Spanish Placement Survey
The Spanish placement survey is a tool that is used to gather information about students’ prior experience with Spanish to determine which level Spanish course at St. Olaf best matches a student’s language skills. All students, even those who have never taken Spanish, should complete the placement survey. A St. Olaf placement survey result is required in order to register for a Spanish course. Incoming first-year students should complete the placement survey by the posted deadline for summer registration.
International students: If you are coming from a country where English is not the primary language of high school instruction you do not need to complete a language placement. Please talk to the registrar for next steps.
What to Expect
The placement survey cannot be completed from a phone or tablet device. It can only be accessed from a desktop or laptop computer. The survey should take 15-60 minutes to complete, depending on prior experience. The placement survey consists of the following sections:
- A series of questions in English about your previous experience (or not) with Spanish and other languages (Note: Students with no prior experience with Spanish will only complete this section of the survey.)
- 2 short writing sections
- 12 multiple-choice reading comprehension questions about a 3-paragraph reading selection
- Honor Pledge certifying that you have completed the survey to the best of your ability and without using any outside resources
After completing the placement survey, please remember to click the “Submit” button at the end, otherwise your placement survey will not be complete.
How to Prepare
There is no need to study for this survey, but you should complete it only when you are rested and have sufficient time. The results of this survey will determine which Spanish course you are eligible to register for, so you should do it carefully and to the best of your ability.
START Spanish Placement Survey
Results and Questions
When you first complete the placement survey, you will automatically get a result of “pending” until the faculty have evaluated it. Each year, St. Olaf Spanish faculty process more than 450 placements. To balance this with other work, placement results for Spanish are determined at specific times during the year related to registration: twice in June, once at the end of August, once before registration in the Fall, and once before registration in the Spring. This means that you will not receive your placement result for Spanish right away, and you will want to complete it in plenty of time before the registration period.
Note: If you have ANY prior experience with Spanish, please continue with Part 2. If you have NOT had any experience with Spanish before, please exit the survey at Part 2. If you have experience but fail to complete the remaining portion, you will have to retake it before we can assign you a placement result. This may result in a delay in your placement and registration for Spanish.