<p>My parents just recently told me that they are planning to move our whole family to Japan over the summer. Being the worried-worn person that I am, I immediately began to do some research about different options for me and my brother's education. We finally resolved on Keystone National High School (although we are not enrolled yet), which provides fully-accreditted courses, transcripts, and diplomas through correspondence classes. If anyone has heard of Keystone, some comments may be nice. :)</p>
<p>I'm also pretty worried about how I will take my PSAT, SAT, SATII'S, ACT, and/or AP exams. Any word on this would be helpful too.</p>
<p>Right now, I'm a freshmen enrolled in a relatively small public high school. I am (and was planning to) taking the toughest classes my school offers. But now I am worried that being switched to a correspondence program may hurt my future chances of ever getting into a top-notch school. :( Is there anyone out there in a situation like mine?</p>
<p>Lily - don't worry about the exams. If you go to the College Board website, there are a ton of testing centers in Japan. There are even quite a few American and int'l schools in Japan. Did you check that out before choosing distance learning? A school would make it much easier to meet people and get involved in activities right away. Homeschoolers have friends and activities, of course. But it could take awhile to get that going in a new country where you do not speak the language.</p>
<p>Yeah, I checked out the international schools around the area where we plan to move. I found quite a few, but they are way out of our reach-financially ($14-15 thousand a year) , and time wise (like three hours away on train). I'm not too worried about meeting people, because I understand the language enough to get by, and can pick up on it fast if I try (I guess I used to speak it fluently when I was younger, or that's what my parents said). I know there are a lot of community programs there that I'll probably end up being involved in, but like you said-it's just not the same as a regular school. :(</p>
<p>They're planning to move us to the Osaka-Kobe area. Sorry I can't answer you in Japanese...like I said, it'll take me a bit of time to pick it up again (could understand you though :)).</p>
<p>Kobe is very nice, BTW. So is Osaka. The nice part of living out in that stretch of Japan is the proximity to the really great, non-Tokyo cities. </p>
<p>I agree. I've visited before, and loved it. But I'm worried about what colleges would think. :eek:</p>
<p>How would it look to see that my high school education was through correspondence, and that I wasn't able to take Ap exams like Biology or Chemistry because I didn't have a lab to work with? (looking into the future here). I always thought to myself that I would be doing something along the lines of science or math.</p>
<p>Totemo shin pai desu (I'm really worried) <- I think that's what I wrote :cool:</p>
<p>you don't need a lab to take AP chem and bio. Just read the lab chapter in a review book and take the test.</p>
<p>I'm assuming you are moving to Japan because of a job for one of your parents, right? Sometimes companies will pay the tuition for the employee's children to attend a local English speaking school if the local public schools are not an option.</p>
<p>Not neccessarily...no job is involved with us moving. We're going to take care of my grandparents there, and my parents are going to find new jobs (probably teaching English...they've done it before).</p>
<p>Although I see the utility in going to a Japanese high school, Lily has no hope at this age of just falling into one and doing well.</p>
<p>That is, unless she has been studying kanji (Chinese characters) for her whole life. I somehow gather she's been doing much better things with her time than playing memory games with ideograms...</p>
<p>she may not do "well" in the same terms as the Japanese students, but trying, even if it's a struggle, would be the surest route to becoming relatively fluent in the shortest possible time. It wouldn't be that different from high school students who do a junior year abroad sponsored by Nat'l Field Service. Those kids often know even less of the local language than Lily apparently does, but are still placed into local schools. The point is to learn the language and culture, not the actual courses (like Algebra I or biology) per se.</p>
<p>Texas, I understand your point. However, learning Japanese isn't like learning English. Unlike English, where you can at least piece together words through phoenetics, Japanese requires someone to know thousands of characters. </p>
<p>The difficulty of learning the language notwithstanding, most Japanese high schools have entrance exams which she couldn't pass. I'm not trying to be a downer, but a voice of reason. I have lived and gone to college in Japan. I can tell you that even after 3 years of learning the language at the university level, I was just adequately prepared for life in Japan.</p>
