Hello everyone. Looking for some parentals advise on moving my family to a different state & timing for High school change. Our Daughter is a sophomore & she has straight A’s from Middle school all the way till now despite of AP classes she has taken. We may have flexibility to move our family either start of a Junior (this summer) or Senior year (2026 summer). Any advice if moving in Junior vs senior year will be better for our situation?
Personally I’d wait til senior because colleges will look at grades through 11th and it could be traumatic for a student to move and grades could suffer.
Good luck.
I think that it’s tough to move a student in the middle of HS so you are smart to be thinking through timing.
Some things to consider:
Do you want/need to establish residency for instate tuition purposes? If so, moving before junior year so you are instate for two years will be important.
Conversely, if your child would be interested in being considered instate where you currently live, is there an option for one parent to remain with the child through their senior year? (Some states will lock in residency if a student lived and graduated HS there, even if parents move after graduation).
How will the new school use her previous GPA in rankings? If they are going to not consider the first school’s GPA weighting scale or do something wonky, it may be beneficial to move earlier rather than later so she can re-establish herself. (Especially important if you are moving to a state that has auto admit based on said rankings).
Check the new school’s AP offerings and ensure that your daughter will be able to take and get into the classes she wants. If the new school has fewer offerings, I’d be tempted to move later but have a plan for what she’ll take senior year.
The big thing in my mind is figuring out how to get Letters of Recommendation and an impactful guidance counselor report. If your D stays through junior year at her current school, will her teachers there be willing to write the LORs since no one at her new school will know her?
Most importantly, does your daughter have a preference? IMO, she should have the deciding vote if there is flexibility. A happy kid with ownership of the decision is going to be a better student.
PS. We had friends who moved with their two boys in HS. One was a rising senior and the other a rising junior. They both did fine with the transition, made friends, were happy, and had a stress free college application process. It will work out whatever you decide!
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However, moving senior year also has some potential disadvantages:
- More difficult to get teacher recommendations from the old school if needed for the desired colleges.
- Counselor at the new school may not know the student well enough to write a good counselor’s school report that includes achievements through 11th grade at the prior high school.
- When moving to a different state, ensuring that all of the items needed for both the parent and student to get in-state residency for tuition purposes at the new state’s public universities may be tricky, depending on the state.
Whether it is better to move at the start of 11th or 12th grade does depend on some of these details.
Also, there are considerations that can go either way:
- The new state may have high school graduation requirements not present in the old state, so that can affect what courses the student can take to graduate in the new state.
- If class rank is important (e.g. if the new state is Texas), then how the new school determines class rank for incoming transfers can be very important.
Is there a possibility for the student to stay with one parent or other relatives in order to finish at the old school in the old state? If so, does the old state allow for in-state residency for tuition purposes through high school graduation, even if the parents have moved away?
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I agree with previous posters that checking high school graduation requirements is critical. States can have very different requirements that will really impact her - even differences in timing of science courses and entry into AP can be dramatically different. We knew a student that was really negatively impacted when they moved at the beginning of junior year as the new school did not weigh ANY of the classes freshman and sophomore year so they ended up with a weighted GPA and class rank that was frankly a mess.
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So, I moved from PA to MI before my junior year. It was challenging in so many ways, so I would second @ucbalumnus ‘s question about having the student stay with someone to complete high school.
For example, all of my honors classes and activities meant absolutely nothing at my new school. Guidance counselor would not put me in honors classes because I was coming from a rural school and they thought I wouldn’t be up for the rigor. I had to work extra hard to prove I was up for the rigor, but have always felt it was a huge blow to my self confidence and definitely impacted my college application process. (FWIW, I was a straight a, all honors student before junior year, and eventually earned the one senior English award, because I worked my tail off to show I was up for the classes.)
I would argue if you have to make the move, do it before junior year, and make sure you are a vocal and persistent advocate for your student to get treated right at the new school.
Good luck!!
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Honestly is there anyway you can wait until graduation? Or is there a family member she can live with? We moved during this time and I would not recommend it. Connections are so hard to make for such a short period and when you are ready to go on trips to see colleges she will still be figuring out how to navigate a new high school. No idea her extracurriculars but even those are hard to replicate in a short time period. We moved states and getting credit for things for graduation was challenging. It was an incredibly hard time for our family. I wish you all the best. Yes kids are resilient, but it will be challenging.
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I think so much of this depends on the details.
For some kids who are having a lousy or sub-par HS experience, moving junior year and getting to experience a reboot (academic or social) for two years would be a god-send. For a kid who loves their HS and friends and activities and potentially their music teacher or dance coach- Ugh. Leaving will be hard.
And much will depend on the flexibility of the school the kid will be transitioning to. A town with a lot of transients, military, corporate relocations, local college/university is going to be more attuned to the issues mainly because your kid is not going to be the only one showing up mid-HS. A town where most families are multi-generational and it’s unusual for people to move (in or out) with older kids is going to be a little more challenging.
All my kids had a few students who showed up in the middle of HS (some in January). The administration expected a few hiccups but basically knew what they were doing. I think this is key. The school was NOT rigid about course sequencing for example. School was NOT rigid about “only seniors can take X”. They understood that kids come from HS’s with all sorts of pre-req’s and policies-- but making a kid retake a class they’ve already taken and done well in is just poor management.
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What does your student want to do? I think that would be the most important factor for me to consider if I were making this decision.
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We moved when D2 was a junior in high school. She was offer an option of staying, but she chose to move with us. We did a lot of prep work ahead of the move. She was tested to get placed in IB at her new school. I worked extensively with the new schools counselor to convert her old grades to the new school’s system. We lined up her old school’s teachers for recommendation letters, as well as her new teachers. D2 pushed hard to get leadership roles at various clubs and even started new clubs.
It was not an easy transition for D2, but overall it was a very positive experience for D2. The move actually helped D2’s college application process. But it takes some planning and work.
I think moving senior year would be hard for th college application process - out of sight, out of mind. It would be hard pressed to get recommendation letters from the old school with high rankings. They would be more inclined to give it to their existing students. The new school would also take care of their long time students too. D2 was a Sal rather than a Val because they wanted to give it to a student who has been there since kindergarten.
My husband was a career military officer and we moved many times. All three of our children had to move after their sophomore year. They all did fine. D1 got into different activities than at her first hs. D2 did not get to try out for cheer leading for Junior year but made it Senior year. Again, her activities changed and she blossomed. D3 was at the top of her class at her first school and graduated valedictorian at her second. They all had tons of recommendations from teachers. It would have definitely been harder if we had waited a year.
That being said, a friend who we met at our year at Naval War College had many problems. First of all, her DD moved in March of her Senior year. She could have stayed in California to finish school with friends, but her dad had just gotten back from a 9 month deployment and she really wanted to spend time with him before she left for college. My friend spent about 100 hours on the phone between the two school trying to figure out what to do about schooling. She couldn’t transfer to the Newport school and graduate because they required 4 years of PE at the time, and she only had 2. Finally, Newport agreed that she could attend classes and let her California grant her diploma. Newport was going to not let her walk in graduation because she did technically graduate from there. Finally, they agreed to let her walk. She had already been accepted to college. It was a mess. Military kids often get the shaft in some school systems.
My children had to become flexible because of our moves. They did.
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I assume the OP has made the decision by now, but I am surprised that nobody mentioned the possibility on attending online school. Some states have their own public online options.
Solves the schooling issue but very socially isolating.
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