Language question on AMCAS

[daisy44]

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I feel like I may have made a mistake on my AMCAS application.
In the language section, I checked the box for Spanish. Now, I've studied Spanish for 12 years, in school and through immersion programs outside of school, done lots of work with Hispanic communities in the states and abroad, certified medical interpreter at a clinic in my college town...but I'm of course not at the level of a native speaker. I could hold up my end in a conversation for sure, but I didn't realize this question was specifically asking for full-blown native fluency.

Should I just go with this? Should I contact the schools and correct my error? I mean..is this even a legit error, or is the question ok with high functioning speakers?

 

[daisy44]

bump

 

[crasiman]

Where does it say it's only for native fluency? Even in the AMCAS 2010 instructions it says nothing other than languages are listed in the biographic information section.

 

[Omni]

Remember: This is an application to a medical school, not an application to a sales associate position of Best Buy. Language fluency, in my opinion, has less of a weight, if any, than the other stuff on your application.
I wouldn't sweat it. It just seems like you are nit-picking things to worry about.

 

[casillas]

The application doesn't specify whether it is native or not. So long as you can speak it i would say it can only help you. There are not many doctors who speak Spanish so it's plus points for you

 

[red10]

if a clinic trusts you to translate medical info sufficiently well, then I'm sure the med schools will agree you are proficient enough.
I think that question was intended to be exactly what you thought it was: "can you hold up a convo or translate if necessary". If my 10 years of french in school had actually amounted to any sort of fluency I woulda checked french

 

[FlowLimited]

Here's a question to ask yourself:

Would you be comfortable if your interviewer decided to conduct the interview entirely in Spanish?

If yes, you're fine. If no, well...

 

[daisy44]

Great, that's good to hear. I hadn't thought anything of it until I started checking out old SDN threads and people said studying a language in school doesn't qualify you as fluent so you shouldn't check the box. Sometimes SDN makes you paranoid, you know?

I don't think I'd have a problem doing an entire interview in Spanish, and I already said in my app that I learned it from school. So...its all good.