Students at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) are required to study a foreign language. In order to place students into appropriate language courses, especially less commonly taught languages defined by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), effective language placement policies are essential. The author examines the USAFA's current language placement policy, which includes measures for general intelligence and student language choice. Alternative language placement policy models are proposed with an added motivation measurement to the existing instrument. This study employs binary logistic regression to examine the existing language placement policy model and two proposed models, to determine whether a more effective predictor of foreign language learning success can be identified. The placement of the Class of 2017 into Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian language courses was reviewed. The effect of students' academic composite scores, first choice language, and motivation on language placement was assessed. The most effective placement model--categorizing the largest percentage of students into less commonly taught languages and European languages--included a measurement of foreign language motivation and student language choice. The inclusion of the two variables is solidly grounded in current second language acquisition research.