gill3834

Hi I have a son who will be 17 when moving to USA next year on L1A visa with me. His doing AS Levels here in UK and will he be able to go DIRECT to Community College in the USA??

Lat thing he needs is to go back to high school again to complete Grade 12!!

Thanks

Sajid

NatashaB

I think it would be a difficult transition. Can he not complete his A-levels prior to moving? If you know where you will be moving to you can check with some of the community colleges nearby to see whether they would accept him. I have heard of homeschooled kids here attending CC in their early teens so I presume it would be at the discretion of the college.

BTW he would likely get some college credit for his A/AS levels, so it would be worth getting his transcripts assessed by a company such as ECE to earn him some credits.

Bob

Needs to talk to local community colleges.

If he's already got his AS levels then it's probably more of a goer, but if he hasn't, then it'll be a hard sell.

Would be worth getting them sorted in the UK first, but then you've got the consideratioin of university, if there are plans on going, would need the time in the UK prior, whatever it is these days, 3 years? To get the home UK fees and loans. Then again, if you're L1A and the company is willing to get the greencard pretty sharpish it'll prevent him ageing out at 21.

gill3834

[QUOTE=Bob;10915820]Needs to talk to local community colleges.

Cheers Bob, He will have his AS Levels next year before we move anyway, does thsi make any life easier. I have no choice but to move next year on L1A.

Sajid

gill3834

Thanks Natasha B

I have no choice but to move next year on L1A and yes we will get his AS Levels asssessed to get any credits#

ta

Sajid

Sajid

md95065

I don't think that it will be too difficult to get him into a community college but the real question is at what level and what classes he will be allowed to take initially and that will depend on the extent to which they are willing to allow him to skip the introductory stuff based on his current education. He may find that the first semester there he will be taking classes that cover things that he is already familiar with (which, actually, may not be a bad thing since he will also be adjusting to life in the US which may be easier if he doesn't have too much academic pressure on him for the first few months)

gill3834

Good question in regards to which classes he will be allowed to take as his he wants to do Journalism. I will go ahead ans call some colleges in Southern CA.

Keep you guys posted, and thnaks to for your input so far

Sajid

NatashaB

To be honest, given the cost of colleges here (especially for a student who may be classed as international) I would be looking to see how he can 'test out' of as many requirements as possible. College degrees here have a substantial General Education requirement which your son may be able to satisfy by using things like CLEP and DSST to test out rather than paying exorbitant fees to a college for every single one of his degree requirements.

kodokan

Make sure you prepare him that regardless of what he wants to take, he will also be required to do a whole bunch of other stuff if he wants his studies to lead to a qualification such as an Associate's Degree - the bulk of his courses for this would be 'general education' requirements, covering a broad curriculum of Math, English, Social Studies, Science, PE, a Fine Art of some sort, etc. The first two years of a bachelor's degree are really just more high school, in a different place. This might be a bit of a shock if he, say, dropped maths at 16, but now has to spend an entire semester doing Algebra 101.

Make sure you also look into the tuition costs. I wanted to do Spanish at my local community college last year when I was still on an L2 visa and had been in the US less than a year, and I gave up in the end as I couldn't get a straight answer from anyone on whether I'd get charged as being in-state, resident, etc (I knew I'd have a green card soon, and decided it was easier to wait until I had that and had been here a year, to simplify my life).

RoadWarriorFromLP

There is no universal answer that covers the entire country. Community colleges are administered by the individual states, and admissions policies will vary from state to state, and possibly from school to school.

In California, anyone can attend community college. His A levels won't matter there.

Also note that a community college is really seen as a stepping stone to attending college/ university. (In the US, the terms "college" and "university" are used interchangably, but a "junior college" or "community college" is not the same thing as a "college.") Essentially, the community college provides the courses that are the equivalent of the first half of a bachelors degree. (The community colleges do award Associates degrees, but they are fairly useless.)

Community colleges are public institutions. In California, residents pay a much lower rate for courses. It takes a year of residency in order to qualify for the residents rate, so he may need to delay his education.