Living in America 2012--Because It Is No Longer 2011

[MmeBucket]

This is what happens when I start threads--they get stupid titles. Someone else needs to start the next one. Hopefully we can get this one filled by 2013.

Link to old thread for reference

Not much happening here. The kids have been off school for 25 days. I am soooo looking forward to them starting school tomorrow. Except it is my day to help, so instead of getting a break from my two, I'll have 22 of them to deal with.

www.city-data.com/ This might be somewhere to look. Good school and walkable, thats like asking for streets paved with gold. I've never lived anywhere that was walkable since we moved here. try british expats for first hand experience. theres a few that work in Cupertino and moved there with kids. do you mean $3500 rent? Rent is super expensive because of Silicone valley commuters. Here you could rent 2 big houses for that much money, but the commute would be about 3 hours each way

Wow, where did we all go? I finally am done with all my extra children for the summer. The last 2 were absolutely lovely, but I'm done. Still have 9 days until school starts, and I can't wait!!!!

9 days till school?
I'm waiting for our fall break, Dd gets the first two weeks in October off.
We are selling off a lot of stuff, getting ready to put in new carpets and get the house up for sale. The we can move back to UK. Sadly we have no timeline, it's all hanging on the house and boats, they have to sell first.

Hi Betty I live in Silicon Valley, not far from Cupertino. Our rental for a 3-bed house in a fairly decent school district is $2900. I can PM you if you want to know more about the area we live in.

Hello everyone. We finally made our move! We've been in our house in VA for nearly 3 weeks. Boys start school on Tuesday, which I have mixed feelings about, and all our stuff is unpacked, although not necessarily in the right place.

I know that feeling Betty - I spent days just wandering around our UK house mentalling categorising into 'ship, store, give away'. Nothing we had was worth ebaying! Good luck with your decision making.

Thanks for all your advice everyone re equipping our house and banking. My next line of enquiry concerns children's clothes. Where can I buy reasonably priced clothes for my 8, 6 and 2 yo boys. I guess in the UK I would be thinking a bit of Sainsburys, M&S, John Lewis. Not the cheapest stuff, because I;d like to be able to pass down from one to another, but not too pricey. we seem to have all the shops in the world within a couple of miles, so any suggestions welcome.

Almost all the big supermarkets do clothes. There's also Marshall's and TKMaxx just like in the UK. Target is pretty good, and you could try Walmart but I've never been there.

Can't believe the summer is over. This is the first year and stated in the US and I think that I've finally got used to the heat and how long the break is. I love my job, but lying in the sun by a pool or lake is pretty good.

Round here, pretty much the day after labor day is when fall sets in. The leaves are just starting to turn, it gets cooler at night and rain is forecast. If I can't lie by the pool any longer I may as well go and teach.

We like Gymboree and Crazy 8 for decent clothes for Dd, they have sales often and the stuff lasts. Crazy 8 has better prices than gymboree.
We also shop the outlet mall at Osh Kosh and Gap.
Target clothes are hit and miss for us on sizes and Walmart fall apart unless I find the George clothes.
Online I shop the sales at Hanna Andersson, they have really nice underwear. I have fleeces and tees that have lasted for many years as I sized up with Dd.

I love Gymboree as well and it's about the only place that does clothes skinny enough for dd. their prices are quite high but they have good sales and rewards. I often get jeans for $10 once I've applied all the discounts

Kickass if you like Gymboree, then look for crazy 8 it's the same company, and a lot cheaper, but the quality is still good, they do slims and plus sizes.
It's sort of like Old Navy being the cheap version of Gap. I prefer Gap though as ON quality is sometimes not very good.

Thanks ladies. We're just about to sign up for netflix. Does anyone have one of those voucher things where if we sign up we get a free month and you get one too?

Before you sign up for Netflix, check out what your cable company offers you free on demand. We have so many free movies and tv programs, I never feel the need for DVDs.

Ok, end of a crazy busy summer. Ds has already been back at school for a week and has a fantastic teacher. He is doing Taekwondo and loving it, after a whole summer at Taekwondo camp and dh has just started adult Taekwondo classes. I have just started with a personal trainer at the gym - session number three on Wednesday.

We spent the Labor Day weekend on the beach at Smith Mountain Lake in southern Virginia - so much fun on the jet ski and kayak, and great stars in the evening sky with no light pollution.

Next thing on the cards is planning a vacation in November. We want to visit somewhere in the US rather than rush back to the UK as we seem to do. We are trying to decide between New Mexico, Grand Canyon and San Francisco. Dh and ds want New Mexico - they want to see the desert.

