Moving Countries twice and applying to UC's

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - GENERAL
1

Hey guys,
I’m currently an International student who is studying in India. (I’m in the 11th grade at the moment). I attended a competitive high school during the 9th to the 10th grade in the bay area, however due to certain family issues we were forced to relocate.

My family now is having second thoughts about India, and we’ve been having a lot of trouble settling down over here. It’s been rough living and adapting to this country in the first place, and it’s not working out at all.

To sum it all up, my family thinks it’ll be best if we all just moved back to the Bay Area and I graduate in California and we all live together. However there are a couple things that worry me.

  1. Will the UC’s be suspicious of me moving twice in two years? And that too from different countries? What will they think of it as?

  2. I’ve maintained a 4.0 unweighted GPA in India but if I graduate from California won’t I be compared with the rest of my peers which puts me at a significant disadvantage as my school in India doesn’t provide any AP’s, and we didn’t have clubs, or sports teams for extracurriculars unlike schools in California. Will it help if I attend a relatively less competitive school? (Schools which aren’t exactly in the Bay Area)
    In other words, how will they be judging me for admission?

  3. Would moving back to California be better for me? Or should I should I stay and apply as an International student?

Just to give a bit of an insight, here are my statistics:
Unweighted GPA in 10th: 3.67 Weighted GPA in 10th: 3.83
Unweighted GPA in 11th (India) : 4.00
SAT Score: 1480 (790 Math)(690 English)
Extracurriculars: 100+ hours of Volunteering at library
Math club and programming club member in 10th
(American Citizen)

2

If you are a US citizen, you will not be an international student. However, if you live outside the US, you may not have state residency anywhere.

For UCs, returning to California for 12th grade and graduating high school there will be preferable from a residency for tuition purposes standpoint.

3

graduating from a CA HS would improve your odds at a UC. Understand though, if your UCGPA is a little below 4.0, most of the UCs are going to be a stretch - UCSC, UCR and UCM will be your best shot. You should give serious consideration to several of the CSUs, SDSU, CSULB and others depending on your major and other interests.
Good luck

4

Your best bet is to try and move back to California for 12th grade. You almost certainly would be granted residency status via AB 540. Kids move back and forth for all kinds of reasons so I don’t think your case would be unusual at all.

12th grade for UCs does not matter that much from a grades standpoint, but they will still be looking to make sure you are taking the most rigorous classes.

5

Lots of families have multiple moves within relatively short time frames. There is nothing wrong with that. The colleges you apply to won’t even blink an eye about this.

Even if you would remain in India through the end of high school, you would not be an international applicant. You would be a US applicant educated outside the US. You would need to submit both your US high school transcript and an appropriately evaluated (probably by https://www.wes.org/ ) foreign transcript.