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Bulletin Archive

This archived information is dated to the 2009-10 academic year only and may no longer be current.

For currently applicable policies and information, see the current Stanford Bulletin.

Language Requirement

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Degree Requirements

To fulfill the Language Requirement, undergraduates who entered Stanford in Autumn 1996 and thereafter are required to complete one year of college-level study or the equivalent in a foreign language. Students may fulfill the requirement in any one of the following ways:

  1. Complete three quarters of a first-year, 4-5 units language course at Stanford or the equivalent at another recognized post-secondary institution subject to current University transfer credit policies. Language courses at Stanford may be taken with the credit/no credit grading basis to fulfill the requirement.
  2. Score 4 or 5 on the Language Advanced Placement (AP) test in one of the following languages: Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Latin, or Spanish. Advanced Placement (AP) tests in foreign literature do not fulfill the requirement.
  3. Achieve a satisfactory score on the SAT II Subject Tests in the following languages taken prior to college matriculation:

    Chinese

    630

    Italian

    630

    French

    640

    Japanese

    620

    German

    630

    Korean

    630

    Latin

    630

    Hebrew

    540

    Spanish

    630

     

     

4. Take a diagnostic test in a particular language which either:

  1. Places them out of the requirement, or
  2. Diagnoses them as needing one, two, or three additional quarters of college-level study. In this case, the requirement can then be fulfilled either by passing the required number of quarters of college-level language study at Stanford or the equivalent elsewhere, or by retaking the diagnostic test at a later date and placing out of the requirement.

Written placements are offered online throughout the summer in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Spanish for home background speakers.

For a full description of Language Center offerings, see the "Language Center" section of this bulletin under the school of Humanities and Sciences.

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