<p>My husband is being transfered to Shanghai, which would give my son the opportunity to spend his last 2 yrs of HS in an international school there if we follow.
Is having this on your application attractive to colleges at all? My son really does not seem to want to go....</p>
<p>Spending two years in a foreign country would certainly look good on his resume especially if he could excel in an IB school. But your son does not want to go, he may undermine himself abroad. He needs to want to go and to make the most of his experience.</p>
<p>It can be a plus. But there are a lot of high-achieving kids at Int’l schools – the PSAT cutoff for NM is highest in that cohort. So it could go either way.</p>
<p>International schools have websites, Facebook groups and other online resources. Check those out and if they look promising, that’s a great way to get your S interested.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>Short answer: Yes, a few years living in a foreign country especially one with a non-Western culture can be a plus in college admissions.</p>
<p>Long answer: It depends on what you do with the experience. Shanghai is a huge city with a flashy veneer of Westernization overlaid on a traditional Chinese culture. The American community is large and active and if you choose you can surround yourself in a cocoon of comfort and never significantly interact with the local culture. Alternatively you can use the experience to get to know China, pick up some language, broaden your understanding of a very important country on the world stage, travel throughout the region.</p>
<p>I don’t have to tell you which approach would be more valuable in the college admissions process. Aside from providing fodder for application essays, the Asian experience can appeal to admissions because of the perspective the student will be able to bring to the classroom and campus community. </p>
<p>I live overseas – not in China but in a similarly huge and complicated Asian city and my son attended a large international school with an American curriculum. My son’s classmates were accepted to top colleges all over the world. True, as AnudduhMom notes, they were already a bright and motivated group, but for sure those that embraced the culture and were able to communicate their experience in their applications did very well in admissions to selective colleges. </p>
<p>I don’t mean that you have to go local. You can still enjoy a relatively privileged American lifestyle (in fact, maybe even better in some ways) but you need to get involved in some aspect of the culture of your host country – the arts, community service, environmental issues – something that you’re interested in that takes you out of your comfort zone. In a city like Shanghai there are many expat organizations that offer exposure within a structured and supported framework, for both kids and adults.</p>
<p>With respect to your son’s initial lack of enthusiasm to this move: Not at all unusual for a teenager to be unwilling to leave his friends and home and venture into the unknown. Assuming that he will be attending an international school in Shanghai, once he gets there the transition will most likely go well. Families are constantly coming and going and kids make friends fast. Every year there are dozens of “new kids” so it doesn’t have the same awkward stigma that it has in the States. The school will have plenty of support systems to help with acclimation. </p>
<p>Without doubt it’s a big adjustment for kids – and for their parents as well. Although it’s tempting to point out how much he’ll benefit from the experience this kind of forced positive thinking can actually be counterproductive. Just try to be neutral until he gets to school. My guess is after that he’ll be fine.</p>
<p>No advice to offer, just good luck and a question re one’s husband getting transferred to Shanghai: where do I sign mine up? If I have to stay married to him (and apparently I must since my petition for divorce was denied), his transfer to Shanghai would be a great blessing! :D</p>
<p>^ Too funny Owlice 
…sorry about your denied petition though.</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>To add to the above, my kids have done an amazing amount of travel with their international schools (not counting the interesting vacation trips that we have done as a family). Kids favorite destinations were Indonesia and Nepal. (My favorite was touring Ankor Wat in Cambodia). I would hope that colleges realize that expat kids are much more aware of what goes on globally than kids in the US. Most international schools have a required service- to- the- community component, which can be an eye opener to Americans.</p>
<p>Also, it’s really fun to see the reaction of a college tour group when you are introducing yourself and say where you are from…</p>
<p>Living overseas is a great experience, but I completely understand why a kid going into his junior year wouldn’t want to leave his HS. I’d check the new school carefully to see that it has what he needs— do they have his sport? is it an IB only school, when he would rather do AP? Can he continue on in his current foreign language? It pays to find out this kind of stuff early in the game.</p>
<p>Oh, we had the NM cut off issue. S would have made finalist in all but 2 states with the PSAT score that he had. He missed the overseas cut off by 3 points.</p>
<p>We are expats in Asia, have lived in London as well. It depends on your child - is he averse to change? Does he have close friendships/family that he will miss? Is he doing really well right now?</p>
<p>If the answers to the above are ‘yes’ then there is a risk involved. I have 2 sons and with every move, the grades went down.</p>
<p>Overall a very very good experience if you can maintain the status quo with son.</p>
<p>Your son will benefit from it if (and only if) he is positive about the change. The last two grades in HS can be pretty tough and it does not help if he is not in the right mood for the challenge. </p>
<p>Make sure that he can get into the school of his choice! Make sure that he can take the courses that he wants to take! The growth of Shanghai has been rather spectacular and several of my friend’s kids could not get into the school of their choice. Maybe it is easier now. </p>
<p>Find out more about extra-curricular activities. Your son may play X, the school may offer X, but that does not guarantee that he will get into a team. Organize as much as possible beforehand. Once he is in, it will be much harder to get things done.</p>
<p>My experience (2 kids graduating from HS in Shanghai) is that treatment of expats varies from college to college - at some it’s definitely an advantage and at others it can be a disadvantage if they don’t know the HS very well. It depends on the high school, but your son’s gpa is likely to drop - Asian schools are very competitive. It helps that he will have a transcript from his US school also. My oldest got into a school that would not have even been on her list if we had stayed in the US, my second didn’t get into his dream schools but got a great scholarship to a very good school.<br>
I wouldn’t trade my kids international experiences for anything though - it really makes them global citizens and has a profound effect on the way they see the world. Something all of us Americans could benefit from!</p>
<p>One experience I had is that it is much easier to move from one international school to another than to try to move within the US. Kids there are used to picking up and making new friends and are much more open in general to inviting newcomers into the fold.</p>
<p>I went to an international school and had more credits by the end of my first semester in my Senior year than I would have had I graduated in a US high school. It was tough but it sure opened a LOT of doors at many universities, including European universities. </p>
<p>It’s not easy for an adolescent to be enthusiastic about a move anywhere, let alone a foreign country – but hang in there! One day he will look back as an incredible experience!</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>