Our Students' Success Stories

After his family relocated to Latvia, Ivan found that state education was no longer available in Russian and he did not speak Latvian. He looked at online options, took a trial lesson at SHKOLA, reviewed the subjects, and saw that the diploma would be a U.S. state diploma — the same one he would receive studying at an American school in person.

He set himself the goal of completing two grades in one year, and did. Along the way he took electives unavailable in his previous school, including subjects with no direct equivalent in the Russian curriculum. He preferred the format of working from written material with worked examples over listening to a lecture and moving straight to exercises, and found teachers ready to help whenever he asked.

Ivan scored 1437 on the SAT and received three university offers, including Brown University. He is applying to game design programs.

Georgiy had previously studied in Latvian and had a mid-range level of English. With his family planning a move to the U.S., he needed to get ready for a U.S. school — and be confident speaking — in six months.

Alongside English, he studied Science and Math to ease the academic transition. His mother, Yulia, also took lessons at SHKOLA to feel comfortable in the U.S.

Results:

• Studied from April to August (six months)
• English level: B2
• Admitted to and attending a U.S. school
• Additional subject preparation in Science and Math

Teacher: MS Stacey (native speaker).

Milana attends a school in Poland. When she joined SHKOLA her English was at A1: she had a decent vocabulary but struggled to apply it, and her grammar was weak.

A year of consistent work changed that — lessons now run almost entirely in English.

Results:

• English: A1 → B1+ in one year
• 95% of lesson time in English
• Reads texts of medium complexity with strong comprehension
• Clear, accurate pronunciation

Teacher: MS Victoria (bilingual).

Maxim attended a Russian school and decided not to take the 9th-grade OGE exam, choosing international education instead. His English was modest, and he needed to adapt quickly to studying in English.

Three months of focused one-on-one work made that transition possible.

Results:

• English: A2 → B1–B2 in 3 months
• Admitted to a U.S. school
• GPA: 91 out of 100

Layan is a 10th grader preparing to study at a university abroad. Her target is fluency and confident written communication.

Lessons focused on three priority areas: grammar, writing, and pronunciation.

Results:

• English: B1 → B2+ in 6 months
• Notable progress in grammar, writing, and pronunciation

Teacher: MS Lana (native speaker).

Insaf joined SHKOLA in June 2024 alongside his older brother Arslan. The target was the same: prepare intensively over the summer and gain admission to an English-language school. He started at A1–A2.

In lessons he stayed engaged and kept pace with the program's intensity.

Results:

• 2.5 months of preparation
• Admitted to UniSchool International School

Teacher: MR. Emmanuel (native speaker).

Arslan joined SHKOLA in June 2024 with his younger brother Insaf. The goal was to raise their English over the summer and gain admission to an English-language school. Both boys started at A1–A2.

They were consistently engaged in lessons, which allowed the program to move at a high pace.

Results:

• 2.5 months of preparation
• Admitted to UniSchool International School

Teachers: started with MS Zahra (bilingual), then continued with native speaker MR. Zaher Shah.

Zlata joined SHKOLA at A1–A2 with two goals: pass the OGE English exam and raise her overall English level for further study.

Preparation unfolded steadily over two years, building grammar and exam skills in parallel.

Results:

• OGE English: 66 out of 68
• According to her school principal, the highest score in the Predgorny District of Stavropol Krai

Teacher: MS Zahra (non-native speaker).

Alexey came to SHKOLA with a clear target: pass IELTS. His English was at B1–B2, his grammar had gaps, and he had already worked with several tutors without making real progress.

He needed a structured program, not another round of unconnected lessons.

Results:

• 4 months of intensive preparation
• IELTS: 6.5 out of 9 (B2)

Teacher: MS Stacey — TEFL and TESOL certified, C2-level English.

Asema is a first-year university student in Istanbul. She needed to prepare for a biophysics exam in English covering a specific set of topics — and she had only a month and a half to do it.

