I am an American passport holder living in singapore as a Permanent Resident and have been receiving my education. I am on a special course in singapore (known as the IP course) which allows me to skip the O levels exam for 16 year old students and go straight to a JC to prepare for A levels. However, my family has reached an opportunity to migrate to the US, hence im wondering if it is better for me to study for A levels here then move to the US for university OR should i move to the US for highschool and work my way to a university from there? Which is the better option? I do know that studying for A’s will be extremely tedious and I will end up have to take a college/university entrance exam to get into a university in the US. Will the education I get studying for A levels in singapore benefit me for getting into universities in the US? Or should i just move to the US and start studying from there?
This seems like a family decision, no? Do your parents want to delay the move? Do you want them to move without you?
These discussions seem more important than how or when to study for college entrance exams, no?
Your family should do what makes sense for the unit as a whole.
I agree you can make it work either way, so I would not make this a deciding factor in your family’s decision.
That being said, I do tend to think it is easier to apply to US colleges if you are doing a US college prep curriculum. Stated that way it is kinda obvious. Those curriculums are set up to prepare you to thrive in a typical US college, and US colleges want to admit applicants who are well-prepared to thrive at their college. And so it is relatively easy to show you are the sort of applicant they are looking for if you go through such a curriculum.
In contrast, A Levels were set up to prepare students for undergrad courses in the UK university system. And that system is not the same as the US college system. I do think there can be situations in which the US system gets at least closer to the UK system, but a lot of famous, desirable, and so on US colleges are really not structured much like the UK system.
So the A Level system is not designed to prepare students for those US colleges. Nonetheless, some A Level students will do fine in US colleges, but US colleges may understandably scrutinize A Level applicants more carefully to make sure they think they are in fact likely to thrive in their college.
But again, that can work, and so you can make it work if your family decides not to move. But if that is what happens, I would be aware of this distinction and start thinking about how to make sure you can assure US colleges you are in fact prepared to thrive at their colleges despite going through a system designed for UK universities instead.
One thing to note is that US college admissions are not conditional offers dependent on your A level exam results, they are given (or not) in March or earlier and then you commit by May 1. Normally a US college would look to O level results from an international student to judge their level of preparation across a broad range of subjects. But you won’t have those so what will you have in terms of class grades? And what will you have in terms of breadth if you start A level specialization early (many colleges look for a certain number of years of high school English, a foreign language, social studies, math and science, some like the UCs even require a year of art)?
I agree with other answers that you could make it work either way.
One thing to think about: If you move to the US as a US citizen, and do all four years of high school in the US, then you will be in-state in whatever state you are living in. This should give you an opportunity to get in-state prices at some universities in the US.
I expect that it will be a bit easier to complete the transition to university if you do high school in the US, but again I do think that you can get this to work either way.
There is a wide variation in the quality of US high schools. Add into consideration what high schools you might be able to attend.
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