I’m wondering how difficult it would be to get into some top schools-UChicago is my #1 choice-as a US/Estonian dual citizen applying from a school abroad. I know I’m not considered a domestic applicant (this is generally considered the easiest admissions pathway). I also know I’m not an international applicant (the cutthroat field with 3% or 4% acceptance rates at most top colleges), due to my US citizenship. Does anyone know how competition among US expat kids compares to domestic and international applications?
Generally, you would be more like a “domestic” applicant as a US citizen applying to US universities, but:
a. You would not be a resident of any state for state university purposes.
b. Your residence outside the US may have a favorable or unfavorable effect if the school considers location of residence for whatever reason.
c. Your high school’s course structure and grading system may differ from that commonly found in US schools.
You are a US citizen who has been educated abroad. You need to contact each college/university on your application list, and find out what they want you to do. Do not be surprised if they ask for different things. Just do what A wants for A and what B wants for B.
The general consensus is that admission is easier for students like you than it is for true international students. How much easier is anyone’s guess. It probably varied from one institution to another.
The financial aspect is definitely better for you:
- You can file the FAFSA and you are eligible to receive federally determined financial aid.
- You have no restrictions on the kind of job you can take, or where you can work in the US.
- If you want or need to, you can move to one of the states that allows you to establish in-state residence on your own, work their for the time required to establish that residency and fulfill any other residency requirements, and then attend a public college or university at in-state rates. This is not possible in all states, or even at all public colleges/universities within a given state, so you have to do your own research about it.
One good resource for you is the closest advising center of EducationUSA. Speak with the counselors there about your situation. If none of them have worked with a US citizen before, they have colleagues in other offices who do have that experience. https://educationusa.state.gov/find-advising-center
If you are currently attending an international high school where the language of instruction is English, there also is the likelihood that the college placement staff at your own school have experience helping students like you find good places to study. Speak with them, and find out where their US citizen graduates have ended up in recent years.
Your application will be read by an international admissions officer, and that person would probably have a heightened sense of expectation from international students. That is probably the only disadvantage for you.
The downside of being an expat applicant is
- If you take the PSAT, your score to become a National Merit Scholar is the highest cutoff
- You are not “in-state” anywhere.
Make sure you take the SAT/ACT Junior year so you can get an idea of your scores so you can use it to choose colleges.
Apply as a domestic applicant…but make sure to talk to your guidance counselor about what is expected re: recommendations, school profile, timing, etc. They may not be as familiar with the US College application process.
My daughter graduated from an International School in Germany and had no issues.
I would suggest visiting colleges either before or after admissions so you get an idea of the US college life. You may be used to being more independent!
Make sure your guidance counselor indicates
1° what percentage students in your school get a score of 7, 7.5, 8, etc (or whatever scale your school uses); what is the median score or what roughly 50% students get or lower/or higher?
2° When your school’s scores/grades are compared to the national exams, are the school results higher? lower? ie., if you have a 7 average at your school, does that tend to result in an 8 for national examinations, or a 6? In the first case, your school suffers from grade deflation and it must absolutely be mentioned.
3° how does your school compare in the state/county/country? what percentage students from your school typically achieve what would be considered a top national honor? Is there an entrance exam, a selection process, or can anyone who completed 8th grade in any school attend your school?
@bopper -Our school has a qualified US admissions counselor-about 20% of each class tends to apply to the US or Canada. College visits, apart from visits to one or two schools last year during a trip to the states, are going to happen only when I know where I’ve been accepted-my family doesn’t have the money to fly to the US for no reason other than to visit colleges. I’ve done a summer program at a US university, so I’m somewhat familiar with the college life.
I took the SAT in January and that’s out of the way, for which I’m thankful.
@MYOS1634 -
Our school has a procedure for US applications, and I’m assuming that #1 is part of it.
With regards to point #2, our school’s students don’t take national examinations. We’re an international school that offers the full IB or other IB-run courses.
With regards to #3, our school tends to have well above-average IB results, but it’s hard to compare our school with other schools in my country of residence because they have a different curriculum.
If your doing IB your curriculum is normalized so you’ll be compared to other IB candidates. be aware that compared to Canadian and British universities American universities are very demanding in terms of scores
@MYOS1634 -A successful applicant at Cambridge will typically have 43 IB points and one or no grades below 7 in their HL subjects, so I’d imagine top British universities have roughly the same demands of IB students as schools in the US.
@NotVerySmart, I don’t have any experience in this area, but I would guess that there is a fair amount of variability depending on the circumstances. Someone who grew up overseas and spent their entirely life there but who happens to have dual U.S. citizenship probably isn’t much different from an international applicant. A U.S. citizen whose family happens to move overseas during high school and who applies from abroad is probably not much different than any other U.S. applicant, except that they won’t be from a state (which obvious affects applications to state schools) and they need to make sure that their credentials can be measured accurately against other applicants. IBD certainly allows for the latter, and applicants with this background are generally well-received by top U.S. colleges. Having a GC who is familiar with U.S. universities may also make a difference. Some international private schools are very good in this regard, but in other cases, the applicant’s school may not be very experienced in the nuances of applying to U.S. colleges.
