<p>I am an international student from Japan who is going to go to a boarding school starting this fall, but at the international school I go to, my English grades are A's, but nothing special. I was wondering if any students who had previously gone to international schools outside of the country found a huge difference in the English classes that they took at the boarding school they went to. Were you at the same level as your classmates? Lower? Higher? Was your vocabulary sufficient? And I would also appreciate it if you could tell me how you did in English at the previous school you went to. </p>
<p>Thank you! :D</p>
<p>I go to an international school in Beijing and every year some of my friends leave for boarding school, mostly in the top tier, ranging from Andover to Hotchkiss to Concord. I am applying this year too.</p>
<p>From what I see, those going to Choate or Hotchkiss had good grades in English (A- to A) and I don't hear them struggling much. The one at Andover now was literally insane (4.21 or .12 GPA, I forgot), so I don't expect her to struggle much. Others at Loomis, Concord etc don't have much problems either.</p>
<p>Which international school to you go to? ASIJ? OIS? CA? I have a friend who transferred from ASIJ and his English level relative to here is till in the top 35-25% region.</p>
<p>If your school is ASIJ, ickleronniekins, I'm just going to tell you that there's a chance you might, MIGHT be even better in english at boarding school than in asia. Or at least in grammar, I think int'l schools are good at telling you that you suck at it and need to improve (no offense intended, it's something us students have felt ever since we arrived in whatever grade. I'm not very good at grammar even though my vocabulary is pretty lengthy, but it's easy to get offended when teachers say that your english sucks and theirs is supposedly perfect)</p>
<p>Even if you aren't from ASIJ, any somewhat-wellknown school there will have a pretty good english program, and it'll live up to that of boarding schools'. don't worry, just be glad you got into a bs :)</p>
<p>beefinbj : you go to isb? thats where i went, now i go to choate... '11 !</p>
<p>oh, and back to the topic, I think I'm not struggling in english but I feel like I could have been better prepared. Like we do a lot of grammar in class which we didn't do much of in my old school and the books we read are harder to comprehend and stuff like that.</p>
<p>Hey Helen yeah I go to ISB, my friend Matt goes to Choate now, '10.</p>
<p>Oh and about that English thing, seriously among my friends that went to Concord, Loomis, Choate, Hotchkiss, Andover, only the one who went to Andover was exceptionally good at English, the rest were OK-ish, half of them could even be considered "middle of the pack" here at ISB.</p>
<p>Thank you all SO MUCH.
No, I don't go to ASIJ... :P I go to a much smaller international all-girls school, but I think our academics is aroouund the level of ASIJ. Hopefully.</p>
<p>kickme_cuzimcool: you do have a good point. At school here, they tell you if your grammar sucks, they tell you if something sounds terrible, and so on. :) Do they not do that at a normal school in the states or something?</p>
<p>it's just a little more emphasized here, mainly because in America you pick up how to talk easier than in Asia, where you're not always sure if your English is right. It's also just competitive to learn, and we're used to rules and structure as asians (hence the stereotype for math) so grammar is the strongest foundation when it comes to building up their language. But in our school, it's a bit more mentioned because a lot of people here can't speak English with any proper grammar. It varies from school to school, but the idea is the same; grammar is a rule, and we know how to learn rules.</p>
<p>Haha yeah I know Matt, and I think I know most of the people you are referring to. I'm pretty sure I know who you are because someone told me about this new junior coming in...does your name start with a t?</p>
<p>Haha this is kinda funny. I went to ASIJ in second and third grade.</p>