Being Gone For 11th Grade

calmom
Sun, 09 Apr 2006 21:49:06 +0000

Zagat, my daughter went abroad for the first half of 11th grade, and when she came back took a reduced courseload because she wasn’t allowed to pick up most courses mid-year.

End result: she has been admitted to Barnard, NYU, U. of Chicago, and Berkeley with mediocre test scores and a really wonky-looking transcript. But she wrote a really cool essay about her experiences abroad.

Also, although she was only gone for a semester, she came back much, much older than when she left. (Have you ever seen the movie Sabrina? A childish Audrey Hepburn goes off to Paris and a sophisticated and poised young woman returns, and now older guys want to date her? It was kind of like that - my daughter was 16 when she left and 22 when she got back after 4 months.)

Answers to some of your questions:

Doing almost all school work in Spanish for a year could compromise her CR SAT score. Should she take the SAT before leaving in September and spend the summer preparing?

I had my daughter take SATs in spring of sophomore year and then again after returning from time abroad. Score on the CR stayed the same (though they changed the test in the interim to remove the part she was really good at, analogies) – but her writing score was awesome.

My daughter was in Russia and she said that she learned more about the English language than she had ever known before. My son reported the same experience after a month abroad in Thailand. Exchange students attend English clases in their host country, and foreign countries focus a whole lot on grammar, something that seems to be glossed over these days in American public schools. American students are embarrassed when they don’t know basics about their own language, so they work hard to at least be able to respond with something other than a dumb stare when the teacher asks them to give an example for a “past perfect” verb form for the whole class.

Did you know what the accusative case is in English? My daughter does. She took the AP English Language exam when she got back without having taken the course and scored a 4.

Anyway: the answer is that the kids don’t lose the English; their experience gaining fluency in language #2 tends to improve their appreciation for the nuances of their own language.

Can quality SAT tutoring be found in Spain?

Who knows, but I don’t think you need it. Gaining true fluency in another language leads to growth of many new neural connections in the brain. Your friend’s daughter will probably be fine with SAT-review books unless testing is particularly difficult for her.

She will be giving up her sport for a year and her other key ECs What should I suggest to cover ECs/Comm Serv?

Nothing. Time abroad in a non-English speaking country trumps the other, typical EC’s. It’s just a better, bigger EC in and of itself.

Also, while your friend’s daughter is living abroad, she will be able to continue to do some EC-like activities. My daughter took dance class at a private studio in her small town in Russia. Teenagers in all parts of the world play sports and participate in other activities – so those things can also be listed on the activity sheet for the college as well.

Some other advice:

1) Before your friend’s daughter goes, she needs to arrange things with her home school in terms of what, if any, credit she will get for courses taken abroad, and how she will meet all graduation requirements for her high school.

My daughter did this - she even got written agreements signed by her school principal, school counselor, and Russian teacher. She also arranged to do independent study for 11th grade English, working with a teacher to develop a reading list in advance and sending back written assignments & essays by email.

Even after she did all this, when she got back and started senior year, the counselor still notified her – in the fall, when it was too late for summer school - that she did not have enough required courses to graduate. This was worked out, but not without some angst.

2) Your friend’s daughter should make sure she gets a written transcript or list of all courses taken and grades given from her host school. Sometimes it is hard to get an official transcript. With exchange students, they sometimes let them attend the school but never officially enroll them. You can get away without having an “official” transcript, but there at least needs to be some sort of list signed by someone at the school – because as you can imagine this might be hard to document later on.