I would also guess that top U.S. universities, with their “holistic admissions” practices, are less focused on specific IB score thresholds than Oxbridge. But again, I’m just guessing, and am curious to learn more.
Cambridge typically wants 40+ with 776 at HL (and may add an exam) , Oxford has a threshold at 38 with a minimum of 666 at HL (but either recruits at 776 or adds an exam in your subject… or both). So, they’re not different in that respect from top 10 national universities in the US when it comes to IB scores - and it makes sense, top universities in the world want the top students in the world. Where it differs is for universities that are still very hard to get into and are first tier in both countries, would be considered “reaches” for instance in the US, and even more for “matches” in the US. For instance, Warwick may make offers in the 32-34 range, King’s new policy means that the highest requirement can’t be higher than 35 which they consider equivalent to an AAA (with no score lower than 6 at HL), based on percentage of students achieving these results. Comparable universities in the US are likely to want higher scores than 32-35, simply because they’re used to only the best IB students applying (or because in US high school, being in an IB program immediately signifies you’re a top student). In addition, they often only give credit for HL scores only (although often “double” credit) so it may be worth it to take the AP exam alongside its corresponding IB SL exam if you wish to receive credit and your university offers some.
US universities indeed weigh the IB results less, with a strange impact in my opinion: your curriculum is automatically recognized as “most rigorous”, but AS classes don’t carry the credits APs do, and while percentage-wise it’s more difficult to get a 7 than a 5 (I think it’s an additional “international class” score, above the “top” score of 6) 7’s are still treated the way AP 5s are, which is not “fair”, with the result an AP 3 may carry credit but it’s IB equivalent (4), may not. Of course this is just one aspect of the whole application. So whereas UK universities will focus exclusively on these IB predicted results, plus, where applicable, the interview and/or the written exam (subject exam, LNAT, etc) American universities will only use the school results as one element among many and to determine whether the student “makes the cut academically”, “can do the work”.
In short: UK vs. US, no big difference for HYP and equivalent, a difference for other reaches/matches, and then an advantage for safeties (where the curriculum rigor will matter more than grades as long as you have 5+ in each subject).
To get back to your original question: As an internationally-educated American citizen who is both bilingual and bicultural, you’ll be of great interest to many universities because you bring geographical and cultural diversity but don’t compete with internationals for financial aid. However, this doesn’t apply for universities such as HYPSM since they obviously get enough high-level applications that this wouldn’t be a tipping point for them, but for many universities including top LACs (including Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona, but especially at Williams and Swarthmore since Amherst is need blind for internationals and Pomona treats all applicants from the US as one group whether they’re citizens or not) your status would be a definite “final boost” once you’ve passed the other cuts (academics and ECs) and have decent essays.
@MYOS1634 -Ok, thanks for the info.
It seems faintly ridiculous that an IB class is considered no more rigorous than an AP course-how many kids have you heard of who take 10 or even 15 IB courses before college? If that’s how US colleges view the IB, however, I guess there’s not much that can be done about it.
This is a minor point mostly unrelated to the thread’s subject, but (so far as I know) Cambridge only has entrance exams for medicine, law, and mathematics (none of which I’m applying for). Oxford, on the other hand, is said to have entrance exams for a variety of courses.
^you’re right wrt exams at Cambridge vs. Oxford (for any CC reader 
).
Try to see what Aps you can take based on your SLs. For instance, if you take Math SL you may well get no credit whereas you’d get credit (and certainly placement) for Calc AB, which is closely resembles (not totally, since some AP Stats topics are included in SL whereas some trig/calc concepts aren’t covered in SL, but all in all, if you’re strong in Math SL you should be able to do reasonably well on Calc AB.)
Do check what the policy is at your chosen universities though: for instance, HYPSM give very little credit because AP/IB is the level they expect from all their applicants, and instead of being “advanced” compared to the norm, it’s the students without those classes who are in sorta “catch up classes”. Tufts limits credit to 5 classes in different areas, so that you may have 1 science, 1 math, 1 humanities, 1 art, and 1 social science, total. On the other hand, most public universities are very generous with AP credit, so that at UAlabama for instance Honors students have their full tuition scholarship over 8 semesters and may use it to complete a Master’s degree in 4 years if they have enough advanced credit.
Are you counting IB courses as 2 year sequences? If you count individual courses, every IB Diploma student takes 15 IB courses before college (6 courses each year for the 6 groups over 2 years, plus the EE, TOK and CAS courses). If you are talking about 12-15 different subjects, I don’t know how that is possible. IB courses are supposed to only be available to Juniors and Seniors, which limits how many courses can be taken.
