Very few schools & districts - usually just specialized programs, like magnet programs will mandate that all participating students take Mandarin Chinese or Latin. More commonly, native speakers are not allowed to take Level I or II (determined by a placement test) & are required to begin instruction at Level II, III, or higher. For example, taking both AP Spanish Language & Literature would satisfy a 2 credit foreign language recommendation or requirement in most school districts.
So here is what Vanderbilt says on its website:
- What are the minimum high school coursework requirements for admission?
- Since Vanderbilt uses a holistic admissions review process, we do not have minimum coursework requirements. Most successful candidates will present a curriculum that includes the equivalent of five academic subjects each year for four years. Recommended course work includes 4 units of English, 4 units of mathematics, 4 units of natural science, 2 units of foreign language, 2 units of social science/humanities, and 4 units of additional course work in these areas, or other academic courses such as engineering science, computer science, social science or natural science research, or advanced work in the humanities. Close attention will be paid to the rigor of course work presented. It is highly recommended that candidates applying to the School of Engineering have taken calculus, calculus-based physics, and chemistry.
Broadly consistent with this, in their CDS they mark 4 units of English as both Required and Recommended, and 2 units of Foreign language as both Required and Recommended. Although marking them Required in their CDS seems a bit inconsistent with the narrative claim they have no requirements.
Anyway, the basic problem with then interpreting the Foreign language recommendations as including English for non-native English speakers is that would render the separate English recommendations ambiguous. Like I don’t think it is plausible being a non-native English speaker would mean you only needed to do two years of English for Vanderbilt. But can you essentially double count two of your four years of English as also being Foreign language units for you? And even if that was technically possible, would that potentially come across as a rigor problem?
Of course the OP could just contact Vanderbilt and ask. From what I understand, though, sometimes Admissions Offices are not as forthcoming on this subject as one might hope.
And some might need to take the TOEFL.
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I don’t think so either. My point was that if OP demonstrates a high level of proficiency in Mandarin (by taking Level 4/5, if offered by the school, or acing AP Chinese, etc.), that should satisfy both the rigor and the requirement for LOTE.
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Well, that gets back to interpreting what “foreign language” means versus “language other than English”.
If you believe these automatically mean the same thing, then I am not aware of any college using a term other than “foreign language” when discussing these sorts of requirements and recommendations, and that is also the CDS language. Of course I have not seen more than a small fraction of the possible statements. (ETA: Although I think sometimes colleges may also use terms like “world languages” or “global languages”, but I don’t see those as any less ambiguous on this subject.)
However, I do know some people believe “foreign language” and “language other than English” are not always synonyms, and indeed that the second term is specifically designed to be inclusive of native but non-English languages in the way the first term is not. From that perspective, choosing to use the term “foreign language” could be seen as a choice to NOT be so inclusive.
But including because that is the CDS language, I don’t personally believe it is immediately obvious what a college might mean when it references a “foreign language” recommendation or requirement, one way or the other.
And as I have been mentioning, all this is complicated by the fact many colleges don’t really see this as a strict technical sort of thing. They may not have strict requirements at all (notwithstanding what the CDS says), and they may say even their recommendations can obviously be modified for cases like not actually having the courses available to follow their recommendations at your HS.
But again, that is only the more generous side of loose recommendations. The less generous side is some colleges are constantly talking about rigor, and just barely satisfying their minimum recommendation in the most technical possible sense may not be considered favorable from a rigor perspective.
Again, none of this is meant to suggest I know what, say, Vanderbilt will think of the OP’s transcript. But I do think it is not clear you can just do the bare minimum recommended in the most technical sense and automatically expect that to be satisfactory. In certain contexts, sure, or indeed even less than the minimum recommended. But I personally think in other contexts, they may think you could have done something more rigorous, and more generally consistent with their educational values, and chose not to.
In the end, it’s as @NiceUnparticularMan says - you submit what you have and see.
I don’t want to generalize but we’ve seen over the years many immigrant families, especially Asian, seek only the highest ranked of the highest ranked.
There are hundreds of great schools, many with large Asian populations that are easier ins and have great outcomes - which we all know may not apply to the applicant.
In the end, the student can apply to their list. Maybe they’ll get into a school. Maybe they won’t.
But they have the full list of both majors and a little chat chat in PM - and they can look at other schools that meet their needs - outside of their parents want them to apply - whether it’s based on distance from home or % ethnicity at a school or large city or small or near airport - or what not.
