Chance me and my abnormal situation

parentologist
Sat, 26 Dec 2020 21:35:58 +0000

How old are you now? If I were on that admissions committee, I would want to know WHY you dropped out, and of course, how long you have been out of school. The pandemic threw a monkey wrench into everything for everyone, but dropping out of high school is a HUGE red flag for schools. And yet, you sound as if you are very high-achieving. But applying as an international student is a handicap, and as an int’l student who also dropped out of high school (in English, just the term “high-school dropout” is extremely derogatory), I would think that the deck would really be stacked against you.

If you don’t get into a school you want to go to, and you won’t turn 18 until next summer, I honestly think that a year at a highly respected US high school/prep school would do your application a lot of good. I would choose one that ends its semester before the Christmas vacation, not one that has midterms in mid to late January. This way, you could take all highest level AP classes (Calc BC, an AP science with lab, AP English comp or lit, AP US History, plus some other academic AP class), and apply RD from a US high school (although of course you’d still be applying as an international student), with a proven record of achievement at a high-level US high school. You’d hopefully have straight A’s in that one semester, and have a year to culturally and linguistically acclimate to the US. You might even get a letter of recommendation from the US high school, too. There are excellent private parochial schools that are not very expensive (the tuition at the best Catholic girls’ high school near me is about 16K), and there are just so many of these schools across the US. There are also excellent public high schools (and a whole lot of terrible ones), but attending one of these, you may run into visa issues.

Anyway, of course if you would be older than 18 when you enter, it would be inappropriate, just in terms of your age. There are many kids who were held back a year, especially if they were born in the fall, but even some summer birthdays, so if you don’t turn 18 until summer, you would still fit in. I think that this would be the best way, and if you didn’t drop out until the pandemic, you can just blame it on the pandemic.