@MYOS1634, Stanford will give up to 45 credits for AP/IB work, roughly equal to a year’s worth of credit. That’s the same as it was 35 years ago when I matriculated. An IB score of 5 or above qualifies, as does an AP score of 4 or 5. An AP score of 3 is accepted for credit only for Calculus BC and Physics C.
^ Typically, IB courses are considered as 1 subject, so that 1 HL = 2 courses in one subject, similar to the treatment of A-Level, so that the most a student is “counted” to have taken is 3 (or 6) courses, whereas there’s no limit on AP classes, which can reach 10 if the school offers them, and sometimes even more for crazy students who don’t understand the concept of selecting classes or the law of diminishing returns.
An issue is that SLs don’t count, evne though some are at AP level, which means that only 3 subjects plus a foreign language can be counted for IB students, whereas AP students don’t have a limit (beside the 45 quarter credits at Stanford, which they’d be very hard-pressed to get due to the grid, unless they’re fluent in two foreign languages).
“Only higher level IB exams with scores of 5 or higher, in the subjects listed below, are eligible for credit.” => this is very typical: SLs don’t count at all… which is why taking the corresponding test is a good idea, since most schools aren’t as restrictive as Stanford and will accept a wide range of Ap tests.
https://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/students/baccalaureate-credit
AP students can potentially have math, chemistry, CS, physics count, plus foreign language(s), and both Physics C classes give twice more course credit than IB Physics HL…
https://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/students/ap-charts
Note that since Stanford doesn’t give credit for bio, it means all AP bio students are in the 1st-year level class, which would make it super competitive and very hard for premeds and virtually impossible for students planning on premed without AP Bio at Stanford (if such students can be admitted, but since their HS may not offer the class…?)
An example of what I meant about AP being the assumed preparation for a 1st year class at HYPSM and equivalent is that AP English, which may allow students to skip Freshman Composition or even Freshman Composition 1&2 at some public universities, doesn’t carry any specific credit at Stanford and only qualifies students to take Freshman English/seminars.
Many colleges do give credit for IB HL 4 and up. The more selective only seem to give it for HL 5 and up. (But yeah, looking at the above, it sure seems like AP is the better deal.)
@renaissancedad -I’m counting courses as 2-year sequences. I wouldn’t call the EE or CAS courses, though. The EE is (usually) based on one of a student’s subjects, and can be written inside of a month even if we include research and fine-tuning.
As for CAS, the standards are so loosely defined that any student who’s somewhat active outside school shouldn’t find it too hard to fulfil the requirements and then some-most kids at my school, which is full mostly of students who are slightly above-average rather than Ivy hopefuls with 14 weekly ECs, have enough hours after one year of the IB to satisfy their requirements twice over. Like the EE, CAS doesn’t require a significant amount of time-over the course of the IB, it averages out to less than 2 hours a week.
Taking 12-15 different IB subjects is impossible. That’s the point I was making, as it seems unfair to us IB students that AP classes are considered as good as IB courses (if not better, as per @MYOS1634 's post above) when it’s far easier to take a large number of them: a lot of top students graduate with 10+ AP courses, but taking 10 IB classes is unheard of to my knowledge.
If that’s the way it is, I suppose I’ll take whatever placement exams I can at the start of my freshman year, but I don’t much care for this policy.
10 IB classes isn’t legally possible. The maximum you can take is 6. In some cases, you may be allowed to take 4 HLs and 2SLs or 3 HLs and 4 SLs with one only in 11th grade and “not counting”, but that’s it.
@NotVerySmart: take the corresponding AP exam to your SLs if you want credit/placement for it and your college accepts it.
@MYOS1634 -10 IB classes is, in theory, possible. A student can take more than 6 classes, but the extra courses will result in individual subject certificates-they won’t be part of the IB diploma. For instance, I’m taking history HL as a self-taught subject, but it won’t count for my diploma-I have 6 subjects exclusive of history.
Of course, taking 10 IB classes might not be legally possible, but it would lead to one heck of an exam schedule. It would also be one of the worst possible ideas for a prospective college student, because, with 7 IB subjects, getting good grades is already an uphill battle that probably isn’t worth the effort it requires, and the total IB points of a student with 10 subjects would probably be the same or less than those of a kid with 6. And a 45 isn’t nearly so great when it’s split ten ways.
Taking that many courses in a year would be potential suicide, and a poor use of resources for top U.S. schools, who would probably prefer students to spend some of that time on extracurricular pursuits that provide a different dimension than academics.
Any student has the option of signing up to take AP exams to show proficiency. Some people self-study for exams, or take online courses. Some people at schools that have AP as well as IB take some AP classes their freshman or sophomore year, followed by IBD junior and senior year. I’m not sure how much added oomph all of this provides, as IBD is recognized as legitimate and rigorous in its own right.