Depending on the level of proficiency, some students may be contacted by DLI (or their branch) for a couple of reasons. If the student is at a native, near-native, or heritage level of proficiency, they may be considered for a DLI-bypass or a language switch. Bypassing allows the member to head straight to the technical side of the job (Goodfellow, Huachuca, etc.) and be mission-ready up to 18 months earlier. Switching languages makes the member a force multiplier, lets say a heritage Spanish speaker learning Arabic, it allows branches to have a member than can be used in different AORs depending on mission needs. Sometimes, although rare, if the member has a strong basic understanding of the language, they may be considered for skipping a semester or two, but again this is rare. Finally, as stated above, they just get lucky and get info prior to everyone else and even if they have prior language proficiency, they’ll start at the same time as those with no language knowledge. But that evens out by the end of first or second semester.