If they apply to this list and only this list, they’ll see.
If they want to add a more sure thing, they’ll see.
There’s no doubt (in my mind) the student could get into many fine schools. But the with being unsure how the language would be seen, it’s hard to predict.
That they can pay (I think) $100K a year may make all the difference at some very good schools. They just need their family to understand they are very good schools.
And they need to decide on what’s important to them - with an overall environment.
Will see if Eric comes back but a lot of this discussion might be overwhelming to them.
Indeed, since the UCs require “language other than English”, they publicly list detailed policies about what counts, including what those in various immigrant and heritage speaker situations should do. But private schools that recommend “foreign language” generally do not go into much detail, probably to leave themselves discretion and flexibility in interpreting various situations.
However, other (usually public) schools that require “foreign language” also often leave out the details, so some potential applicants may not know from publicly posted information whether they fulfill the requirement.
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And if it were up to me, you could at least call them and ask for definitive clarification as to whether your transcript will satisfy their requirements. I understand colleges might reasonably leave recommendations looser, but to me there is zero justification for ambiguous requirements.
Anecdotally, though, people are not always satisfied with the answers they receive. Not good, but one of many such things that can happen in the chaos of US college admissions.
But we also know that schools do not follow these guidelines strictly for foreign students because of differing educational systems, and OP did do (it sounds like) a year and a half of high school outside the US. So the holistic admission process will take this into account, as well as the “catch up” the student has done (a lot of APs for example) since arriving. I honestly think the language won’t be an issue at few if any of the schools mentioned. Given OP’s English placement in the US it is logical to assume (but perhaps OP can confirm) that they were learning English while at school in China.
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Yes, zooming out, my sense is many engineering programs won’t care about any of this as long as the OP fulfilled any HS graduation requirements.
To the extent there is any residual risk at all, it might be for colleges like Vanderbilt. Or not! And really, is there anything the OP should be doing? I don’t think so, I think they can just apply as planned and see what happens.
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I grew up as a second language speaker learning English, such that by the time I was in third grade, I was getting pretty fluent in both English and Spanish. The issue was I didn’t learn the grammar in Spanish.
By the time I got to high school, my counselor advised me that I was pretty fluent for high school Spanish, which they made me take in ninth grade, but she said it wasn’t a challenge to me and so she recommended, that if I wanted to attend the UC’s that I needed to have a foreign language and I took French. That language was also pretty easy based on my Latin experience from the Spanish lexicon.
This was what was done at the time with our heritage speakers at our high school.
OP came here in 10th grade I think - and OPs record is their record.
What is our guidance to OP, now a Senior?
Is it stay the course?
Add more - if so, which?
They are full pay.
Of course, the situation is different as you grew up and did all schooling in the US, and per OP he got different advice from his school:
And this was also pointed out:
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What level of high school Spanish did you take in ninth grade?
Some high schools and colleges these days offer “[language] for heritage speakers” courses, which tend to reach the top level in fewer courses than the usual sequence for beginners.
In ninth grade, they placed me in Spanish 3-4.
The instructor would listen to my Spanish production and he kept giving me A’s, but I really did want to learn the grammar.
(When we were young, our mother pushed us to learn to write in Spanish, as she originally trained as a teacher.) I could write in Spanish, in high school, but I really wanted polished skills.
It wasn’t until undergrad, that I took a Spanish literature class where I was woefully behind my peers. Believe it or not, my four years of French actually helped with my Spanish grammatical skills!
Anyway, I’m sorry for the tangent, but every school is somewhat different in their academic requirements and that’s on the OP to research.
If his schools accept his current English is a second language, then he’s done. I would be more concerned with his visual and performing arts requirement.
Thanks for getting this thread back on track. My opinion is OP definitely needs to add more. The current list is very reachy. Perhaps OP can let us know what they are looking for besides a ‘name”. Geography, school size, etc.
@Eric.H what are you looking for in a school?
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when I sent him the entire school list on PM, we talked a bit and I gave many categories like you are asking about including does having a large Asian population matter- and I said let’s start there and find schools that fit you. Haven’t heard back.
I do think, we’ve seen many immigrant families, go right for the perceived rank - and that’s what I told OP they need to get past because you want to step foot on the campus - size, weather, distance from mom - whatever it may be - where you can prosper and be happy.
It’s honestly pretty amazing that they step foot here in 10th grade and excel like they have.