Hey! As the title may already reveal, is there anybody applying to the US from Germany with the German Abitur? Could someone give me an advice what I should need to know? I know that I have to take the SAT or the ACT and TOEFL test. Also that my grades and extracurriculars are important wouldn’t be new to me. But is there anything else I should be aware of? Thanks !
What’s most important for international students is what is your parents’budget.
Also, although the sat/act seem easy, they’re actually* hard to do well* and designed so so do not underestimate the test and prepare very thoroughly using oils (go ask on the test forum of this website.)
You need to look into Honors colleges - excellent ones can be found in places you wouldn’t suspect, such as Alabama, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Ohio, South Carolina, Minnesota…
You need to take usnwr national liberal arts colleges and look at LACs ranked 50-85, trying to figure out how they’re different - you’ll need a sense of 'fit’for when you write ‘why college X’ Essays…
You need to get a Fisk guide or Princeton Review 's best colleges.
I applied to US universities with a German Abitur. What I struggled most with was getting a school report, transcripts and letters of recommendation, since none of those are common in Germany.
For the school report, I ended up writing most of it myself and my ‘guidance counselor’ (Beratungslehrer) put his name and school seal on it.
I also wrote an English-language transcript which showed 4 years of German grades on a single sheet of paper, just like American transcripts. My guidance counselor compared it to my original transcripts (Zeugnisse), put a school seal on it, and submitted the English version together with scanned copies of my original transcripts.
Letters of recommendation were tricky because I wanted them to be written for an American audience, which expects a much more positive tone than a German audience (“good” is used like a German ‘ausreichend’, but good luck trying to get your teachers to believe that). I did in the end get letters of recommendation I was happy with, but I had to help my teachers along the way.
Don’t be shy to ask for the things you need (e.g. suggested content for your letters of recommendation). Your teachers will appreciate the guidance!
Aaargh, this should read *'using prep books ’ not *'using oils ', no idea where that auto-correct came from!