All admitted undergraduate students must satisfy the statewide foreign language admission requirement or meet exemption criteria. Applicants whose native language is not English must also satisfy this requirement, but may do so with appropriate course work in their native language.

First-time-in-college students and lower level transfer students must complete 8 semester hours of the same foreign language or American Sign Language at the collegiate level or complete two sequential units of the same foreign language in high school. Students may meet the intent of the requrement by completing the second course in high school via AP, AICE, or IB, or by completing the second postsecondary course (Elementary) as long as the course is for 4.0 semester credits, or by completing the third postsecondary course (Intermediate) regardless of credits. Lower level students, except those exempt from the foreign language requirement, must satisfy the foreign language requirement prior to admission to the upper division.

Upper division transfer students who have not met the foreign language admission requirement must satisfy the foreign language requirement prior to graduating from FGCU unless exempt. Some limited access programs require that the foreign language admission criteria be met before admission to the program is secured.

Exemption Criteria

A student may be exempt from the state university foreign language requirement if one of the
following criteria is met:

• Received an Associate of Arts degree from a Florida public community college prior
  to September 1, 1989; or

• Enrolled in an Associate of Arts program at Florida public community colleges prior to
  August 1989 and maintained continuous enrollment until admission to and enrollment
  in FGCU; or

• Has a baccalaureate degree from a regionally accredited college or university; or

• Can demonstrate equivalent foreign language competence through credit awarded
  on the basis of scores on the foreign language subject matter examinations in the
  College Level Examination Program (CLEP), which must be equivalent to 8 semester
  hours of college-level work. The minimum scores for awarding CLEP credit and the
  maximum CLEP credit to be awarded are as outlined in the chart below: