself optimally. It is a positive because it makes minmaxing impossible, and being around minmaxers is soulsucking, whether you’re talking about role-playing games or college admissions.
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The FL questions was a big one in our house. I have two children who are gifted with languages and one with a language disability.
College searches were quite different between all three. One wanted to make sure the Foreign Languages they were interested in studying during college would be easily accessible and ended up choosing a school with a fairly intense college level FL requirement. Another wanted to make sure there were absolutely no Foreign Language requirements at their colleges of choice. My other child had study abroad choices as a big selling point for college choice, so while they didn’t care about if there was a FL requirement or lack thereof at the college they chose - they did want easily accessible study abroad choices in the (non-English speaking) countries of choice.
After shepherding three students through the process, I am left with strongly believing some of the earliest advice I received on CC, “Love the kid on your couch”.
We didn’t try to mould our children to the priorities of any particular school - we tried to help our children find the schools that fit the kid. Not an ideal version of “A Student”, the reality of “Our Student”.
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This podcast episode is a great start to 2024:
S25 will only have two years of FL. It was a choice between FL, band and a STEM track, and FL lost out. If it keeps him out of some schools then such is life.
We just finalized our spring break college tour. A number of the places we wanted to visit are on spring break the same week my son has off, so we had to get creative. We are visiting Rose-Hulman, DePaul and Loyola Chicago. We also threw in a super reach of U of Chicago, since we had time to visit another school. (It is not even a remote possibility for our son, but maybe it will motivate him!) I was hoping to visit a large state school, but we couldn’t make that work. Perhaps we can do that in the fall instead.
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@Kumihama-Cho , Ooh, ooh, ooh–can you report back on Loyola Chicago? Suprisingly, it has a pointe class, which means D25 is keeping it in the running as a safety. It’s not talked about often, so I’d love your thoughts after you get back!
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@beebee3 , I do like not molding the kid to the school, per se. But the reality is my kid likes Spanish, so while it would take a decent amount of effort (what four year school around here will let my kid take a random reasonably advanced Spanish class?), she’s not opposed. I mean, this is the kid who heard some flamenco music some time ago and sighed, “I miss Spanish.” The best unexpected benefit of having kids in a Spanish immersion program has been watching them take on Spanish as part of their identity. D25 doesn’t feel like she learned a foreign language, because starting at five, she just learned it by diffusion. It was one of the better parenting choices we’ve made.
She’s happy to tick boxes for some subjects for the sake of the application (I mean, she’s glad she took chemistry, but when asked about AP Chem gave an emphatic “no”), but Spanish is not that type of subject for her.
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Will do! I really hope my son likes Loyola. I worked there for six years, and my husband got his MBA from Loyola. I love the Jesuits and think it would be a great fit for him. The main issue is that I’m not sure they are the strongest for what he wants to study…math.
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My D25 might also only have 2 years of FL. She had to make some hard decisions too. She has a slim possibility of fitting in either Spanish 3 or 4 (her teacher said she could skip 3 if she needs to) next year but we’re not holding our breath since she still has some required grad requirements to meet.
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I’m just daily hitting refresh for Univ of Oregon campus visit page. Anyone reading along, they have tours scheduled through the end of March.
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I really don’t think not having 4 years of FL is a big deal. My D23 had 3 years and had great acceptances to top schools. My S25 will also only have 3. Too many other good classes to take.
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My D25 made it into all state band!!! We’re all so happy for her and are excited for all the events surrounding it. It’s a wild year for her hs because a few kids made it. Usually maybe one student auditions some years and actually gets in even less. It’s been 3 years since the last. It’s full blown ensemble season for her and this is the 4th band. My poor car is going all over the state and I’m the carpool champion organizer lol.
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