<p>I have already looked into going to a public Japanese high school. There are many set-backs that would just kill me if I were looking to go to a top-notch University.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Because I am not an actual foreign exchange student in a program, I am not automatically placed in a high school like those students are. There are entrance exams I would still have to take, and there is no "special treatment". Also, high school is not legally required in Japan, so even a public school can refuse a student's request for enrollment.</p></li>
<li><p>Japanese schools are a year ahead compared to an American curriculum, so I would be behind even before I had time to try!</p></li>
<li><p>The rigor of coursework is substantially different than what I'm used to, and even though I'm sure I could adjust...a Japanese courseload is a lot to handle for a foreigner!</p></li>
<li><p>It's true...a lot of time in the Japnese schools are spent learning and perfecting their use of kanji...which I have not...I'd be starting at a pre-school level.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I'm not too worried about picking up the language, and I've pratically grown up knowing the culture. Being a foreigner is like being a magnet for people over there (UCLAri...agree?) ...so I won't have trouble making friends. Because I'm planning to go to an American college, I'll only be spending three years there. Is there anything you guys might recommend me doing so I won't screw up my chances horribly to going to a good (and I mean pretty good...) college?</p>
<p>I really really recommend you just go to an American school if you can. It's absolutely your best bet. Otherwise, just email colleges that you're interested in and try to get info on how you can best tailor your homeschooling to be up to their standards.</p>
<p>Going to a Japanese high school is just not feasible, as both you and I have made clear.</p>
<p>Oh, and yeah, you can be like a magnet in Japan. Both repelling and pulling people. Try the gaijin bubble on trains, it's funny.</p>
<p>I am very surprised that your parents are moving you to Japan at your age if your family has no experience with homeschooling and their position is that they cannot afford an appropriate local school. Homeschooling does not sound like something you basically want to do for its own merits. Nonetheless, a good book outlining all the various approaches is "The Teenage Liberation Handbook" by Grace Llewellyn.</p>
<p>f you are going to go the distance learning route, don't restrict yourself to high school programs, or to programs leading to a diploma. You might be able to create a more challenging program for yourself with a mixture of distance learning high school and college courses, or you might find some way to take a few courses locally. It's also fairly straightforward to self-study and take AP exams w/o a course.</p>
<p>WOW! And all this time I thought I needed a real diploma...</p>
<p>Yes, considering the place I live in now, and the school I go to currently, I would be homeschooled whether we move or not. My parents are very confident I can get a better education this way. I also think that homeschooling would allow me to open my schedule for the things I'm planning to do once I'm there (tutoring, modeling, different clubs and organizations...).</p>
<p>The Keystone program that offered the diploma I had looked into is by far the cheapest and simplest to go by. I had planned on taking AP's independently...but now I guess distance-learning college courses could be an option too!</p>
<p>no college I know of requires a diploma, and I researched the super elites pretty thoroughly before my son applied. In addition to homeschoolers, all (or nearly all) colleges will consider students applying a year early, who obviously aren't going to have a diploma. Just figure out how you are going to cover all the academic bases, and how you are going to document that you have had a rigorous experience and are ready for college work. Get the Llewellyn book!! Also read the threads entitled "transcript question" and "weighted vs. nonweighted" for some ideas about how others have approached do-it-yourself high school.</p>
<p>my time expired for editing, but here is an example of what you can put together. My son self-studied for 10 APs w/o courses. The AP scores themselves provided the documentation. He had 3 graded college courses from the link I gave you. He had 4 audited college courses with no official grades, but with letters from 2 of the profs saying what his grade would have been. Then 4 SAT IIs, some ungraded homeschooler classes, some ungraded academic summer programs, and some ungraded independent study. That's it. No diploma, no parent-assigned grades, and no distance learning high school courses. We put it all together into a homemade master transcript. He only applied to super-selective places, and got in everywhere. </p>
<p>This does NOT mean that anyone else could follow this recipe and get into the same schools (he's kind of a special case because he's unusually accomplished in a couple of areas and has a bunch of nat'l and int'l recognition). But it does mean that you do not need to follow a traditional high school program via distance learning in order to educate yourself or to demonstrate your abilities. The Llewellyn book will help you to think beyond the box of a program like Keystone.</p>