<p>I am currently a junior at a private day school. I transferred to my school this year and I am breezing through my classes. However, I find that the school does not have much to offer in the way of academic or extracurricular enrichment. As a result I am highly considering doing the School Year Abroad to Spain my junior year. I am on track to be finished with all my standardized testing by March, and I am the most advanced Spanish student in my school, so I am not worried about the academic logistics. However I am still unclear on a couple things and I was hoping anyone who had experience with the program as a senior would be able to clarify. Do I stay enrolled at my current school and still receive its diploma at the end of the year? Is it necessary that I stay enrolled in my current school even if I have all my credits completed? How does the long distance college application process work?</p>
<p>If anyone could shed some light on this I would be immensely grateful.</p>
<p>Yes and yes. SYA says that they do not grant diplomas, and that you have to ensure that your home school will accept credit from them in order for you to graduate. You will probably have more freedom to choose a location and classes if you’ve fulfilled all of your credits, but you’ll still probably have to stay enrolled in your home school. ([Source](<a href=“SYA Admissions | High School Study Abroad Programs”>SYA Admissions | High School Study Abroad Programs)</a>)</p>
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<p>Much like a domestic process with the advent of the Internet. Spain is an industrialized country and you will be able to access the Internet from somewhere - probably in your homestay, definitely at your school and local libraries and Internet cafes. You can do the bulk of your applications there. If your private day school is Internet-savvy, you might be able to order your transcripts online. If not, your parents can probably assist you in obtaining transcripts and sending them off to the appropriate schools, or you may be able to email the school directly (like your college counselor or guidance counselor) and ask them to send transcripts to schools.</p>
<p>SYA actually is an SAT test site - I just looked at the College Board website - so you can take your SATs there normally. It would be like taking them at your HS at home. They do the November test date; they don’t do the December one (at least not this year), but they do do the January test date. There are also 13 other testing centers in Spain, so even if SYA itself doesn’t do that date one of the others might. You should probably take the SAT or ACT at least once before you leave, probably in the spring or early summer of 2015 as a junior. This is simply if you want the chance at retaking. SYA is also an ACT test site for the October test date (and April, which is less relevant to you), so if you wanted to retake that you could as well.</p>
<p>The only thing that might be difficult abroad is interviews. But interviews are almost always optional anyway and are usually more for you than for admissions. I have a friend who does alumni interviews for Cornell, and she’s also worked at two other Ivy League institutions. She says that the purpose of the interviews is really to get the prospective student excited about the prospect of attending her alma mater, not really to pass any meaningful information on to the admissions committee. Most colleges don’t actually require or recommend interviews as a matter of course, so you’re good here.</p>
<p>Robinsoncano24, the best way to answer this question would be to go on the SYA website, find the name and number of the college counseling coordinator there and call that person with your questions. </p>
<p>You do graduate from your home school as an SYA senior. In fact, the SYA school year ends on the early side so
that you can be back in time to participate in senior end-of-year activities and graduation. The credits from your courses at SYA apply towards your credit for your graduation (even if you don’t need them) and most courses are weighted as honors courses. Your college counselor at SYA will be in contact with your college counselor at home to coordinate documents being sent to your colleges. Your home school college office will send the school letter part of your application package, but your midyear report to colleges will come from the SYA college counselor.</p>
<p>Being a senior at School Year Abroad has its plusses and minuses, and I speak from personal experience. If you are applying early, the fact that you are at SYA will give you less ‘boost’ in your admissions column than a junior year would; you will be judged chiefly on your first three years of high school, pretty much the same as if you’d stayed at home. Interviewing is not an issue. Those schools requiring interviews are among the most selective in the country and therefore very used to dealing with School Year Abroad. Sometimes an alumni interviewer lives close enough to arrange the interview in Madrid or Rome or wherever in person. Skyping is now pretty standard for interviews in this situation as well. In the plus column is that SYA as a senior makes a more natural transition to college. You’re away from home, you have more independence that at U.S. schools, and most kids find the classes academically challenging.</p>
<p>But the main difference for seniors at SYA is that they really need to be organized about their early applications. Those deadlines come quickly and you will be very swept up with language immersion, getting used to a new school and family and social life, etc. So if you haven’t written your essay or pretty much wrapped up your common application before heading overseas, it can make for a stressful fall quarter. Mom and dad aren’t hand to put pressure on you, if that’s how your family operates, so you have to be more independent or deal with a lot of skyping and emailing and calling home. On the other hand, the SYA counselor will be tracking your progress with you and will support you in your applications, and since his or her senior caseload is smaller than even most private schools, you can get a lot of personal attention and help with your application if you need it and make time for it. SYA schools are test centers and lots of seniors do re-take standardized tests in the fall or January if they are trying to raise their scores. So to sum it up, it works, and lots of seniors at SYA think it’s a more interesting year to be abroad than to be spending the final year in their high school. </p>
<p>You are new at this private school and you want to study abroad senior year. Your ranking/GPA and LOR maybe impacted. My kid moved to a new school junior year. She had a hard time converting her old school’s transcript to the new school’s standard. She also had to work very hard to cultivate relationship with her new teachers and GC. If you are applying to tippy top schools, you will need to make sure your transcript is correct and line up teachers for LORs before you leave. I personally think it would be too stressful.</p>