DH and I did a trip before the DC's were born that included Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon in Utah, Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, and Sedona in Arizona. It was a great trip that included lots of different terrains (including desert) and I'd love to take the kids. The only bad thing about it is that it is really hard to find pie in Utah on a Sunday.

We've done Zion and Bruce as well and really loved them

Hello! I fell off this thread months ago and was wondering how everyone's doing. Has anyone else had a week of mad thunderstorms? NJ has been insanely humid.

Hi there -or even hi y'all! anyone posting from Texas? we are considering moving and need inside info on schools and universities

No thunderstorms here. I guess that's the good thing living on the West Coast. It admittedly rains a lot in NW Oregon, but we almost never have any noteworthy bad weather, and also never get tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.

(American) football is taking over our lives. I can't wait for school to start tomorrow (after a more than 3 month break) so practice will go down to 6 hours a week for DS and 2 for DD.

Hi kweggie , I'm in Tx. Have children up to High school level, but don't know much about university (yet!). I only know US system, but all big places have international/British schools too. Where are you thinking of?

MmeB go down to 6 hours a week oh my! and for dd too!!! Dance has started back up for dd2 - only 7 hours a week, though.

Hi wentshopping,
Plano area but that all feels a bit too new for me , I like Mckinney. DD does her gcses 2013, so we want to look for Uni's I think, can't imagine we could get organised to go before that and TBH I think I prefer her to do A's here. Whereabouts are you?

Hello VintageNancy and many thanks for your post, it would be great to know more about recommended schools (we need middle and high)

Areas in and around Cupertino would be great. Feel free to pm x

Are we guaranteed a place at the school if we live in the schools allocated area? Will there only be one choice of middle and high for the street we live in, or will there be a choice?

Thanks all x

kweggie we are in Houston. (hence my comment about British/International schools) - Plano probably only has state (=public) and private (fee-paying).
This is my personal opinion about education here, and there may well be people who disagree - just thought I should say that first :)
University in the US is very expensive. Think $40,000 per year, for a 4 year course for a decent one. This can be mitigated by scholarships, which is why American school children get into sports etc from a young age, so that finally they can get talent spotted while at high school and offered a scholarship. Up until last year in Texas, if you were in the top 10% of your graduating class (so your school) you would automatically get offered a place at a state university. Due to competition, this has now been lowered to 8% according to dd1's high school. Even though you get offered a place, you would still have to pay. State universities run about $25,000 per year. This is before accommodation, living expenses etc.
Texas education system - you don't have the same exams as GCSEs or As here - there is state testing which starts earlier in school, and continues up into High school, and is generally easy to pass. There is SAT and ACT and AP (Advanced Placement) which are administered by the "College Board" which seems to be an authority made up of universities. These exams give universities an idea of your standard in various subjects. Some AP exams give you exemptions for university classes, which cuts down the workload at college, and the overall cost of your college fees.
You follow a fairly standard pattern of subjects because you have to have studied so many years of each subject to graduate from High School. Your grade in each subject is averaged to give a GPA (grade point average) which is a score used by university admissions. For example you have to have so many years of science, a foreign language, maths etc. Coming from the British system there will be gaps (US History) and overlaps - A level subjects go into more depth than high school subjects here. As an example, dd1 is in 11th grade (whatever lower sixth is called now) and has done one year each of biology and chemistry, and is only now starting physics. If she likes, that is enough science to graduate so she can choose another subject next year. Obviously that is a lot less than the equivalent A level student in the UK. This is why university courses here tend to be 4 years with a foundation year.
If your child has already done A levels they may be able to start the 2nd year of a uni course, but I am not sure about that - there may be gaps to fill in terms of compulsory classes from the first year. Personally, if my children were that far ahead in the UK system, I would be inclined to keep them in the UK system, especially with bearing in mind that your child may choose a university in Chicago, New York etc, so still a plane ride away.
My children are in the US system because we came when the youngest was 6, and only thought we would be here 3 years (ha!).
Sorry for the essay.....

I don't live in texas and my son is only 2 so I don't know the school-system as a parent, however my husband is a (middle school) teacher here (in NJ) and I've taught ivy league freshers, so seen the 'end product' of some of the best and brightest high school education.

