Our middle school offers Spanish 1 and 2 in Middle School….you actually have to take Spanish 1a in 6th, Spanish 1b in 7th and Spanish 2 in 8th. We live in Kansas and foreign language is not a requirement to graduate or to admit to KU or KSU.

My kids are doing it in middle school because I know A&M requires it and they will be busy as is with athletics, jobs, and academics.

I looked at admissions and seems it's simply every undergrad needs at least one year foreign language. However if you complete 2 years in high school, that suffices. Would Spanish 1 and 2 completed in Middle School count?

I also heard for George Bush School of International Affairs, Spanish doesn't count. Is that true? Seems odd.

My daughters took Spanish 1 and 2 in middle school and Spanish 3 in hs. It satisfied the state requirement (north Carolina) but the big schools and a&m highly recommended 3 years of language. They are '21 and'23.

Also my daughter '23 was at the bush school in international studies and did Spanish in hs. I don't remember but I think the Spanish thing was you couldn't do that for your language studies at the Bush school. ( someone please clarify) she did chinese.

She said if you were a native speaker of Spanish, you couldn't do Spanish

Good to know. I haven't heard anything about "highly recommend"? What exactly does that mean?

So we lived in NC at the time. Schools like UNC, NC state and a&m all told us to take 3 years even though only 2 is required. So if you get pushed to holistic review , it looks better. So definitely check

Good to know.

Any knowledge of Spanish vs other languages? Someone told me Spanish doesn't count for International Affairs At Bush.

Really depends on what you want to do. There are some schools and majors that prefer 4 years of a language but I would certainly do 3 even if they are STEM focused. I think not having 4 hurt my son's app with some top schools in retrospect even though he is Engineering but my son hated Spanish (had a terrible teacher Freshman year that really turned him off and it already wasn't something he was very interested in). In short, definitely take the Middle School stuff as far as you can go and if you can get to Sp 4 go ahead and do it unless your kid hates it and/or is doing STEM. It can never hurt having 4 years but I would certainly do 3.

My daughter did chinese but whatever you pick you will do study abroad. They are pushing all the Chinese kids to Thailand at least until 2023. My daughter did chinese and that all I am familiar with. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Check with the bush school but Spanish in HS was perfectly fine for my kid. She took a different language once she got there.