Placement Exams
Students who plan to begin an entirely new language at Occidental are not required to take the placement exam.
First-year students may take the Occidental College Placement Examination either online for French, German and Spanish, or during Orientation for other languages taught at Occidental if:
- they have studied a language for a semester in college or for more than one year in high school (ninth grade does not count);
- they have participated in afterschool or weekend language programs; or
- they have extensive background but no formal training in a language.
Students can fulfill Occidental’s language requirement in one of five ways:
- Completing a language course numbered 102 at Occidental, or the equivalent course in any foreign language at another accredited institution. Online courses in a foreign language are not accepted for transfer or to fulfill Occidental’s language requirement.
- Receiving an exemption-level score on Occidental’s placement and/or exemption exam given during Orientation. (See the Language Studio site for language specific details).
- Earning an appropriate Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) II score (560 or above in French, Spanish or Latin; 550 or above in German or Chinese; 540 or above in Japanese; or 560 in any other language).
- Earning an Advanced Placement exam score of 4 or above.
- For some languages not taught at Occidental, students may opt to take the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and the Writing Proficiency test (WPT) in the languages currently available. Please see the Keck Language and Culture Studio about demonstrating proficiency via ACTFL interviews and tests.