britnyank

Hi.
I have just been told that my daughter might not actually get any credits for her GCSE exam passes taken in England this summer....
We moved to Arizona 11 weeks ago and she has been attending High School as a junior. The school requested transcripts from her old school in England, but have today told me that they cannot use the information sent to give her any credits!
She passed 10 GCSE's (8 A's and 2 B's) and we found out yesterday through friends back in UK that she actually won the Maths Trophy for the year!
How can these results NOT translate into High School Credits?
Is there anyone who has experienced similar problems? Or anyone who can give me advice on how to get the necessary accreditation for her? She desperately wants to go on to college and university - how is this going to affect her chances?
Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.
Thanks.

TruBrit

sorry can't help with your question but hopefully there will be a way around it...it's got to have happened to someone else...ahhhh she did so well, congrats to your daughter

Maggs

Hi

Try getting her GCSE's accredited with a credentials evaluation agency. My son had his GCSE's evaluated through World Education Service (WES) www.wes.org

There are others but this is the one we used. The University he was accepted at did their own credentials evaluation and still accepted him on his GCSE results, although he was 19 at the time and didn't go to high school here. It might be worth a try.

Maggie

Jerseygirl

I can't help you either...sorry. Well done to your daughter...you must be very proud of her.

Not surprised about the attitude to her exam results...now if she excells in a sport...that's a different story all together.

BigDavyG

If no-one can help and she got those results in her GCSE's just stick her in high school at whatever level they'll take her at.
She should be able to graduate in about 3/4 weeks.

Good luck

snorkmaiden

I wish I could help. My daughter had done about three quarters of her first year of G.C.S.E's when we moved out here (Texas) and they would not accept anything, they made her repeat the whole year. She took extra classes over the summer and graduated early but still six months after she would have finished her A'Levels back home.

Her high school back in England bent over backwards trying to supply her school here with what they needed, but they just couldn't get their heads around it - the fact it was different to their system really seemed to be the sticking point, it didn't matter how many times we went in or called and tried to explain it to them.

I seem to remember being told by another parent at the time that I could try taking it above them to the local school district, but at the time, we didn't want all the fuss to reflect badly on our daughter in her first month in a new school.

It really seemed that the fact she did not have transcripts from another American school threw them into a panic, and they just didn't know what to do and so refused to do anything.

It might be worth checking with them if they will accept the grades being evaluated. If they can give you the type of figures another American school would give, that will fit in their forms on their computers, you might be in luck

NC Penguin

Maybe it's better to ask the school who they would prefer that you use to evaluate your daughter's UK academic accomplishments. You coud go with WES but if that's not acceptable to the school, you'll have to pay again for a different company.

BTW, did the British school actually send transcripts of the GCSEs? I'm not, that could really flumox the US school.


NC Penguin

TRPardoe

I would call their bluff.

They are probably being stupid but it may be that they are just being lazy.

Suggest to them that they are not trying because it is easier to impose stress and extra work on your child than it is to attempt to verify her qualifications.

You should remember that the people who are supposed to be checking her out may have an education level below what you would expect, having come from the UK. They will certainly be "rule followers" rather than thinkers.

She cannot be the first child in the county who came from the UK. Try going up the chain of command. Find out who are the elected officials for the Board of Governors for the school and who is the Head of Education for the County.

If you have to, talk directly to your Congressman, who may be able to tweak the lion's tail. A letter from a Congressman can get you into (or out of) the military. Surely it can get you into High School.

My wife, who is a FL University Professor, says that your child should be able to "Challenge out" the various courses by taking a test for each subject.

If the "bitch and moan" approach does not work, try that suggestion.

RoadWarriorFromLP

I could be mistaken, but I would think that this should be irrelevant for you in respect to the high school. The high school awards its grade point average based upon courses you've taken at that school, not elsewhere, so her previous performance is irrelevant to the grades that this school will award to her, and attending for less than the four years will not prevent her from graduating.

Where this is more meaningful is if she intends to attend a US university. In that case, you'll need to convert her UK results into transcripts that the university will understand. Since she did well, you'll want to make this clear to college admissions officers.

If she should be enrolled in honors/advanced level coursework here but has been barred from taking them, then make sure that you are able to enroll her in those classes, as they count heavily toward college admissions. Also, you had better start looking into preparation for the SAT exam, taking Advanced Placement exams and participating in sports and charitable causes if she wishes to have strong applications for US universities -- the selection process is highly competitive, and isn't just based upon academic performance.

Rushman

FFS 2 + 2 = 4 just asmuch here as it does there.

valscot

This may be down to the individual school just being too lazy to find the different parts of the curricula which would give her credits.
In broad terms 5 ( A-C) GCSEs are equivalent to a high school diploma. Try these people, www.naric.org.uk, they were quite helpful when I spoke to them. Good luck.

jumping doris

We have done this and didn't have a problem. What grade is your daughter going in to?
My daughter took her GCSE's just before we moved here. We gave the results along with copies of the National curriculum for her last two years (yes it was a ton of paper!) to her guidance counsellor. He was a bit baffled and didn't deal with it immediately but did sort it out by the end of the school year.
He used it to work out her grade point average. I really don't think he used a nationally recognised way of calculating it but taken with the grades she had achieved here in her first year (11th grade) she was given a good GPA and has just been accepted into college, starting next Autumn.

We got very stressed over getting her GCSE's properly recognised but in our case it really wasn't that important at the end of the day as the colleges she applied to were more interested in her achievements here. She has made all A's and B's here and also made High honour roll etc.
Just the fact that she had successfully made the transition from one education system to another and had joined clubs etc and had started to volunteer and become part of our community counted for more than the GCSE results because it demonstrated character to them.

PS. just seen that she is a junior.

jumping doris

Forgot to say in the previous post that we did a lot of SAT prep and both my high schoolers are doing IB and honours classes . They go to a very good high school which has also helped my eldest in her college applications.

jjmb

you really should insist very strongly on recieving these credits. I know when we arrived in TX in 2000, they weren't going to accept my eldest daughter's prior work (she had completed her 1st yr "O" grades) but my daughter is a very determined individual and by working with a like miinded counselor at the school, she ended up with more credits than the average sophomore student. She graduated early with couple of dual college credits and is now in her final year at Texas State.

With the grades your daughter has obtained at GCSE I suspect she could well be considered senior. Ask the school for testing or even go to the local community college to do their entrance test requirement, as that will be good indicator of her abilities. Whatever you do make sure you get the credits she is obviously entitled to.

One question, where does your daughter want to go to University? Check your state's resident requirements if she wants to go to a local University. Much will depend on your visa type. In Texas, as long as you are on an L1 visa, you are considered resident after a year, although you still apply as an international student.

Also beware of the UK residency rules, you have to be ordinarily resident for 3 yrs to qualify for UK rates. There has been some discussion on this in some of the posts recently where people were claiming that despite being absence from the UK for more than 3 yrs and becoming Australian citizens, they were still claiming for UK fees because "they would be classed as ordinarily resident apart from....." I had some correspondence with the Scottish award agency and they were not aware of this rule so getting resident fees for my youngest daughter if she decides to move back in 2008 might be difficult if not impossible, even though she was born and brought up in Scotland until she was almost 11.

good luck with your battle.

cpe111

The US are full of it when it comes to accepting other nations educational qualifications - I'm sure much of it is protectionism. In our experience, the work required to similarly named qualifications in the UK is much higher than here - also, becasue of the way the courses are structured are often much harder. In order for my wife to requalify as a pharmacist here, in addition to all the other requirements here she even had to take two examinations in english (despite holding a degree from a British university - duh)!