I haven’t seen many discussions around this issues…so I found this article interesting.
I agree with the author, in today’s world “it depends.” I do think there was a time when being an American overseas might have been an admissions boost, but not so much anymore.
http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/02/26/expat-college-entrance-tip-no-8-writing-the-essay-part-1/
Another interesting article from the series…some good things to think about when writing the college essay.
Thanks for the link CValle. This will probably be the situation of my grandkids down the road (oldest is 6).
He’s right that international schools can be excellent. One thing that especially impresses me is how foreign languages are often incorporated from the very beginning, in pre-K. Granddaughter’s school is trilingual–English, French, Arabic. I wish we did that more in the US.
In general kindergartens are trying to provide the most useful education they can for the average student. Most people in the US will have no utility for knowing French or Arabic. Even Spanish is questionable. We only need English.
I think that’s the important point; an international school, or any school, will not guarantee admission to a top college, but the experience received can make an excellent essay topic. At least I thought so when I used it as the topic of my essays.
Regarding languages, people tend to learn languages most easily as small children. Also, people who learned more than one language as small children often learn additional languages more easily later than people who learned one language as small children.
So did my kids.
I agree that growing up in India may provide some great essay topics for my daughter. However, I liked the author’s point that there may be something that was even more interesting about my daughter than where she happened to grow up. It is worth exploring those ideas as well.