Study Abroad: HS vs College

Pizzagirl · 05-04-2008, 10:49 AM

Have a question about high school exchange programs.

Both dh and I were high school exchange students 20+ years ago, on those 4 - 6 week programs that were so popular during the time. Some students also did semester abroad programs. We both fondly remember them.

When we got to college, people didn't really study abroad all that much, except for some unique circumstances. It seems as though the opportunities for college kids to study abroad have really blossomed since then, and that's a good thing in my opinion.

I had always thought about encouraging my kids to do high school exchange programs (whether just a few weeks or a semester), but now I'm wondering if that's just silly and they should save that kind of thing for a college experience? I just hear of so many more neat college programs (a friend going to Vandy is going to Denmark for the summer; other colleges my kids are interested in offer study-abroad programs in really neat, exotic countries that interest them) and am curious what people think one way or the other.

Not that I think it would be a "hook," either, to do it at the hs level - my sense is that it just says "upper middle class kid with the $ to go abroad," but maybe I'm mistaken.

Thoughts?

MidwestMom2Kids_ · 05-04-2008, 11:00 AM

Kids who have spent a high school year abroad through AFS or some similar program look independent and attractive to colleges.

Spending a semester or a year as an exchange student in a "not Western Europe" country does not say "upper middle class kid with the $ to go abroad" - it says "brave and adventurous."

Regarding a "not too impressive" exchange, our high school Spanish dept has an exchange with a school in Mexico City. Their kids come to visit us for two weeks in April and our kids go visit them for two weeks in June, after school is out. My daughter did this and my son will too, but this is more something to do for fun and as a good experience - two weeks in a city where you speak the language is not unusual enough to be a hook.

cnp55 · 05-04-2008, 04:20 PM

My son is currently on a high school year abroad. He is in Provence, living with a French family and attending French public high school. He is also passing all his courses. All his classes are in French, except English (obviously) and Italian, where he is the top student! He left in August and will be home five weeks from tomorrow.

I fully expect him to study abroad in college as well, although he is talking about choosing a college within a 3-4 hour drive from home.

The college counseling office at his high school indicates that students who have done this program in the past have done well in college admissions.

kenf1234 · 05-04-2008, 04:51 PM

The non-Japanese-ancestry Americans I know with the best Japanese fluency, the most natural sounding Japanese, are the ones who went to Japan in high school on exchange programs. For language learning, total immersion at that age is just an incredible benefit.

katliamom · 05-04-2008, 11:30 PM

For admissions purposes, colleges and universities are particularly impressed by a high school YEAR abroad program: it shows more committment. While semester abroad programs are fine, the kids who spends a year is the kid who comes back fluent in the language and has had the deeper, more intense experience. If you're looking for a 'hook', keep that in mind.

cnp55 · 05-05-2008, 05:22 AM

It's a pretty tough 'hook' to pull off though. In some respects, it feels (right at this moment) that he's lost a year of high school. A year when his peers are soaring ahead with APs and honors and getting a leg up in some of the science and math sequences. The kids at the home school are also getting noticed for the junior leadership positions.

My son is 'passing' his classes. Of course he's passing them in French. And as he becomes more fluent, he's excelling in his classes. He'll make up the math hole this summer. With honors credit. And while he didn't get to take AP Modern Euro, hopefully visiting Roman ruins in Provence and walking the streets of London, Paris, and Venice while studying European History in French will make up for that

At any rate. We didn't do this as a 'hook'. And I don't suggest it as a hook. We allowed him to do this incredible year because he'd wanted to do it for four years prior and there wasn't any saying no.

JaneyPT · 05-06-2008, 01:59 AM

I think Rotary Exchange programs for high school kids are wonderful.

JaneyPT · 05-06-2008, 02:04 AM

I think Rotary Exchange programs for high school kids are so wonderful.

kathiep · 05-06-2008, 06:04 AM

I think for many people it's not an either/or question. For us, it was because of the expense involved. We travel as a family on vacation and I don't know if we could have afforded another international flight on top of vacation flights. My daughter has traveled extensively as a young adult and just having her over 18 when she started traveling internationally made it a bit easier for me. Selfishly, I also want(ed) my kids home for their first 18 years.

moewb · 05-06-2008, 06:11 AM

It is tough, when you compare the year to the 'things' people do back home - the number of APs, the Math sequence - those are not the same. If the student really wants to be as far ahead in a math/science track, study abroad likely is not for him or her - maybe not in high school and not in college either. But the student grows up - in ways that are not quantifiable - and the little stressors seem insignificant when compared to the mastered challenge of having successfully adapted to another culture.

islandgirl1960 · 05-06-2008, 08:44 AM

I fully agree with moewb. My D spent two months during 10th grade spring semester on a homestay exchange in France, and came back with an emotional maturity I barely recognized (not to mention excellent language skills.) It did cost her, though, in terms of math - not her strong suit to begin with - and limited her in AP classes. Do we regret the experience? Not for a moment. She will be going to a fine LAC where she hopes to do more study abroad, and she would be the first to tell you it was an experience she treasures deeply.

katliamom · 05-06-2008, 10:50 AM

moewb and islandgirl -- that is precisely why colleges really like kids who do a year abroad experience: because it requires a huge committment and you miss out on a lot of high school stuff. Because it takes courage, advance planning and some sacrifice -- qualities colleges really admire. Most kids who do a high school year abroad program don't have as many APs -- on the other hand they usually also take some summer classes in junior college to make up what they lost, giving yet a different kind of academic boost. And their language skills are to die for. I have worked professionally in that field for a while and these kids went on to amazing universities in large part because of that experience. I know a kid with only good but not great grades and good but not great scores who got into two Ivies (he's at Harvard now) because of his high school abroad experience. He chose to go to Holland, learned fluent Dutch, and then wrote about the year in his high school paper and in his college essays. A school interviewer later told him that his choice of Holland (hardly popular) and his mastery of Dutch (harldly common or easy) was his first 'hook.' His second hook was what he did with that experience: he wrote about it, ironically enough about how the year in Holland made him politically more conservative. That was a great fodder for a discussion with that interviewer, whose politics were much more liberal than the boy's. He got into that Ivy, along with others.

mathmom · 05-06-2008, 12:31 PM

Another way to do that year abroad without losing the high school experience is to do it after high school as a gap year. I agree that for most people it takes a full year of immersion to achieve full fluency, and even then there may be gaps in your knowledge. I lived in Germany for four years and considered myself fluent, but when I decided to have our first child there, I discovered a whole vocabulary I'd never learned!

katliamom · 05-06-2008, 01:30 PM

mathmom, the problem is that many high school year abroad programs require you to be in high school -- graduates on gap year do not qualify.

Tuitionsaver · 05-06-2008, 01:52 PM

My two cents: My daughter spent a semester abroad as a junior in high school. Due to unfortunate circumstances, the decision to send her away was not exactly by choice.
The advantages: she grew, matured, became completely fluent in another language and I think having the experience really boosted her college applications.
The disadvantage: she did not get As in all her classes while abroad(unlike all her other courses through high school here in the US), therefore her GPA was a little lower.
She intends to do Junior year away in college as well....hopefully the second time around will not be so traumatic for the parents