{"id":6952,"date":"2020-01-31T12:54:37","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T11:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/?p=6952"},"modified":"2026-04-28T09:48:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T07:48:38","slug":"paula-leyes-la-joven-espanola-admitida-las-mejores-universidades-del-mundo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/paula-leyes-la-joven-espanola-admitida-las-mejores-universidades-del-mundo\/","title":{"rendered":"Paula Leyes, the young Spaniard admitted to the best universities in the world."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Paula Leyes achieved a grade 10 in her A-levels and is studying a dual degree in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Harvard<\/strong>. She is 18 years old and is one of four Spanish students who have enrolled at Harvard this academic year. This is a record, as never before have so many Spaniards been accepted to begin their degrees at this prestigious American university, which admits only around 1,600 new students from around the world each year. Only 4% per cent of applicants are ultimately admitted, and believe me when I say that the remaining 96% per cent are also outstanding and exceptional students, the majority of whom also achieve top marks during the extremely rigorous selection process. What\u2019s more, Paula has also received offers of admission from no fewer than 14 other highly prestigious US universities, including Stanford, Princeton, Columbia and Georgetown.<\/div>\n
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Paula is clearly an exceptional success story, but\u00a0Does this mean that only boys and girls with excellent grades and\/or plenty of money can go and study at American universities? NO, not at all.<\/strong> Just one step below those elite universities lies a range of hundreds of magnificent universities<\/strong> where any student with grades of 6, 7 or 8 and a reasonable budget can gain access, provided they are genuinely committed and have the right guidance to to study in the United States<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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This guidance will support interested families every step of the way through the university application process. It is a long process that must begin between 15 and 18 months before the end of the second year of Bachillerato; in other words, we must start preparing the student for US university entrance exams during the first half of the first year of Bachillerato.<\/p>\n

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\"\"But what if we\u2019ve missed the boat and are already in our second year of sixth form? Well, that doesn\u2019t mean our hopes of studying in the US are over. We\u2019ll just have to work a bit harder, and we\u2019ll probably need to apply to start university in the Spring Term<\/em> and not in the Autumn Term<\/em>. In other words, there is still time, and they won\u2019t miss a whole academic year; they will simply start a term later. This is because, at American universities, new students arrive every term to begin their degrees. There is enormous flexibility within the US university system, both in terms of the academic calendar and when it comes to switching from one degree programme to another and transferring credits.<\/p>\n

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Nowadays, more and more Spanish primary and secondary schools are offering the opportunity to study for terms or entire academic years at public and private schools in the USA. It has become fashionable to send our children to American schools, where they are hosted by local families. And in many cases, this system results in a rather unpleasant personal experience. It is a personal sacrifice for the whole family, which leads most pupils to have absolutely no desire to return to the US to pursue their university studies, as they admit off the record<\/em> some companies specialise in selling these courses. In other words, this leads to the exact opposite of what was intended, which is integration and acclimatisation to an American academic and social environment, so that students will subsequently wish to graduate from US universities. That is why our recommendation is to save the money for when they start university, as the academic standard of high school in the US is lower than ours. On the other hand, the academic education, university life and financial resources available to universities in the USA<\/a> is far superior to our university system, whether we like to admit it or not.<\/p>\n

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But how are we supposed to \u00abacclimatise\u00bb our children to an American environment if we haven\u2019t previously taken them to study there? Without that initial experience or temporary immersion, it is unlikely that a 16- or 17-year-old would suddenly want to leave their familiar surroundings in Spain to go to an American university. Based on our experience as consultants (and as parents of students who have gone through this process and are currently studying at American universities), our recommendation is clear: use a few summers during their pre-teen years to send them to camps lasting 2, 3 or even 7 weeks in the USA. These summer camps<\/em>, as well as being settings of lush natural beauty, healthy and hugely enjoyable (photo below), they offer the ideal immersion in a perfect American environment, where sport and leisure activities form part of the daily routine, and which will make them long with all their might to be admitted to American universities in the future. Furthermore, these summer programmes cost considerably less than the secondary school courses at American high schools currently offered by so many Spanish schools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So, our children are now settled in, integrated and keen to study for their university degrees in the US. Now is the time to ask the million-dollar question:<\/p>\n

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How much does it cost to send your children to to study at an American university<\/a>?<\/strong> We have already explained this in detail in \u00abCan I send my children to study at a university in the US?\u00bb<\/a>, but below we have set out the total, minimum and maximum annual costs once again, broken down by category:<\/p>\n