Wow fantastic achievement, proud mama moment!

The whole US college application process has proved interesting for us too. Eldest daughter also a HS senior this year. She applied to 9 US colleges, has been offered places in 6, two deferrals and one left to hear back from. She has also been offered some really good merit scholarships.

I'm not so sure SAT's are that important she didn't do the SAT only the ACT and two colleges she applied to were test scores optional.

Admittedly she didn't apply to any ivy league schools but the schools she has been offered places at are all highly ranked competitive schools. Think she has narrowed down her final two to Loyola MD or Bentley.

You must so pleased and proud of your daughter too!

We are still waiting to hear back from the colleges - spring break is when it will happen. How did you get the merit scholarships? Was that through the colleges? Finances are a worry for us, we don't know how much it will end up costing and of course, we haven't had years to save up for this since we didn't know we would be here. I'm sure my daughter will get some merit scholarships, she already has a brilliant internship in NYC for the summer (and a paid trip to Seoul for a global hackathon). I just keep saying, we will manage...we will manage! No skiing trip this winter though because we need to keep the money on hand, we're all a bit disappointed about that but even the younger ones are ok about it.

She applied early action for most of the colleges, she just wanted the process done and out of the way. The merit scholarships came with the acceptance letters for 3 of the schools and two of them sent the merit award letter a few days after the acceptance letter. She didn't apply for the merit scholarships they were just awarded based on her HS transcript and application I think?
One school offered $96K over the 4 years with no restrictions, the others stipulated she had to maintain a certain GPA.

Like you we didn't plan ahead for our kids to go to Uni in the US so money is tight for us too. We have told her to spend most of February break applying for other scholarships using the websites the school have recommended. The merit awards make some of the private schools a similar cost to the state schools who offer no $$$.

Senior boy's GCSE's were fully credited by the school program here, and his counsellor has picked over the transcripts to find ways to credit him with more. He got on the high honor roll last week, after scoring a remarkable 103.5% in one test.....Sociology....

Yes, that was the experience of some french friends who sent their daughter to a school just down the road and in a different school district. Good for your son, you must be very proud of him


So today I was at the school and walking past the principal I couldn't stop myself....."I'm so proud of my daughter" I said "Oh I know, she is great, such a credit to the school" said Mrs Principal...."hmm shame that you guys wouldn't give her anything at all for her studies in France, EVEN THE SPANISH" I smiled.. "Oh you are totally vindicated in trying to fight for her last year" So whadddya reckon? Should I go back and say something to the school district or just wait until they put her smiley face on their sodding website and then call the press? In Austin at the mo, there is massive influx of people from all over the place and certainly in our school district they are being discriminated against.

oh dear, still Mrs Angry......

He got a bonus?

Within the expected error band...

petitefrancaise, I know you're angry at the school for all the bollocks they put you through, but your daughter is getting a bunch of recognition, which will help her far more than it will the school. (I can assure you, as someone whose school remained decidedly silent upon my decade-high final results, that even a crap bit of dual-purpose celebration would have gone a long way...)

From what you've posted in the past, it doesn't sound like she will struggle at all to get a good college place (probably with $$$ attached), so I don't think the GPA debacle is really going to amount to much. As others have said, standardized tests count for more (what with being standardized, so actually meaning something). Although I have never been involved in student recruitment, my impression is that GPA may push people over the line if their ACT/SAT scores aren't high enough (best kid from the worst school phenomenon); I've never heard of it going the other way.

Remember: you get a superstar daughter for life; they get a moment of reflected glory for a fleeting moment. I expect doing something constructive - like using this as leverage to get the school district to review their foreign credit policies - would be the best outlet for your destructive rage strong feelings on this one

Did he get the GPA with it though. Our daughter was fully credited with her school work after a struggle but no GPA was awarded as they couldn't see the actual work to mark it, so she fell shy of the 4.0 she needed to be in the top 10%. She was half through her Standard grades at the time. We didn't understand the credits/GPA system they have here and didn't really appreciate how it affected her final graduation grade until college time. However that was over 12 yrs ago now, so maybe things have changed.
Of course high school was nothing like the challenge of college and staying up until you could register for class. OK if you are science major as no-one wants to do physics, organic chemistry etc. Arbitrary curves which could be taken away on a whim by the lecturer. Doing subjects you don't want to do, art history, music appreciation when you are doing a biology degree. Why? High school will be doddle in comparison.
Thank god we are through all that. Now my daughter has started the journey navigating the education system with her daughter. Juniper is not even 3 yet and already they are thinking about which high school and school district she will be best served by. Given her experience, my daughter will not be moving countries when her daughter is 15.
Good luck to every one who has a senior in school, nerve racking time waiting to hear about acceptance and well done to notonuksoil's daughter. Love hear about everyone's success. You will need that scholarship. We calculated that we spend a nearly 250,000 to get our kids through college and one of them didn't even managed to get pass sophomore year!

Never understood the over 100%. You get credit for the effort?

Not as much as he was hoping, but enough to put him straight onto the Honour roll in the first marking period of the first Semester. We might try and argue the grades up, but he's running a 4.85 right now, from a standing start.


Me neither, but he ain't complaining. I think he gave an exceptional answer to one question, that went way beyond what the teacher was expecting back from the students. God knows what.

yup, that's exactly what I want to do Retzie.

The GPA and class ranking in Texas is sooo political. UT has to take 75% of its intake from Texas students so they have this system where a kid in the top 7% gets automatic acceptance to UT. At my kids' high school the standard is very, very high and popular opinion is not to put your kid in there unless very bright because they have no chance at reaching that 7%. However, at this school UT will take the top 15% (last year the top 100 kids out of 600 were offered places). Sooo, if you have a load of clever kids coming in and you give them credit and GPA for their results you're going to have some unhappy local parents.

I'm not really raging about it. I just think it's unfair.

Kids from an affluent area will find it harder to get into college. That's why a brave few go to the rough schools. The US is strangely socialist in that regard, also paying for uni.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention: was this a problem at the school- or district-level? I meant it wasn't worth making a fuss at the school, but it sounds like maybe they weren't the problem.

Ohhh, yeah, that's never going to change. It's like expecting US citizens to vote for H-1B reform - they're just going to see everything as an avenue for Johnny Foreigner to steal their jobs/college places/girlfriends/etc.

Are there any other avenues of attack that may achieve a similar goal, without ruffling quite so many feathers? Perhaps UT could do something with their entry requirements, to the effect of foreign schooling landing you in a different quota? (What do they do with IB students?) My guess is you may be able to get more traction at the college level, because they will see it as a way of getting excellent, foreign-schooled students, rather than the schools who just see them as competition.

I find the random instances of socialism here baffling. Like the 'everyone gets a Valentine' at school madness.

Call me old fashioned, but shouldn't you be admitted to college if and only if you are prepared for the undertaking?? I have had students who got in by virtue of being top of their very rough school. Their incredibly poor preparation then consigns them to absolute failure and sinking without a trace. I absolutely believe they should have the opportunity of an education, but a rigged game of dice, an opportunity does not make.

I love the phrase and so true about the Valentines and such.

I think the US isn't keen on any kind of 'system', preferring the idea of the maverick, against-the-odds, boot straps kind of story. This means so much doesn't join up. Single payer healthcare would deliver more for less money, but the ideological barrier is there. Huge amounts of parental energy go into trying to beat the university system by various means like football, because it has got so expensive that only rich, or poor enough to get Pell grants can realistically afford it. There are loads of issues around how you get a diverse student body, and they tend to highlight the great disparities in the country.