An Introduction to College Counseling at International Schools: Part I
An Introduction to College Counseling at International Schools: Part I
Cory Zimmerman, Singapore American School
January 22, 2025
As a college counselor working at an international school and a product of one myself, here is a balanced (but ultimately subjective) description that might demystify (or even attract some of you to) the international school world.

Some personal background
I grew up in the US, France, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, and the UK before repatriating to the US for university. I have worked as a Teach for Americacorps member teaching high school English in North Carolina; an admissions officer at Washington University in St. Louis; and a college counselor at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, Taipei American School in Taiwan, and now Singapore American School, which also happens to be one of my boyhood schools. I moved to international school college counseling in 2017. I had cherished my relationship with my college counselor in high school, so I relished the opportunity to provide that same support to third culture kids like I was, at the precipice of making a huge decision on where to attend university.
Why international schools exist/who they serve
I’ll generalize as “international schools” range widely in constitution, mission, and student populations. My current institution was founded in 1956 by a group of expat American parents who sought educational continuity for their children, as they would inevitably return to the US later in their children’s schooling. Most overseas American schools like mine, and a fair number of international schools, were founded after World War II, when US economic, diplomatic, and security interests burgeoned overseas. It was a tough sell to move families to another country if the educational system of its local schools didn’t approximate what you would get back home, so up popped these schools, mostly with parents’ corporations footing the tuition bill. More recently, many for-profit international schools have joined the fray, many of which enroll a higher percentage of local students than those founded decades ago. As a result, across Asia at least, you’d be hard-pressed to find an international school that is not majority ethnically Asian, and you will likely find a majority of families paying their children’s tuition independently.
How does the college counseling approach differ at an international school?
When I worked in Washington, DC, the biggest educational piece involved in college counseling seemed to be bringing parents up to speed on how the landscape of highly selective admission had changed in the 30+ years since they had graduated, presumably from US institutions of higher education. The silver lining there was that their children had a solid understanding of the cultural and educational landscape, whether through osmosis or being regaled with stories from a parent’s college days. As a result, an outsized portion of my counsel could focus on the seeming marginalia that differentiated one college from another, and so a 45-minute conversation with a student could focus solely on the particulars of the ideal college ethos they desired. I found those conversations to be hugely rewarding and purpose-filled.
Internationally, the scope of the educational piece of my counsel has broadened significantly, mostly because our parents largely did not attend university in the country/ies where they want their children to attend. Thus, I’m seeking to illuminate differences between, say, a major and a degree, a liberal arts college and a Tier 1 research institution, or the attractiveness to employers across Asia of a bachelor’s degree from a Korean versus a Hong Kong university.
Personally, I have found it helpful to periodically remind myself of the cultural milieus out of which many of my families have come. A good number of my students’ parents are in the first generation of their families to have made the sort of money that would allow them to emigrate and then fund an international school education for their children. Ensuring their children secure a job, and one that pays well (and in the early-career years) while also securing them a foreign visa (which skews toward STEM jobs in many countries) is of primary importance to many parents, and assessing whether that is a factor early on in a counseling relationship can be helpful in how I modulate my counsel.
In summary, I am approaching the conclusion of my eighth year as a college counselor in Asia, and the experience has been a boon for my professional and personal development. In a future post, I’ll share more specifically about some of the rewards and challenges of working at an international school.