Longitudinal Trends in Adjustment to US Higher Education: The Role of International Students' Foreign High School Experiences

In addition to demographic characteristics, it is important to understand how the location of prior educational experiences may impact adjustment for international students. Indeed, international students who graduate from high school outside their home countries are assumed to have easier college adjustments than others due to their previous international experience (Le, 2018). In spite of the increasing interest in such a population, there is no consensus about the potential impact of previous foreign educational experiences on specific social and emotional adjustment. The current study addressed this gap by examining adjustment differences over time in a sample of international students attending 14 institutions across the US based on their secondary education experiences. Thus, this study explored the following research questions: What is the longitudinal trend of international student adjustment? To what extent does the trend of college adjustment change depending on prior foreign education experiences?