What subtle differences should I know before moving my teens from British to American school?

[dianatandy]

I know a lot about the curriculum differences and I grew up in the US. However, my children (13 and 15) have always lived in the UK and now we are moving to the US. What small things about American high school might be a culture shock to them? Any tips? Anyone had similar experiences?

Thank you all.

No exams (gcse and A levels)! No narrowing your options when you choose just three A levels! Getting in to uni (in the Spring) without the nail biting tension of conditional offers!

Yes I noticed that in America if you get 80% it’s not considered exceptional but 60% is considered a failure whereas but the reverse is true in Britain

This is true, but it can also mean higher expectations if someone is in an honours class (top set). Everyone in those classes wants an A, and will consider 90% a poor grade. I would say that American schools can be quite easy for average kids, but very competitive for the top ones: the students are ranked and they'll be fighting for tenths of points.

I have cousins with kids in school in the east coast. Education is taken extremely seriously, they're in private Catholic schools & do a ton of extracurriculars before & after school including Rowing, sailing, lacrosse, soccer, swimming & music on top of volunteer work... It's all about building the resume!

that sounds v unfair on those who do not have the resources to pay for all those sports etc.
does that mean that it's harder for pupils from poor families to do a degree, even if they shine academically and might get a scholarship to pay for the fees ?
if there are no end of school exams like A-levels, how do colleges select, what is the criteria.

In the last year of high school, students sit a range of exams called SATs, but these have to be booked and paid for separately. Colleges use these, plus grades and GPA (grade point averages), plus the extremely important college statements, to select for admission. Extracurricular participation and volunteering, as well as special awards, are also very important.

At the secondary level, the extracurriculars are heavily subsidized by the school district. At my child‘s school we pay a $35 flat fee for extracurricular participation for the year. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the expensive activities like football have some additional fees, but I can guarantee that the football players are not covering even a tiny fraction of the true cost of participation. The school district puts millions of dollars into the extracurricular budget every year. It’s all considered an essential part of educating a well-rounded individual. There are a plenty of non-sport related activities for kids to get involved with as well.

Your children’s experience will depend very much on the type of place you live. We don’t have things like metal detectors at our schools. We have a very relaxed dress code. The socio-economic status of your district plays a huge role in the policies that your children will encounter. If you look at American movies you tend to see two kinds of high schools portrayed, the nice middle class school with wide halls and students who are living in a modern rom-com version of a Shakespeare play vs the tough inner city school that is falling apart and every kid is struggling. Those are huge stereotypes, but In a way they reflect the reality of the massive disparities in our school systems. You want to pick your location very carefully.

Make sure they're aware that in many schools, everything they do counts towards a grade, with no high stakes exams. So every homework, every small test (pop quiz!) even every discussion can count towards their term grades.
Each year, or each semester, they will have to choose their subjects. Schools will have graduation guidelines for what needs to be included in order to graduate, but you can still study a far wider range of classes than in agcse or a level (or highers) british school. This means their classmates can be massively different in each class and can include people from different grade levels.

And the pledge will blow their minds if they're not expecting it and its a school/state which enforces it! As will the quite mad levels of school spirit in some cases.

I went to both American and British high school (admittedly 15 years ago).

• My state (NC) teaches children to drive at 14 1/2 at school, you got one week of tuition after school.
• We had hours of homework every single day
• If you were on a school sport team they trained every day after school. If you were out an out of school team they also trained every day. It was pretty normal for children to be at swim practice at 5am as school started at 7am then do a sport after school (plus all that homework!). School sport is fun though, especially the football games and pep rally’s
• Join a club and try to get on the committee for it (I.e treasurer, historian etc…) It becomes relevant when doing college applications if you can keep a high GPA
• There were also 1,000 students per year at my school
• I found the curriculum more challenging but did honors and AP classes. I moved back and did A Levels though and not SATS
• Volunteering is important for college applications, we had to do 30 hours per year to move onto the next grade anyway
• Extra curricular clubs take a lot of time. I did a couple and we had to go away on competitions and conferences regularly

universities take into consideration social context - economic background, race, geography- and generally bump up applicants with more disadvantaged circumstances. Much more is expected (rightly so) if you are a wealthy suburban white kid educated privately. This can be hotly debated - a case regarding use of race in admissions is to be heard by Supreme Court- but in general university admissions are much more holistic and comprehensive In the US than UK.

there are still gross inequities in that it is so much harder to a) understand what success looks like or requires and then b) stay on track to make it happen when you are in a crappy underfunded school with little parental support, few role models and instability in housing. Most of those kids never get to be in a position to apply to prestigious schools.

like many other aspects of American society, there is a much wider tolerance of inequality, and a greater expectation that everyone will do the best for themselves and their kids. In the UK I feel like people bang on about equality and fairness in the system overall, and then quietly seek to extract as much personal advantage as they can afford.

Size is probably the biggest culture shock . My DD’s school has 2500 students. That allows them to offer a huge variety of course choices.

that reminds me of another possibility. This was true when I was in school 30 years ago and it’s true at the different school my child attends now. It’s possible to end up splitting your day between two schools within the district because you decide to take a specialty class that is only offered in one building. Students just drive themselves between schools.

there are still gross inequities in that it is so much harder to a) understand what success looks like or requires and then b) stay on track to make it happen when you are in a crappy underfunded school with little parental support, few role models and instability in housing. Most of those kids never get to be in a position to apply to prestigious schools.

The last sentence is not literally true. Unlike in the UK, the only limit on how many universities you can apply to is how much you can to spend on application fees. One of the reasons that the top universities have such low acceptance rates is that most of their applicants have no realistic chance of being admitted.

That is very interesting, thank you.
As for the reverse perspective, UK schools seem to be quite ahead in lots of academic aspects and as you said the options are confusing and more varied for where you go. If you need any advice navigating it, let me know.