US citizen attending Japanese high school

I am a 16-year-old high school student attending a private school in Japan (I have dual citizenship in the US and Japan). I I am bilingual and biliterate in English and Japanese. I hope to attend college in the university and go on to veterinary school all in the US. Since I don’t go to international school but to a highly-ranked Japanese private school, will I be required to take the TOEFL or TOEIC to establish my language abilities (though I am a native speaker), or will my SAT score suffice? Also, will coming from abroad affect my status as a US student? Will I be required to be an international student though I am a citizen? Thanks for your help.

Each college sets their own admission policies. A few universities do insist on TOEFL scores from all applicants who did not complete high school in an English-speaking country. Many universities are flexible about self-attested native English speakers or applicants from abroad with high verbal SAT scores. You have a few options. You can decide not to take the TOEFL and not to apply to universities who would insist on TOEFL scores; you can take the TOEFL just in case; or you can make make an early decision about the universities you want to apply to and check their admission requirements, before you decide how to proceed.

Yes and no. Your US citizenship qualifies you for federal financial aid and would get you counted as a domestic student in college statistics. However, you may not qualify for in-state status anywhere (since that is based on residency, not citizenship); you may face a limited pool of private scholarship money; and anecdotal evidence suggests that some US universities have higher admission standards for US citizens applying with foreign credentials than local applicants.

I recommend you read the application instructions for both domestic and international applicants, since bits and pieces of both will apply to you. The domestic section will tell you how to apply for financial aid as a US citizen. The international section will tell you how to submit a school report from a foreign school and whether you’d have to submit TOEFL scores. If you are ever unsure whether a specific instruction applies to you, feel free to reach out to the admissions office and ask for clarification!