<p>I have a friend in China who would like to go to school in the US. He's about to enter into his last year of high school there and so it's about time that he started applying for US colleges. The problem is, there's always the chance that he won't get in and since the Chinese education system is so different from the US, he would have to invest a lot of time away from his Chinese coursework to prepare for examinations that are needed for US colleges. We're worried that he might spend too much time working towards the US college apps and have it not work out. Then he would've lost too much time to catch up for the chinese examinations too.</p>
<p>So the best plan I can think of is for him to spend his last year studying for a Chinese college and put off the US apps for a year. Once he's in his first year of college, he can then spend some time studying for the SAT's and whatnot and apply once he's in college. The problem is, can he still apply as a freshman international student once he's already in a Chinese university? Or does he have to apply as a transfer student then? Would this be different for each school?</p>
<p>Also, after attending a Chinese university, would he still need to take the SAT or can he just send his college grades or something? Can he still use his high school grades once he's already in college? Or does he have to use his college grades to apply?</p>
<p>Once your friend attends a Chinese university, he has to apply as a transfer. Some colleges let you apply as a freshman if you only complete one semester at another university, but I don't think your friends wants to drop out of his Chinese university without knowing the outcome of his applications in the US. </p>
<p>Application requirements for transfer applicants vary from college to college. Most colleges still require high school grades and standardized test scores when one applies to transfer during one's first year of college, but all colleges require a transcript of the university that one is attending.</p>
<p>If your friend makes his choices wisely, he should be able to get his stuff done for universities in both countries. One thing that I can say after applying to US universities as an international is that the process is as time consuming as you make it. I would have been off fine spending 10-20 hours for my college search, but I invested closer to 200 hours because I was afraid of missing a hidden diamond. I spent hours writing and rewriting my application essays, just to realize that the earlier versions of my essays were better than mthe 15th draft. The only area that I spent the exact amount of time and resources on is testing. Overall, I think I spent no more than 20 hours preparing for all my tests, mostly taking practice tests. </p>
<p>On a side note: has your friend considered taking the ACT instead of the SAT? If your friend is good in math (up through pre-calc) and knows the English grammar, he can do well on the ACT without much preparation. An additional advantage of the ACT is that it is offered in mainland China while the SAT is not (to my knowledge).</p>