<p>Hello,
I am a student from Bahrain. I go to an American school but we are still taught some Arabic subjects such as Arabic Literature and Islamic Studies. I'm an IB student and I get straight A's in all my subjects but never seem to get good grades in those two subjects. I'm applying to study in the US. Is there a way I can get college admissions offices notice this? I don't think it's relevant since non of the subjects taught in the US are in Arabic.
If you have any suggestion please drop since I could really use them.</p>
<p>You need to make an appointment with your guidance counselor and talk about your college list. Your counselor will be able to tell you which colleges and universities in the US have admitted students like you in recent years, and whether or not the grades in the religious subjects affected their admission.</p>
<p>As for not getting good grades in Arabic Literature, that would be a question to take up with your teacher. He/she may have a very different educational philosophy and methodology than your English Lit teacher does. If you understand his/her classroom goals, you may be able to do better in that class in the future.</p>
<p>Arabic Literature is forced on the curriculums by the Ministry Of Education here in Bahrain. There is no textbook or anything to study from. Absolutely nothing. It’s an extremely tough subject in which the class average is 82. The ministry refuse to do anything about it despite constant complaining from students, parents, and teachers. My question is can I get college admission offices to notice this in my application?</p>
<p>Your guidance counselor will include information about your program with the school description that goes to all of the colleges and universities. Ask him/her how this local requirement is covered in that description. Some places won’t pay much attention to local requirements because they will only be interested in your IB exam scores. However, each college/university sets its own policy about this kind of thing, so there is no easy way to predict which ones will care about the grades in those classes. Just do your best to get the best grades that you can in those two classes. If the rest of your grades are As, and you have good test scores, you should be fine.</p>
<p>If the Ministry of Education defines what should be covered in those two classes, then your teachers should be following a formal curriculum. You need to speak with those teachers and find out just exactly what it is that they expect from you so that you can get better grades in those classes.</p>
<p>@happymomof1 You’re assuming that they have guidance counselors outside the US.</p>
<p>as for the islamic studies and arabic subjects, I think there is an additional information section you could mention it in. you could also have you arabic teacher write a note or letter explaining the situation, which you can send to American universities.</p>
<p>stressedoutt -</p>
<p>If indeed Q8Student is attending an “American” school in his/her country, that institution is probably full of US and other expatriate students and has fully qualified US guidance counselors on staff who have years of experience in the “American” schools overseas. In my observation, the counselors at that type of school are expert at helping their students get into good colleges and universities in the US. The ones that I knew when I was living in Venezuela seemed absolutely psychic when it came to college admissions.</p>
<p>Granted, there are schools that put “American” or “French” or “British” into their names in order to make themselves look better to unsuspecting parents, but since Q8Student is pursuing an IB program, I suspect that the school in question is indeed one of the schools that specifically serves the expatriate community. If I’m wrong about this school, then my advice changes, and Q8Student needs to get him/herself into the Bahrain office of EducationUSA for professional quality advising [EducationUSA</a> - Center Profile - EducationUSA Bahrain](<a href=“http://www.educationusa.info/E]EducationUSA”>http://www.educationusa.info/E) and/or send a PM to Alexandre for region-specific advice.</p>