move to canada

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hey all,
I posted here a few months ago for summer options for my D (class of 2014). </p>

<p>Due to some family reasons (my husband works in Canada), we most likely will be moving to Calgary, Alberta next year. </p>

<p>Right now, she goes to a wealthy suburban public school. The top kids (top 20ish) go to Ivies, HPYSMC level, the rest go to respectable LACs and SUNYs. </p>

<p>Right now, she is on an advanced track for math (2 years ahead, would take Calc III senior year, also advanced in sciences (interning in lab this summer, would finish sciences by junior year - AP Physics B and C, Bio and Chem).</p>

<p>Very good high school, and it is very likely she'd make an excellent university in America.</p>

<p>However, in Canada, the school isn't the same. </p>

<p>It's a Charter school, with a rather limited curriculum. My D has already finished Bio and Chem, and has done Algebra II Trig with Honors, and i'm not sure how accomodating the school would be for her, but probably fine).</p>

<p>Westmount</a> High School Guide
Here is the school.</p>

<p>Presumably, she'd be able to match into the right curriculum..but her father and I are dead set on her going to an American university, like the one she might have been able to attend if she stayed in the US. This has been our family dream for many years-she's a very bright kid. </p>

<p>How can we help her stand out and develop herself so she is desirable to top American universities, despite the limited circumstances.</p>

<p>She got the internship by emailing profs her self-so proud of her! No pushing at all</p>

2

<p>I probably can’t advise on specifics, but as someone very familiar with both systems, I can share a few thoughts.</p>

<p>Canadian and American highschool curriculums are a bit apples and oranges and thus direct comparison can be challenging at best. Most Canadian curriculums look very limited by comparison to US schools (our kid goes to one of the top private schools in Canada and the curriculum is similar to the one you provided a link to). The reality is that the content in the ‘regular curriculum’ is more rigorous and there is no need for APs like there is in the US. Canadian kids do very well going to Canadian or US universities with their non-AP curriculum. To add to this, if you look at the PISA results, Canadians outperform US kids on average in math and science on average, but also the top 5% kids from Canada score higher than the top 5% in US. Flaws in standardized testing aside, its a bit of general information for you to work with so you don’t get discouraged.</p>

<p>Now trying to match on the curriculum is tricky. In the Canadian system (though it varies by province so I can’t speak about Alberta necessarily), typically kids start HS in 8th grade and take integrated math for five years (there aren’t topics such as algebra, geometry as separate courses). In sciences, one takes a 1/3 of a year of bio, chem and physics in an integrated fashion from years 8, 9 and 10, then 2 full years each of bio, chem and physics if planning a STEM college major. You would never take just a year of a science and then AP as you do in the US. And AP material is mostly covered in those last two years (not a perfect overlap but you have some unique material in AP and unique material in the two years of regular curriculum). I realize this is not the same as our kids’ school but really even the top privates teach the same standardized curriculum. The kids at her school have no problem going to top US schools, including math/science intensive places like CMU, MIT, JH (though never been a Caltech admit). </p>

<p>I realize you are probably looking for more specific strategic advice but I offer this mostly so you don’t worry as much as you might when you try to read the curriculum comparison on face value. Now you might be worried about how it looks though to US school adcoms: just keep in mind they evaluate kids in the context of the school they attend. If AP is not offered, it’s not expected. It’s been our experience too that US schools are very familiar with Canadian curriculums and have a lot of respect for them.</p>

3

<p>Thank you for your advice-that was actually rather helpful and reassuring!</p>

<p>She will be doing research in a lab, in hopes of ISEF so that should help. The school has limited extracurriculars though, so she may need to help start some up. </p>

<p>For courses she’s already taken though-her curriculum is challenging here and has dipped into PreCalc. She’s also completed Earth Science, Honors Bio and Chem…what sort of placement do you think we should ask for?</p>

<p>There really is no PreCalc here :S and she sent the people an email asking about placements, but its a friday and the course placement thing is due on monday…typical procrastination. </p>

<p>Oh well…she still has finals over here too…some busy weeks ahead!</p>

4

<p>My kid has also been working in a university lab for several years. I think that is the way to go. ECs tend to be less within school so kids have their world more outside of school. But there will be so many possibilities, whether its sports, music, volunteering, research, work, or starting a business. Calgary isn’t NYC, but big enough so there aren’t limitations. And on the plus side, may be less competition and far easier for her to shine. Calgary kids are mostly going to U of A, where they don’t need letters of rec, strong ECs, leadership, APs, and other resume building activities. Although some university programs are moving toward what we call ‘broad based admissions’ its still almost exclusively based upon senior year grades in particular courses. </p>

<p>I’m sure they can place her differently later so don’t worry about this particular deadline too much if it feels too early to know. It’s not uncommon at our kids’ school for them to switch courses around in the fall. I would expect they could give her some placement tests to see where her knowledge and skills are at (especially for math). I would also assume they wouldn’t leave it up to student and parent since the school likely has a lot of prerequisite rules. Besides how are you supposed to know the curriculum? </p>

<p>Can her teachers there write up the topics covered so far in each of her academic courses, so that the teachers at the new school can view it and decide placement that way? Only someone looking at the course content of both would know the best fit. </p>

