<p>I was just wondering how helpful this would be with college admissions. So, here we begin:</p>
<p>When I was 14 I realized that due to my passion for the spanish language I wanted to really become fluent in it. Note that I am a Caucasian male who had no experience with spanish prior to my spanish I course freshman year. My studying abroad was not part of an organization, it was completely independent and done on my own. My dad's roommate knew a kid in Spain that wanted to learn english so we had him come to our house during the summer of freshman year. Come September, I went to Sevilla, Spain to spend the entire school year studying there and living with his family and no other americans/english speakers. It was a private school that had relations with Germany so I also learned a lot of german. By the end of my 10 month stay I had become fluent in the language because I was pretty young and I was very focused/determined. So now I'm officially bilingual in spanish and english, and I know some german. My GPA took a hit while I was there obviously because I had classes like biology...in spanish. By the end of the year I could manage well but wow that first trimester was hell. My GPA was a 3.4 at the end and I can say I'm pretty proud to get that in my second language. Now, when I came back to the US my dad had moved to Philly so I had to switch schools again and now I go to a pretty competitive and well-known all-boys private jesuit school. Upon entering the school, I wasn't sure what to expect and was scared to take a hard schedule so the only honors class I took was honors spanish IV, which I got an average of 99% for the year. My GPA is a 3.71 here but if a 90% was an A in my school I'd have a 4.0 but the scale is like this: 93-100 A 85-92 B etc.. My senior year schedule is harder, I am taking AP Spanish IV, AP English IV, and honors latin II which is considered one of the hardest, if not the hardest, classes you can take at my school. I can only dream of going to a respectable university now because of my stupid junior schedule and my freshman gpa (3.2). My dream school is UMich but honestly I think it would be such a reach unless they actually read a detailed story of my experience abroad and how it affected me. But I feel like they'll look at my GPA and just not pay attention to the rest of the app.
Oh, and my SAT was a 1950 but I am retaking it in October and I have been getting an 800 on the math section on practice tests so I expect an increase to around 2100+. And on the SAT II spanish I got a 790.</p>
<p>Lots of kids do exchange programs. That you set up your own is uncommon, but not unheard of. Try using this as fodder for an essay, and see how it turns out.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response. But most kids who do exchange programs are with other americans speaking english and I don’t think most of them become very proficient in the language. Also most programs are not for 10 months, usually a month or two.</p>
<p>It’s great to talk about something you’re passionate for in your essay.</p>
<p>Try it out and see how it turns out. I know admissions officers are kinda fed-up with essays about kids going on summer programs to africa or elsewhere and learning how you can “be happy without any money!” (quote from Tufts officer). Your story is different but it should be less about what you saw around you and more about how you changes inside. I think talking about learning biology in spanish would be really interesting.</p>
<p>While your exchange program must have be great, and a good explanation for your lower grades, to be perfectly honest it just makes you look like another rich white kid.</p>
<p>I think it’s an interesting experience. I don’t think your GPA is all that bad, and “rich white kids” get into excellent schools all the time.</p>
<p>That said, I don’t think that going to a local school in a foreign country without knowing much language is all that unique. I would bet that UMich has seen this before and will in fact cut you some slack. Whether you get bonus points, though, I don’t know.</p>
<p>Your GPA is a little bit low for UMich. Your current score is below 25% too. If you can bring up your score to 2100+ and also a little bit on your GPA, you may be a high match. Make sure you put your story in your essay for CommonApp.</p>
<p>So much negativity! Your experiences sound interesting and I am sure you can use them to your advantage in the admissions game. Of course schools will understand a lower GPA freshman year. I don’t know about UMichigan’s admissions process, but pulling up the SAT sounds more important than worrying about the GPA. GPAs are so different from school to school that they are almost meaningless.</p>
<p>Oh, I disagree! Well, GPAs may be almost meaningless, but transcripts aren’t. By and large, the transcript is the single most important document in an applicant’s file.</p>
<p>Quaker, I think that if you explain that you were going to school in Spanish, colleges and universities won’t fault you for your grades while you were abroad. But your mediocre grades freshman year and your rather soft schedule junior year may put you at a disadvantage relative to the rest of the applicant pool at selective colleges and universities.</p>
<p>I think that if you choose wisely the colleges that you apply to, you could have a lot of good options to choose among next spring. I’m afraid I don’t know Michigan well enough to say with any confidence whether it could be one of them.</p>