Does number of years stayed in a majority English speaking country impact admissions?

Applying to College
1

Hello,

I am not a native English speaker, but, I would complete 4 consecutive, full-time academic years at institutions where native English was the primary instructional language for all courses except foreign language acquisition courses. I was also not enrolled in any English learning support since grade 4. For my respective university, they list “5 or higher on IB English A: Language & Literature (HL or SL)” as the minimum score required to waive English proficiency. It must be noted that the score is not required as I completed the 4 academic years, I still provided it as I met the requirement.

Therefore, I was able to waive my English proficiency. However, in the same form where I filled the information, the university asked for the number of years I stayed in the US and a majority English speaking country. I only lived in the US for less than a year and I never stayed in the countries my university determined as majority English speaking.

Would this impact my chances? Would this give me a disadvantage?

Thanks.

2

Other than the already huge disadvantage of applying as an international? No

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3

Do universities not care about years stayed in a majority English country?

4

No. They care that you speak, read, write English

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5

The only issue that I see here is that you might need to need to take some test to demonstrate your proficiency in English. However, both what you said in your post and the quality of your writing suggest that your English is very good and you should not have any problem with this.

As others have said applying as an international student does reduce your chances for admissions at the highest ranked universities in the US. However, this would be just as true if you were coming from a majority English speaking country.

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