Better to come to US for high school or to wait until college?

International Students
1

I am a US citizen who has spent almost my entire life abroad and have been educated entirely in a foreign system, learning English only as a foreign language in school.

I would like attend college in the US.

I now have an opportunity to attend high school in the US for the 11th and 12th grades.

I am wondering whether I should take this opportunity and whether it could increase or decrease my chances of getting into a good US college.

My English is still well below the standards of the average American high school student. Therefore, I expect my grades to be far weaker than my true potential initially. Two years is not a lot of time to catch up, so colleges may never see my US high school grades reflect my true academic potential.

If I finished high school in my current country, I understand my application would be reviewed by an admissions officer covering applicants from my current country. However, if I attended a US high school, my application would be reviewed by someone covering that high school.

How much do you think an admissions officer covering a US high school would cut me some slack for the fact that I just came to the US and need some time to catch up? Is this something really at the discretion of the officer vs. governed by explicit policy at the admissions office?

Realistically, would they even take my academic record abroad up to 10th grade into consideration? Even if they looped in an admissions officer covering schools in my country, there are probably not a lot of people from my current foreign high school that have applied to that college every year.

My extracurriculars would probably suffer because I would start off not knowing anyone at my new high school.

Am I really jeopardizing my college admissions by coming to the US for high school in the 11th grade?

What if I repeated 10th grade in the US? Would that make things better or worse, assuming I didn’t mind delaying everything for me by one year?

2

If you study in the US for only two or three years, that certainly will be taken into consideration when you apply to college here! Don’t worry about that. Given that you will have such a limited time in English language instruction, some places will only require that you take the TOEFL and won’t look at your SAT or ACT scores.

Since you plan to attend college here, there are significant advantages for you in moving back sooner and graduating from a US high school. You will be able to become fully familiar with the US educational system, and you will have extra time to bring your language skills up to the level needed for college-level studies. Depending on the school that you attend here, you might be able to take many of your classes as sheltered instruction with an ESL-qualified instructor rather than with a regular teacher who doesn’t know how to cope with students who are still perfecting their English.

3

First and foremost, go to school where you feel comfortable and have a support system in place. Your happiness is more important than some silly college admissions race.

I was surprised how quickly I caught up with the language when I spent my high school sophomore year in the US through a student exchange program. In my first week, I could barely understand what my teachers were saying in class. After a month, I stopped using a dictionary for reading assignments. After half a year, I didn’t need a dictionary to write papers anymore. At the end of the year, I did not feel like I had any sort of academic disadvantage anymore.

It’s quite common for exchange students to finish the year with a perfect GPA (thanks to American grade inflation), though with a somewhat lighter courseload than their “peers.” Luckily the American high school curriculum is quite flexible. In your first year, it may be a good strategy to focus your efforts on the core subjects (English, history, math, science, a foreign language) and take easy/fun/non-academic courses for your remaining units (e.g. PE, computer graphics, woodworking, yearbook, parenting, etc) rather than academic electives.

That choice may unfortunately not be up to you. Most states have a maximum age for high school students (18 or 19), and you’ll be assigned a grade level according to your age. Private schools have some more flexibility. If you do decide to attend a private school, discuss your concerns with your guidance counselor prior to the beginning of the school year and pick the best grade level collaboratively.

A few additional thoughts to consider.

  • Financials. If you graduate from a US high school, you are much more likely to receive scholarships from public and private sources than if you apply from abroad. You also have a better chance of qualifying for in-state tuition rates, though that will vary by the state you're moving to.
  • Standardized testing. The SATs (or the ACT) are tough for students who were not educated in an English-speaking setting. Can you do math in English? How about biology? You'll probably do better if you attend an American high school. SAT scores are an important gatekeeper for admission and scholarships. (Alas, it does not appear as if non-native speakers get much slack for the language barrier. Too many foreign students compensate by memorizing thousands upon thousands of vocab words to obtain a score that's competitive with - or even exceeds - the scores of native speakers.)

Everything considered, you’d probably be a stronger college applicant after 2 years at an American high school. Applicants from abroad are almost universally facing an uphill battle.

4

I would like to add that you shouldn’t plan your high school program just to get into one particular college or university. There are many colleges and universities here that can help you onto your longer-term career pathway. Higher education can be very expensive in the US, so even if you were to be admitted to your “dream” institution, you might not be able to attend because of the cost.

You might or might not be able to negotiate your grade placement at your enrollment. But if it becomes clear that you should be placed differently, your guidance counselor almost certainly can place you in the correct grade later on. If you will be attending a public high school in the US, provided you enroll before your 18th birthday, the school district must let you enroll. In most states, the public school system must allow you to remain in high school until you fulfill graduation requirements or until the end of the school year in which you turn 21. In some states those older students are sent to specialized high schools rather than to the regular high school because those school systems believe that older students are happier studying with their age peers rather than with younger teenagers. What this means for you, is that you don’t have to try to get through high school on any particular schedule if you find out that you need a bit more time. There are many routes to that high school diploma.

All that said, if you intend to enroll here this fall, you should be on the plane pretty soon. In many school districts, classes start the last week in August or the first week in September. You will need to bring a copy of your current school record or transcript, as well as an English-language translation of that document so that the guidance counselors can place you correctly.

Wishing you all the best in this new adventure!