My tuppenceworth:

(1) Universities ARE very expensive. $40K per year is not unheard of. HOWEVER Most good ones offer scholarships for all kinds of things, not just sport, and most offer bursary support, means-tested fees, and other kinds of help. Few students at Harvard, for example, are paying full whack because they have the funding behind them to ensure that if you pass the exams to get into Harvard, they will find the money for you to go. Harvard's very rich. Not all universities are, but most have a long standing legacy of financial aid. So perhaps, depending on your circumstances, you're actually only looking at $20K or $30K a year. still not cheap, but frankly, no is uni in England these days. I've worked at a few universities in the NJ/NYC area, and certainly most small liberal arts colleges have less than 20% of each incoming class year paying full fees. Most students are on varying amounts of scholarships, financial aid, and bursaries. So far, so good! EXCEPT.... non-US-citizens may not qualify for lots of them. So get savvy.

Most students have jobs on campus, and some 'work-study' jobs literally cut the cost of their fees, instead of paying out cash. I suggest when you're looking at universities, look at what kind of financial aid they offer.

(2) Students who have studied A levels or the IB are further ahead when then go to university than students who have done standard SATs and any college entrance exams. The A levels are more rigorous, intellectually demanding, and require more abilities (essay writing, construction of argument from available sources, etc). I taught very very clever freshers at Columbia Uni (Ivy League in NYC) who couldn't do things that you'd need to do in A levels, in England and Wales.

BUT:

Students who do a 4 year BA in America are no less educated and prepared for the workforce than students who do a 3 year BA in England. I think it evens out pretty well in the end. Students tend to live on campus, in uni housing, for the whole of their degrees, however, so have to do things like learn to pay a gas bill or deal with a landlord after graduating, rather than as part of the uni experience.

In my experience American undergraduates are a bit more coddled -the university views itself as 'in loco parentis' and students are spoonfed a lot more. That said the BA is a broad-ranging and challenging thing at most good universities here, and students can decide 2 years into a degree that (For example) they want to be a doctor, rather than having to make up their mind about that at aged 16 as in England.

Law, Medicine, vet etc are post-grad degrees here in the USA. You need to do a BA/BSC first and then apply to law school.

All that taken in to account, I would rather my children did A levels or IBs, and DH (having taught in the UK and the USA now) feels that our state schools are better. (Private schools depends on area - New Jersey is heaving with them). But it's a bit far off for us to decide at the moment!

Hope some of this helps.

phew blackcurrants thank you! you put it much better than I did!
Also, in Texas, bear in mind the legal drinking age is 21, and at least here in suburbia it is pretty much enforced. Don't know what happens when they all go off to college though.

I would have preferred dds to have done A levels... there is a local public school with IB status, but they don't have very good results. Our company did not help with school fees so we couldn't afford to look at private because of dd3's medical expenses. dd1 and dd2 are aiming for courses which are not so mainstream, and may well be better served here in the US - and neither is hoping to go to a Texas college. DD3 has been greatly helped by state school provisions as she is disabled but in mainstream education. We are just embarking on the search for financial aid having seen one of our neighbour's children go off to college (private) with no financial help :(

wentshopping and blackcurrants your posts are very helpful.

We are still waiting to hear if we will be relocating to the States, it is likely to be California in the Cupertino/San Jose area.

Our twin daughters (aged 16) have just started their A Levels here in the UK following on from a excellent set of GCSE's.

I am really concerned about moving them from the UK (not that we will have any choice) but I am wondering if there are any options for them to either continue studying their A Levels whilst in California or alternatively attending an IB School?

I have seen a number of companies that offer distance learning A Level courses so this is one possibility although I can't quite see how studying chemistry for example would work so well on a distant learning course?

I have found a few IB schools in San Jose, (I'm sure there are more) and my understanding is that these are state funded (i.e free for us to attend?). Is this correct?

All very worrying to be honest so would welcome any thoughts if you have them.

Betty the local IB school here is a state school so free. If the ones you have found are under a "school district" (eg San Jose independent school district or whatever it might be called) then they would be state schools. Sometimes where a child has a choice for high schools there will be some kind of selection process. Our IB school holds a lottery for its places. (So selection is purely on names drawn from a hat).
For A levels it would have to be an international school with British curriculum I think - are there any private international schools near your location?
I have no idea how distance learning would work - would you have to "home school" them?
My gut feeling would be if they have already started A levels, keep them where they are, purely so they don't have to repeat a year - the IB is pretty coursework heavy I believe. (After all if you have yet to hear about relocation, you would still have to wait for visas etc to come through, so hearing now, might give a move in 6 months time? That's nearly a whole school year.)
Sorry not to sound more helpful.