How much would it hurt a college application if no foreign languages are taken during highschool?
Quick backstory: We've lived in another country all his life and just moved back to the U.S. a few months ago. He's going to start sophomore year next week. He's trilingual.
Being ambitious, he wants to go to an ivy/T20. I did some digging and it says that most top colleges "recommend" 3-4 years of a LOTE all 4 years of high school.
He did take an ancient obscure regional language of our home country from sixth grade to freshman year and from grade 6-8 he took a third language too. So he technically has one year of Language Other Than English in HS.
He's one year late to the american high school system (so he has to take some extra classes for graduation) and he wants to take a career pathway (something this school offers) instead of a language like spanish.
QUESTIONS
- is the 3-4 years language "recommendation" actually a soft requirement?
- if NOT, does not taking a language hurt his application?
- if it DOES hurt his application, how much?
- And anyways, any general related advice is appreciated.
Thanks.