High School Study Abroad Impact on Admissions

[MKMaya]

Hello, I am a US high school student and for the longest time I have wanted to go on an international exchange. Now I have the opportunity, but I can’t decide whether to do a summer abroad (4 weeks) between sophomore and junior year or for junior year. Ideally the country I would go to would be Japan, but I also have language experience with French and Chinese. If I go for a year abroad and skip some APs and fall behind in some classes would it not allow me to get into higher level colleges (ex. Uchicago, Stanford, Umich)?

Last year my course load was AP World History, Honors Algebra II w/ Trig, Honors Biology, (Pre-IB) English 9, French II, and Computer Graphics and Design. This year I am in APUSH, Honors Precalc w/ Trig, Chemistry (my school’s equivalent to honors Chemistry), (Pre-IB) English 10, French III, and AP micro and macroeconomics.

If I go a year abroad I would have to drop IB, but I would take more APs to make up for it.

If I stay in IB and go for the summer I would take HL math, HL biology, HL english, HL art, SL geography, and SL French. If I go for the year my senior course load would be AP Calc BC, AP lit, AP physics, AP gov, French IV, and another semester elective.

My extracurriculars aren’t very impressive, but I dance at a studio and am paid to help teach younger dancers, I draw and started my schools art club, I am in Key Club and volunteer at my local library, and I am in the Asian Pacific American club at my school.

I will definitely go on one of the exchange programs, but I haven’t been able to decide which. Which one would be better for getting in to a good college?

[proudterrier]

There are pros and cons to going abroad your junior year. Pro: you will stand out from the crowd in a significant way. You’ll be more mature, worldly, thoughtful and adventurous than most of your peers. You’ll be fluent in a language. Your essays will be unique and amazing. Many colleges specifically favor students who have done such programs–they’re impressive, especially given how few Americans do them. Going to a foreign country as a teenager (as opposed to during college) is a unique and life-changing experience. (and unfortunately cannot compare to a summer program in any way, shape or form) These things will be a boon to any college that has holistic admissions (which Stanford and UChicago do…)

Con: Depending on your high school works, you may have to repeat a year of school. If you don’t, you’ve already sussed out that there are things you won’t be able to do/have on your transcript for junior year, which could be a deficit at some schools. Academics in a foreign country can be REALLY hard; you may not perform as well abroad as you do at home, which can bring down your GPA. Or, you may have issues transferring those grades at all (hence, having to repeat a year). That dip in your GPA may hurt you at some ultra selective schools who laser focus on GPA. Your year abroad may affect your test scores, as well. My advice is to take them as a sophomore (before leaving), but of course sophomore year isn’t ideal for taking them. But you may not have any access to SAT testing while abroad, which would leave only Fall semester senior year to take them–and after a year away, you may bomb them.

But! I really think the pros outweigh the cons if you’re really passionate about doing foreign exchange. You may not get into your specific dream school–maybe they won’t take into consideration that your grades dipped because you were learning in Japanese, maybe your SAT score was 200 points lower than it might have been because you totally forgot how to speak English XD–but some other school will see past that and go “holy heck they lived in Japan as a 16-year-old!!! I want this kid on campus.”

I’m basing this on personal anecdata. I lived in Germany my junior year of high school, and my American school was useless. It “tanked” my GPA (long story), and my SATs sucked (hence my advice to take them before you leave!). I didn’t get into one competitive school that I’m fairly sure I might have gotten into in the alternate reality where I never went to Germany and stayed home… but I did get into a different competitive school (BU) with a full tuition scholarship. I’m 100% positive one of the reasons is my exchange experience, how it reflected on my character and in my essays, and what I brought to campus because of it. When I got to school I met another student in my German class who did the same scholarship the year after I did–BU it seemed really likes students from my program! It all worked out, just not the way sophomore me thought it would. But the pros vastly outweighed the cons because the experience changed my life. I became a better person, for one, a better American, and I developed a deep passion for all things international. Every single job I’ve had since graduation has had something to do with international cultures in the United States.

[MKMaya]

Thank you for the reply! Just out of curiosity, is studying abroad in college very different from high school? Which would offer a better view into the host country’s culture?

[mathmom]

I think the pros far outweigh the cons unless your high school is particularly ornery.

Most college abroad programs have students living with other American students, taking classes with other American students. They learn more about the country than tourists, but few have real immersion experiences. My son did three programs in Jordan. The first, in the summer, was supposed to give him a home stay with a Jordanian family. His first family were Christians and spoke English at home. He complained so they gave him another family. The second put him in an attic room, fed him separately from the family pita and jam alone, no real meals - (because he was a single male he couldn’t socialize with the women.) His next program had a language pledge so everyone swore to only speak Arabic, about half the kids in the program kept the pledge. They were supposed to share apartment rooms at the university with Jordanian language partners, but because of some unforseen issues (this program had had to relocate from Syria) the roommate thing didn’t happen until the term was almost over. This was in his experience the best one of the bunch. The next term he was in Amman, no language pledge and in a city where many people speak and are eager to practice English. And he couldn’t honestly say he’d taken a pledge not to speak a word of English until the end of the term.

I spent a year with a French family studying French in an international institute. I learned a lot about France from my family, but most of my friends were internationals. Years later, I lived and worked in Germany. Even though my husband and I didn’t feel obliged to speak German at home, we did watch German TV and read German newspapers and we were much more inmeshed in German life than when someone else is grocery shopping and earning their living.

You learn different things just depending on how old you are, it doesn’t make one better or worse, but I do think most high school programs are structured in a way that makes it easier to learn about the culture you are living in.

I’ve only traveled to Japan as a tourist recently after having lived there as a young child. It’s wonderfully modern and yet very different from us. A great way to spend some time.