akir

Hi all,
We are considering moving to US and kind of weighing in the pros and cons. To give a bit of background we have year 6 and year 4(10 year and 8 year) kids. We are settled in UK with jobs , home etc and the only reason for move is being closer to family who live in US.
How well can kids cope in USA with regards to schooling , making friends etc ? My DS will be starting grammar school Y7 this sep so are there any grammar school equivalents in USA? Is it ok for moving a secondary school kid as I heard from others that kids joining in middle school might face difficulties in adjusting / making new friends. Is this true?
I am worried that the kids might not be able to cope than anything else? I am looking for any personal experiences and advice.
The other option would be to wait till the kids finish their secondary and then move to USA to start their under grad. Any experiences on this please?
Regards,
Akir.

GeneralPowerpoint

You can't apply for an H-1B.

Your prospective employer applies for the H-1B on your behalf.

Do you have an employer waiting to sponsor your visa?

postbox134

Who is sponsoring your visa? Are you aware it's a ~30% chance you are selected and you can't work until November the next year (unless cap exempt). Do you have a degree and the required experience?

Are you aware your spouse cannot work on H4? Also kids will age out eventually and there's a risk they wont be able to stay in the US if you are not yet Perm Residents.

akir

Sorry , I should have stated this , yes, I have an employer willing to sponsor

christmasoompa

I assume you mentioned a H1-B visa before editing your post, as that's what the responses reference - so is that definitely the visa you'll be on? If so, as above, it's usually a lottery and you may not get lucky this year or next, so it would be quite uncertain.

As somebody with kids a bit older than yours, I wouldn't suggest you delay things. We have had to delay our move thanks to Covid and Trump, we were supposed to be going for our daughter's final 2 years of school (A Level/IB Diploma). We also have a younger teenager. I wasn't worried about that at all (although they were going to be going to a British School, so minimal disruption from an educational point of view). But now we're faced with our daughter staying in the UK for uni, she may go to the US (or Canada is another option she's contemplating), but we could be the other side of the Atlantic from us. Once your kids are settled and have really good friends from secondary schooling in the UK, you may find they have no interest in going to the US for university, plus of course you then have the issue of their visas and them possibly 'ageing out''.

Will your potential employer be prepared to sponsor a green card so that the kids could stay if they wanted, or would it only be a temporary move?

TerryGoX

The standard of schooling is very ZIP code dependent if you are thinking public schools - schools where I live are funded primarily by the local town taxes so high property values generally means good schools but that means high property and rental prices - catch 22. Most states have a database of school metrics and the ones most look at are average SAT scores and % that go to 4 year colleges. Each state is different in how they fund schools, there is little federal involvement. As for the dynamics - middle school is hard especially for girls irrespective of whether they are incoming. Many elementary schools combine to create middle schools and this (and hormones) can break up long established friendships. So being an incoming student is not a lot harder than one moving between elementary and middle. There is a form of school called a Charter School, these operate very much like a private school but with public money and they can be established if they can offer an alternative eg Montessori - again this is very local based.

Here is a database from Massachusetts for schools - https://www.doe.mass.edu/SchDistrictData.html - Mass is generally very good for public schools but this is not the case for all states and private schooling might be required depending on location so you need to think about that in your budgeting.

mikefrom

Schools:
As TerryGoX says, it all depends on your zip code, the school your kids go to might not be the one closest one to you or the top 5 you pick, for example, in San Francisco, google the kqed article: How the San Francisco School Lottery Works, And How It Doesn't

All of my friends who moved to SF ended up sending them to private schools, the public schools were inadequately funded and the gulf in standards compared to home (UK, Germany, Australia and India) shocked them, they were not learning anything, again, it depends on your zip code.

And factor in that US Universities (called colleges over here) are far more expensive than the UK.

H1-B:
A number of my H1-B colleagues lost their jobs during the 2008 downturn, they had a short window to find a new job, the unlucky ones were forced to do a fire sale (cars, home, furniture) and leave the country, lot of pressure to find a job and plan a move (as worst case scenario) at the same time.

As you have family you want to be close to in the US, push for a green card via your employer asap, that way you have security and not dependent on an employer. I made it part of my employment contract conditions, if I am making these sacrifices to leave my home country then I need security, I also had a golden parachute should they terminate my employment before I got my gc, it was cheaper for them to get me a green card.

I am now moving back to the UK for a few reasons, mass shootings becoming the norm, how expensive my monthly health insurance are getting due to my age, and wanting to be closer to my family, now I just need to figure out the long term financial consequences i.e taxes, social security, 401k, etc

Pulaski

That might, or might not be the case. People love to trumpet how expensive (out of state, "private") colleges are, but don't seem to want to talk about well-regarded, "in-state" (you live in the same state as the college) state-run colleges, which I hear may be cheaper than some British universities these days.

