<p>I just discoveded CC and find it both fascinating and confusing. We're a bilcultural family living outside the US, so all the technical discussion of AP courses, weighted and unweighted GPAs etc. really don't apply to my children, who are in a rigorous school system with very little time for activities outside school. Are there any other parents out there whose children are contemplating college in the US and would like to commiserate, without one-upmanship?</p>
<p>Hi FrogMom</p>
<p>I am American with a US college background but we are a bicultural family living in Europe. My daughter is now entering her senior year at Brandeis. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have about applications from abroad.</p>
<p>All the best,</p>
<p>pyewacket</p>
<p>Hi
Also bicultural family here with one son going into sophmore year at Tufts and the other a rising senior in HS. Glad to be of help if I can.</p>
<p>Another expat mom here. S is in university in California. D will be a h.s. senior next year at an international school in Asia.</p>
<p>I’m always ready to commiserate, especially with other parents who have kids in college, 10,000 miles away. Launching the kids is a bit more complicated when you are overseas.</p>
<p>We are an American family living in Southeast Asia. Our son wnet to an international high school then graduated from a small liberal arts college in the U.S. He is now about to start graduate school. </p>
<p>Getting in is just the beginning. Long distance parenting is a continuing challenge.</p>
<p>FrogMom, does your children’s school regularly send students to American colleges? Do they have counselors who can help you with the process?</p>
<p>Not bicultural - but we lived overseas for many years. Now back in the US. Happy to help any way I can.</p>
<p>Back in the last century, we lived in Caracas, where I did a lot of volunteer work with the AVAA, a bi-national association that provides college counseling for Venezuelan students coming to the US (and Canada). Similar offices exist in many countries. For a current list, check out <a href=“http://educationusa.state.gov/undergrad.htm[/url]”>http://educationusa.state.gov/undergrad.htm</a> Click on the “find your Advising Center” icon to find the center closest to you. Most of the students passing through these offices will be local nationals, but there usually are few bi-national kids and US citizens who are living abroad as well. The counselors are skilled at helping students find good places to study in the US, and know how to interpret local secondary school records and national exams.</p>
<p>Wishing all of you, all the best.</p>
<p>Mom of graduating senior going on to grad school next year who spent entire school life in europe at an international school. He did IB and went on to a LAC in the states. He chose a school with sizable international group and the experience has been wonderful. Wishing your family the best as well.</p>
<p>Hi, we are Japanese family living in NYC. I was transfered to NYC 7 yeas ago when my only S was 10 years old. He is a juniour and preparing collge applications for next year.
May I raise a question? My S took SAT II Japanese and scored 800. He took it because he wanted to get used to exam cercumstance. Of course it will not demonstrate his foreign language ability because he is a japanese native speaker . But I am still wondering if submitting this score as supplemental do something meaningful for college admission. What do others think?</p>
<p>Nice to hear from you all. My children’s school is very lucky to have an experienced college counselor, who’s terrific, but it’s interesting to have the opinions of other parents as well. </p>
<p>FiddlinEcon, for what it’s worth, I’ve heard conflicting opinions about taking SAT subject tests in a student’s first language - but our school counselor recommends doing it anyhow because that 790 or 800 is going to get attention from admissions officers. </p>
<p>My older son is a junior who’s interested in small LACs. Though he wants to be in the US, he’d like to go to a school where he won’t be completely a fish out of water (he’s half American but culturally European). He hopes to find a school where the American students have some experience abroad or at least are interested in the rest of the world. I’m sure I’ll be posting lots of questions in the months ahead.</p>
<p>I think there are a lot of schools with a good sized international population - typically in the larger US cities with urban campuses. My kids were expats in England, Germany and China and my daughter goes to Penn where they are all interested in study abroad opportunities and overseas internships.
A really good source of info is the website <a href=“http://www.internationalcounselor.org%5B/url%5D”>http://www.internationalcounselor.org</a></p>
<p>FiddlinEcon, when you send in the SAT II scores, include the Japanese. There are Japanese-speaking American kids who cannot read and write their Japanese. This test score shows his colleges that he can. 
An extra 800 in the midst of his test scores. Consider it a nice supplement to his application.</p>
<p>FrogMom, MidwestMom2Kids_, thank you for the advice. I will encourage my S to send the Japanese SAT score.
Actually, he is almost unable to hand-write kanjis although he can write them with a word processor. He reads many Japanese books for fun so that he learns “images” of kanjis but not exactly. If SAT Japanese were a hand write test, he would obviously fail to get points 
I think many asian origin kids have similar problem.</p>