INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
U.S. High School Diploma for International Students
Although you’re not living in the United States, did you know that you can earn your U.S. high school diploma online from Silicon Valley High School? It doesn’t matter where you live, as long as you have access to the Internet. Our high school diploma program is entirely online. It’s video-based, self-paced and teacher-supported.
Accreditation
SVHS is accredited by Western Association of Schools and Colleges (ACS WASC), and by Cognia (formerly “AdvancED”). Our courses are approved by organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and University of California (UCOP).
Relationship with the University of California
All of the courses offered at SVHS are approved as “a-g” by the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), which means the course has been reviewed and meets the University of California’s academic content and rigor standards required for freshman admission to the UC and CSU systems. Please see the U.S. College Admissions section below for information on admissions into the University of California system and other U.S. colleges.
Video-Based Online Courses
Many students prefer watching videos to reading textbooks and we use video wherever we can in our courses. The videos are sometimes fun to watch. If you’re taking a course like English, you’re going to have to read a book, but each unit of each course usually includes a video, a quiz, some reading material, and an assignment. We do try to make the assignments as well as the videos as interesting and entertaining as possible.
Self-Paced Online Courses
Because our courses are all self-paced, you can study when it suits you. You set your own schedule. If you want to work out in the morning, you can study in the afternoon or the evening.
As you can see from our statistics (where blue means students are taking courses, and darker blue means more students), we see that students choose to study at all hours of the day or night. Some students are night owls, and others are early birds. They certainly don’t all work traditional school hours. By setting your own study schedule, your courses don’t have to interfere too much with your other activities.
In fact, if you have a laptop, or tablet, or any device with a web browser that you can carry around, you aren’t restricted from studying at your desk. You could study from your home, your hotel room, your private jet (OK, maybe not quite yet), or wherever you learn best.
The self-paced arrangement means you can take the course as quickly or as slowly as you like. If you want to accelerate through the course, you can commit to the study hours and complete the course in the minimum enrollment period of 30 days. If you want to spread your studying out or take multiple courses, you have up to 12 months to complete a course. Once you take your final exam, the course is over.
Teacher-Supported Online Courses
When you enroll in a course, your teacher is not a bot or some artificial intelligence machine—it’s a real-life person, a credentialed teacher, who, like you is working on a computer. You can ask a question at any time, by submitting an online form. The teacher receives an email with your question and responds quickly, usually within 24 hours (can take longer at weekends and holidays).
When you submit your assignment, it is graded by the teacher. Together with your grade, the teacher gives you some positive feedback and guidance.
With this arrangement, it’s not necessary to be online at the same time as the teacher, and that’s how we can make our courses entirely self-paced. Having said that, for some language courses, like Spanish, where you occasionally have to actually speak to a teacher through video-conference, you’ll need to coordinate your schedule with the teachers’—to make sure you’re both able to meet up online.
Simple Step-by-Step Flow
We made our courses very simple to follow. You start at unit 1, watch a video, take a quiz, do some reading and submit an assignment, then you move on to unit 2, which follows the same process. When you’ve completed all the units, your final appears and you’re then able to take the final exam. Many students that have taken online courses elsewhere have told us they really appreciate this simple step-by-step flow. It’s not difficult to see where you are and what you need to do next—once you’ve completed a step, you can see that it’s been checked off.
Fees
Complete program for earning your high school diploma from SVHS.
- $250 one-time Registration Fee.
- $1,250 per semester Academic Coaching.
- $125 per course (up to 8 courses per semester for a maximum of $1,000 per semester).
- $1,000 one-time Graduation Fee.
Students are billed for the Coaching Fee and assigned a number of courses each semester. Students can request to add additional courses (up to 8 courses per semester) with the approval of the Academic Advisor. Students will be invoiced separately for additional courses.
Full 4-Year High School Diploma Costs
The price students can expect to pay for a full 4-year high school education leading to a diploma are:
- $17,000 for a full 4-year private high school education.