Otherwise, generally speaking, I would recommend taking your advice with a large pinch of salt as your perspective appears to be from living in an extreme outlier to the general "American experience".

robin1234

College and university are two different things.

Colleges are solely (or primarily) undergraduate institutions, without graduate departments and professional schools. So they are primarily teaching institutions. They may be academic (liberal arts colleges,) or vocational (ag & techs, community colleges etc.)

Universities usually have an undergraduate teaching function, but they also have graduate departments, and probably research institutions and professional schools.

Some institutions use both terms. Harvard University, for instance, has Radcliffe College and Harvard College - among dozens of other schools and institutes.

But yes - as Pulaski mentions, several states have in-state tuition less than $6,000 per annum.

Wh431

i recently made the move for very same reason (with a 8yrs old and a 11yrs old) and here my observations:

Positive aspects:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. On professional level, there are more opportunities in the US. Esp now when the UK economy is hitting the rock bottom and prospects aren’t very rosy.
2. The cars & houses are bigger. Same money will get you a bigger house here.
3. There is less red tape in somethings.

On negative side:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- The standard of school education is low. My kids are bored at school here and nobody is able to read the cursive handwriting. Both of my kids easily qualified for the gifted students group but even that is not challenging enough. Having said that, i ve so far lived in a inner city (blue collar area), so the demographics is probably not very education focused. I m abt to move to a white collar suburb in hope that the education standards will be better (though I doubt it somehow).

- Overall i noticed that there is ‘general’ lack of common sense amongst many people (busdrivers, teachers, post office, government clerks etc etc). People are like somehow only focused on their limited responsibility and “nobody” cares beyond that. I really find it very surprising that why people aren’t willing to put any effort in basic logical thinking.

- Most Americans are extroverts and at work its common to see ppl blowing their own horn. I find this very strange because i am used to the ways of working in Europe. To me any praise is worth it, if its genuine and coming from others (and not your own self).

- Everything is expensive. Everything!

- Compared to UK, many people drive like crazy here. And traffic police isn’t very strict (or visible)

- Its difficult to find a sugarfree and good quality loaf of bread, good quality fish fingers and other food items.

- Strangers can start a conversation with you anytime anywhere (even if you aren’t interested).

- Travelling time (flight time) to most other countries is crazy. Similar to how it is from UK to Australia and flights aren’t cheap either.

- TV is no good and sense of humour is very different.

- Not much of a gardening culture and not many horticultural places to hang out to (if you are into that sort of stuff).

All in all, right now i feel that i ve done a disservice to my kids and will evaluate in next few years if we wanna stay here long term.

Hope this helps and all the best!

christmasoompa

That depends on where you're coming from and going to. We live in one of the most expensive parts of the UK (Berkshire) and we're moving to Boston, so we'd need to spend about three times as much to get a house of a similar size there!

Wh431

i was used to live in Reading Berks before moving to Surrey and from there to Chicago. I found these places to be comparably expensive.

Nutmegger

This point . . .

. . . explains this point! There is a massive interest in gardening all over the US, which probably wouldn't be evident if you are living in the inner city.

Wh431

Good to know and perhaps i am just unaware of it. So i will be thankful if you can point me the right direction.

In the UK we had RHS, National Trust sites and numerous independent ornamental gardens dotted around the country. A lot of variety of online nurseries and the usual Garden Centers like Wyevale etc. So far in a big city like Chicago, I ve not seen anything close to it. All we have is just 1 big (and very nice) Chicago botanical garden, which gets boring after a few visits.

Also most of my neighbors here aren’t really into any kind of ornamental gardening. Their ‘yards’ are just plain and boring, whereas in the UK its different. So much so that we were once used to ve a dedicated TV channel on gardening (Garden TV), which wasnt abt advertisement but real gardening.

Pulaski

Thank you, I was considering posting the same thing - I get several seed catalogs most years (sent unsolicited) and there is a bewildering range of seeds and roots/bulbs/tubers available, with the caveat that you need to know your climate zone to know what you can grow where you live. Unfortunately I live too far south to grow rhubarb but tomatoes and cucumbers grow like weeds, especially if I plant them early and keep them protected from any late frosts in March and early April. On paper peppers should grow well here too, but I rarely get much fruit.

I suspect that interest in gardening increases the further out of town you go, and also with age. At the moment I am struggling to even get little Miss P to set foot of the porch, much less actually show any interest in gardening. It doesn't help that she claims to "not like tomatoes" Neither my wife nor I know what is wrong with the child.