# Possibly moving to Amsterdam



## francofromtheBay (Sep 23, 2015)

Hi everyone....

We are a family of 5 (2 parents, 3 kids) that have been in Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area for a while and we now have an opportunity to work and live in Amsterdam for one of the big companies there. 

The company will handle all the immigration and relocation expenses and will kick in a small amount of tuition money for our older kid (11 year old boy) who will go to an international school. Our question is related to the international schools in Amsterdam. Bear in mind my future employer only pays a small amount of the international school's tuition (i.e. 15% of the ISA tuition) and we are not rich 

I've read what I could find about the Dutch Subsidized International Schools and ISA but still have questions. We would like to talk/hear from some parents at these schools regarding the academic level. Our 11 year old goes to Menlo School in Menlo Park CA and we are very happy with the academic level there. Furthermore, we are also happy that more than half of the Menlo school high school graduating class go on to elite universities in America (Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc). We are just wondering if:

1) the academic level is similar (better/worse?) between the the International Schools in Amsterdam and my kid's current school.
2) whether he will have the same opportunity of attending an elite university if he goes through middle and high school in one of the international schools in Amsterdam.


Thanks!!!


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## ExBat (Nov 24, 2015)

1) Don't know what your kid's current school's level is. However, you'll find that all the equivalent public schools in the Netherlands are much more difficult than U.S. public schools.
(In dutch only: ) http://www.onderwijsinspectie.nl/
On that site you can check what rating (bad->excellent) the ministry of educated has given the school.
The private / international schools are much better though. I would recommend an international school if you can afford it. I know someone who works at an international school in Amsterdam and the difference between a public school and that is day and night (in terms of attention they give, care, etc, etc). However, this will not by itself increase the chances of your kid getting into anything.

2) I'm not sure what an "elite university" is. The Netherlands does not have universities that exclude students based on the specific prior school they went to. They exclude on 'level'. The school system in the Netherlands is as follows:

Elementary Classes 1-8 (Ages 4/5 to aprox. 12/13).
- The teacher decides what 'level' your kid has in the last class of elementary and this is binding (even though they call this an 'advise').

Middle School, Classes 1-4/5 (Ages ~12/13-16/17)
- Based on the previous advise your kid gets sent to one of these levels of middle school:
-- VMBO (No access to university directly (has a very long route to uni, but the route exists)).
-- HAVO (Only access to Universities of Applied Sciences, but can continue a level up to the next with 2 extra years)
-- VWO / Atheneum (Access to all universities).

Universities of Applied Sciences
Universities (Theoretical)

I went to the 'best' university of technology of the Netherlands (Like MIT in the US). They only care about your 'level', not which school you went to.

The system is quite flawed and the estimates of kids getting sent to the wrong level are sky high.


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