School for teenagers
 

Hi

We moved to the US from the UK at the end of a June this year. My son had just taken his GCSE and my daughter was one yeAr into hers. They have enrolled at the local school who are saying that they can't get any credit for the work they did in the UK which means they will not get their High school certificate and not be able to go to university. Anyone else had this issue and how did you get round it.

re: School for teenagers
 

Hi Daktl, welcome to British Expats. :wave:

This is an area for introductions and welcomes. You will do best if you post your questions in the USA forum.

You should also have a look/ search for recent threads in the USA forum as your question about moving teenagers between the UK and US education system comes up fairly frequently. Suffice to say for now, you have stumbled into a minefield and the results may not be to your liking.

BTW Please take a moment to review the BE site rules in the link at the far right end of the beige menu bar above. :)

re: School for teenagers
 

It seems the post is now in the USA forum... so hopefully, my post will put it near the top so it's not lost.

Ian

re: School for teenagers
 

We had a similar situation.
What grades are your children in? 11th and 10th?

What does the school district policy actually say about "out of district transfers"?

It's workable, so don't worry too much.

Re: School for teenages
 

Our two did very well on transferring to the State College school district, in part I suspect because they have so many children of PSU academics moving in and out all the time.

Ironically, our youngest suffered worst from an IN SCHOOL transfer in terms of failing to move GPA properly.

Re: School for teenagers
 

You son should be able to use the table on this page to work out GPA credit for his GCSE exams. Admission Criteria | US-UK Fulbright Commission

Re: School for teenagers
 

lizzq not every school district will award weighted GPA or even unweighted GPA to out of district studies. Ours doesn't. If the OP's child were going straight from the UK to a US university then it's actually fairly easy. However, throw in a year or 2 of High School and it all starts to look a bit murky. Some high schools will use an accreditation service like WES to try to match up the curricula and obtain credit that way.

In the end, we had to contact the universities directly and explain my daughter's low GPA, luckily her french academic record was excellent and her marks at the High school were great so it was easy to show a mismatch on the GPA and RIC.

Re: School for teenagers
 

I realise that, but the fact that Fulbright have a table of equivalencies can be useful if your school district have no idea how to convert the UK grades into US GPA. It shows that there is a way to generate an approximate GPA without having to use an accreditation service and gives a bit more ammunition for the family trying to get it sorted out.

Re: School for teenagers
 

I think if the school wants to give the student credit, then they will and certainly your fulbright link will help.

UT Austin gives automatic admission to the top 7% of students in each Texas high school. So, schools here in Texas have a reluctance to give out GPA credits to new students - they don't want to displace any of their existing 7%. Our high school simply won't give credits, end of story. It's a school with a lot of high achievers and very involved parents. Other school districts have a more easy going approach. Especially if they have a magnet school and wish to improve the overall GPA of the students outside of the magnet schools and get their college admissions figures up.

Anyway, we appear to have lost the OP. Maybe she will come back because between Lizzq and me, I reckon we could come up with ideas and a good plan.

Re: School for teenagers
 

Thanks for all the advise. The school seems to want to give credit and after speaking to the principal she is keen to sort the situation out. The transcripts are sent to the Denver Public school office so I'm hoping that they can sort this out. In the meantime the older of the two has had his timetable changed and put on to the IB program. So at least things are moving forward