<p>So I'm thinking of studying abroad my senior year of HS. I want to know if this would hurt me application-wise (I'm looking into ivy schools) since I won't have the same class rigor my senior year, and I obviously won't have leadership positions over in other countries. My class rank right now is great but since I'll be going away it'll drop comparatively... I'd probably still be top 20 though. Or would colleges think it unique since I would be going to another country to live for a year?</p>
<p>Please give your honest opinion and thoughts! Don't be afraid of being too harsh. By the way, countries I'm looking at aren't 3rd world. Mostly richer European countries like Spain or Germany and some others.</p>
<p>Assuming your parents pay your way to go to a private school, and also assuming you dont state ‘not 3rd world’ on your essays, all eight ivies you apply to will not look ‘down’ on such an experience.</p>
<p>Also, when you say assuming I don’t state not 3rd world, I wouldn’t be saying that outright but I’d be saying what country, so it’d be obvious it wasn’t 3rd world… The reason I wrote that was because I saw posts about how colleges think 3rd world countries are a good experience but don’t see other countries as a good experience (so I wanted clarification).</p>
<p>The experience will be more enriching and lifechanging than you could have at home.</p>
<p>Colleges will be more impressed by the independence and initiative shown in going away, the foreign language skills, and the probably amazing essay you will write about exchange than they will be by a few leadership positions/ class rank. They will also keep your exchange in mind when noting your class rank etc and will probably understand.</p>
<p>Sally_Rubenstone posted this in another thread about study abroad: "When I worked in a college admissions office, I always had enormous respect for students who spent an entire year–or even a semester–living in a foreign country with a host family, attending a school where English was not the primary language of instruction.</p>
<p>But, despite my own personal appreciation of the risks these students took and the challenges they faced, I found that other admission officials sometimes seemed jaded by all the applicants who’d had some sort of travel-abroad experience, and they didn’t properly differentiate between those who’d immersed themselves in an unfamiliar country for months at a time and those who spent six days in Salamanca with the high school Spanish Club."</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on that? That’s really what’s worrying me; I’m just afraid that while I’ll get a great lifechanging experience, colleges will see it negatively since I won’t be taking my AP classes and such. In fact, my grades would probably only be graded pass/fail not letter grades since I wouldn’t understand the language yet…</p>
<p>Do it, you shouldn’t live your life based on how admissions officers will view it. If you want to study abroad go for it. It will be very challenging especially if you have no background in the language.</p>
<p>Well, the thing is that I keep playing the What If game with myself… and I think “What if because I go to study abroad I get rejected from all the top schools?” And I think I would rather choose going to a top school over studying abroad, but then I go in a circle again because of course it’s a what if and not a fact… It’s a really big choice and I just want to know everything about it before I make a final decision.</p>