<p>Re: pre-calc. That would be covered somehwere in the math sequence (which looking at their sequence table, precedes calculus). Be assured, she’ll have learned geometry, all algebra, trig, and everything readying her for calc. But given the apples (integrated spiral curriculum) and oranges (singular stand alone math courses), she’ll be probably strong in some areas, not in others for a given pure math level. </p>

<p>I’d also guess she could go into the highest level for bio and chem if she already has an honors year under her belt (if assume a year of honors sort of equal to year of regular plus 1/3 year for science 9 & science 10?). On the other hand, not sure of the advantage if she runs out of courses early. Might be best to err on doing the lower level, where her GPA will be stronger (and she’d still be done with her sciences by 11th grade and could take AP then if wanted to outside of school- probably few resources in Calgary but there is always online).</p>

<p>Hey some more reassurance: not only does Canada score very high on math and science internationally (just behind Finland, Korea, Singapore), Alberta has one of the strongest performing provinces on internal comparisons.</p>

5

<p>That might be a good idea, although I’m concerned that she just might get bored. When she’s not challenged, she just slacks off a lot, and gets bad grades. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, that school has only AP Bio, and she wants to put off taking the test till 12-13, when they’re revising the content so it’s more understanding based.</p>

<p>She likes learning Chem more for that reason, more problem solving than the cramming she says there is for bio. Kind of funny since she’s researching in Bio. </p>

<p>The school is limited in resources-she plays tennis, but there’s no tennis team, just badminton which is a wholly different sport.</p>

<p>Should I steer to ECs that are mostly out of school? I mean, the school has a newspaper, and she’s on staff for her school newspaper here (nationally acclaimed) and she has awards for MUN, and the school has a MUN club, but I’m not sure of the level.</p>

<p>US colleges are holistic as you mentioned, so leadership is also something to look at. If she stayed at her current school, she probably would have been leadership in her 5 clubs that she does (MUN Chair, newspaper editor etc).</p>

<p>Should I ask her to look into the school clubs that she might like too? </p>

<p>I think she really likes research, but with admissions for internationals (canadian citizens here), it must be important to show some level of ‘well roundedness’.</p>

<p>Thank you so much for your help and advice! It’s been very nice having someone who knows the system there-we’re completely clueless! :)</p>

6

<p>Why are you not considering a Canadian college? We are U.S. and due to our crumbling economy and horrible attitude toward investing in education in this state found Canadian universities to be a fantastic alternative. The golden ticket is a three-year work visa for a graduate of a Canadian university. </p>

<p>Our son went up there and has had far better opportunities handed to him on a silver platter than he would have had here at his in-state “public ivy.” He went from wanting to come right back (sticker shock at prices for everything) to after a year thinking he wants to stay for a bit and try it out after he graduates. </p>

<p>The reason he changed his mind? He loves his school and is getting as good or better an education as his friends here in the US, but the biggest reason is that “Canadians are happy mom. They LOVE Canada. The ones who immigrated are grateful to be here. In the US everybody is depressed.”</p>

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<p>Out of curiosity, why did you choose this particular school? I looked it up, it seems really new, and there are so many better schools in Calgary from the looks of it (at least by how well they do on provincial exams)? For someone willing to have their kid jump through so many stressful highschool hoops, and willing to pay an extra $200k in tuition to send their kid to a US school (Canadian tuition is almost never more than $6k a year), it seems odd to choose this highschool. Check out this report: <a href=“http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/70ABESC10COMP.pdf[/url]”>http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/70ABESC10COMP.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’m just confused as to where the school is with this. Why wouldn’t they be testing and placing her rather than you having to come to a forum of strangers that know neither school. </p>

<p>I would also truly lighten up. She’s only finishing 9th grade! I’d not worry about boredom or her preferences at this point.Who knows how she’ll find or prefer higher level science courses. And given the apples and oranges nature of the two curriculums, I think its silly to worry about her being bored. It’s not like her classmates haven’t also taken science already. Moreover, courses like french, they may already have 7 years more than her. Canadians also tend to do a lot more writing in English. Again apples and oranges, but all generalities too so who knows how the two schools and curriculums compare? </p>

<p>I’m just confused as to where the school is with this. Why wouldn’t they be testing and placing her rather than you having to come to a forum of strangers that know neither school. </p>

<p>As for ECs, let her steer herself! She’s supposed to be doing things because she enjoys them, period. Not carving her resume. It doesn’t matter if at school or outside of school. </p>

<p>I also strongly agree with Mombot. We were once like you, all about American schools and now our whole family doesn’t see the point. You can’t yet either, but once you get out of the pressure cooker/competition/comparison of the NE, you too will see how unnecessary it is and how you will look for a school that is great for your kid, and not for bragging rights. There are tons of great schools in both countries, and when the time comes weigh the pros and cons for best fit relative to cost and opportunities etc. If she wants to be scientist, she can easily go to a very research intensive world recognized university in Canada, easily get involved in research, go to the US for grad school (I know this as we are a family of professors, most of our friends are researchers). I know literally dozens such families-- kid gets into MIT, goes instead ot UBC, then goes gets his PhD at MIT with full funding. Indeed, its more than a coincidence that the top scientists i know in Canada have their kids stay in Canada for undergrad. And if she’s only getting an undergrad, the overall economy and the job market is so much better in Canada right now, especially in STEM occupations. So if she stays in Canada, she can get a great, challenging education, save the family $200k or more, have a fun and mostly stress free highschool experience and end up at the same place.</p>