- Averaged over the 4 year period at $4,250 per year.
- Includes Registration Fee, Graduation Fee and 8 semesters of Academic Coaching at $1,250 each.
- Includes 46 courses at $125 each for the required 230 academic credits.
All our courses are supported by experienced, credentialed teachers who answer questions, grade assignments and provide guidance and feedback online. See the Pricing page for more information.
Registration
For more information about the application and registration process see our Diploma Program Registration page and Contact us to inquire about registration.
The registration window opens in June for the Fall semester and in December for the Spring semester. Registration is closed soon after the semester has started or the program is full. Please use our Contact Us page to ask questions, or to request to be added to our waitlist for the next semester.
Fair, Flexible Terms
You’re not required to pay for the whole diploma program when you register with Silicon Valley High School. You can cancel any time. Registration fees are not refundable after we have started the registration process; however, semester tuition fees are refundable if you cancel before the courses have started.
If you start the program and you would like to stop, for whatever reason, you are free to terminate your enrollment, and you will not incur any additional fees beyond those you have already paid.
U.S. College Admissions
Colleges adopt their own admissions requirements and procedures. For example, here’s the admissions portal for the University of California. Colleges generally want to see your transcript, to see what courses you have taken and the grades you have achieved. SVHS will provide you with an official transcript that can be shared with the colleges you’re applying to. In addition to having a high school diploma and official transcript, colleges often require that you take an SAT standardized test administered by the College Board. The SAT is separate and independent from your high school diploma. SVHS and other high schools are not part of the SAT testing process.
Many students hire specialist private consultants to help them with the college application process, and help them make sure they understand and satisfy the college admissions requirements. Here’s a link to the Independent Education Consultants Association and a Princeton Review article on how to choose a college admissions counselor. College Coach is an example of an admissions counseling service.
U.S. Visas
As you don’t need to visit the United States to study online with Silicon Valley High School, you don’t need a visa to enroll in our diploma program and earn your high school diploma. However, if you wish to come to college in the U.S. after you complete your studies at SVHS, you will need a student visa. Here’s a link to the U.S. Department of State explaining how the student visa program works and providing you with the required application forms.
Certificates of Course Completion
When you complete a course with a passing score, you will be provided with a signed digital certificate of completion. You can print this certificate, frame it, and provide a copy to a prospective employer.
High School Diploma Graduation
To be eligible to graduate and receive your diploma, you must have completed all the required courses. The process starts with you paying the graduation fee to petition to graduate. SVHS staff then check that you have successfully completed all the required courses and when that has been confirmed, you will receive your diploma in the mail. Congratulations!
Transcripts
Upon acceptance to the full-time high school diploma program, international students are required to provide to SVHS a translated and analyzed transcript from The Evaluation Company TEC, a credential and transcript evaluation service which provides timely and cost-effective foreign academic credential evaluation and verification services.
Silicon Valley High School (SVHS) uses Parchment, a trusted and widely accepted platform, to process and deliver official transcripts. This service ensures secure and timely delivery of your academic records.
Ordering Official Transcripts
- Your Parchment account information must match your SVHS account (name, date of birth, email).
- The delivery time for an electronic transcript is typically 24–72 hours.
- The cost per official transcript request is $5.90.
- All transcripts include every course you have taken with SVHS, including those currently in progress.
Before placing a transcript order via Parchment, we recommend that students first generate a Student Course Report from the Request a Transcript form. The Student Course Report is not an official transcript. While it can be used to verify course completion informally, only the official transcript sent via Parchment is valid for credit transfer.
SVHS is committed to protecting the privacy and security of student information. The third-party service used for processing transcript requests complies with all relevant privacy laws and regulations.
Questions?
Click the FAQ (frequently asked questions) for questions on the diploma program and our supplemental courses. Alternatively, chat with us using the chat box at the bottom right of your browser window.
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