One-on-one tutoring let her focus on exactly those topics within a tight timeline.

Results:

• 1.5 months of preparation
• 12 lessons (three per week)
• Exam passed with the top grade

Teacher: MS Kardy — technical subjects and biology; completing a master's degree in advanced experimental and computational biosciences.

Stepan lives in the Moscow region and plans to study abroad. Rather than leaving his school, he enrolled in SHKOLA in parallel to earn a U.S. high school diploma and strengthen his international applications.

The Second Diploma program delivered exactly what he needed: an additional accredited diploma without walking away from his current school.

Results:

• SAT: 1140
• IELTS: 7.0
• Offer from Hanze University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands

David's family traveled frequently, which made in-person schooling impossible. He had learned English as a child, but without consistent practice the fluency had faded.

SHKOLA's full-time program helped him rebuild confidence in the language and study from anywhere in the world.

Results:

• IELTS: 8 out of 9
• Multiple university offers
• Admitted to Emirates Aviation University — one of the top 20 universities in the UAE

Dmitry's family relocated during his final year of school. When his previous online school learned he would not be sitting the Russian state examinations, they asked the family to collect his documents — he was expelled mid-year, in October, with no clear path to finishing school.

SHKOLA accepted him in October and allowed him to study Grade 11 and Grade 12 in parallel. He was assigned a curator at no additional cost, which his mother describes as the single thing she is most grateful for: not just an academic supervisor but someone who noticed when he was down after the winter holidays and asked about it.

Live lessons rather than recordings mattered to him — he showed up, was seen, and talked to classmates in the interest clubs the curators ran. He formally finished school in February but kept attending his mathematics teacher's lessons through May, because he intends to become a mathematics teacher himself. Dmitry received offers from Western University, the University of Alberta, and Drexel University, with an IELTS score of 8.0.

Elizaveta has studied in the American system since second grade. For her final two years she decided to apply to universities in Russia rather than the United States, which meant preparing for Russian entrance examinations while completing an American diploma.

She effectively attended two schools at once: SHKOLA twice a week for her diploma subjects, and preparatory classes the rest of the time. Building her own timetable made that possible — she chose which courses to take and when, front-loading required credits in earlier years so that her final year left room for preparation. She asked teachers for the recommendation letters her applications required, and got them.

She received a $2,000 grant from John Cabot University and a 40% tuition discount from a university in Athens based on her entrance exam results. She now studies public relations in politics and business, in English, at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.

When the family moved to Thailand, they hit a wall: universities required twelve years of schooling, and Vyacheslav had completed eleven in Russia. They needed a school that could provide the missing year — and that could fit around his sports schedule and his own time zone rather than the school's.

SHKOLA agreed to both. Curators built a workable timetable, and when the family asked to add hours per day to finish sooner, the school accommodated that too. His mother's clearest observation is about vocabulary: his everyday English had been good, but he lacked the academic terminology he would need at university. The twelfth-grade subjects — economics, mathematics, physics — covered exactly the terms his first university year would require.

When the university requested the school's founding documents and licensing to pre-approve his application, SHKOLA provided them quickly. The university confirmed that with this diploma he could enroll without additional entrance examinations — only an interview in English.

Maria applied to universities across the United States and Europe and received offers from nine of them, with scholarship packages totaling $509,825.

Kuzma remembers his first lesson clearly: sitting in front of the screen trying to understand anything at all, and not liking what he saw. Today he studies International Relations at King's College London and speaks freely in seminars and lectures.

He progressed to IELTS 6.5 and spoke at a UN Human Rights Conference in Vienna. When choosing a university he weighed three things: the course itself, where it could lead afterwards, and the city. King's offered the most interesting International Relations course he found, opened paths into law, diplomacy, and international organizations, and put him in London.

He describes the teaching style as different from both Russian and Canadian schooling: lectures, seminars, and required reading, where the seminar exists to argue with what you have read — provided you can back the argument with evidence.

Roman came to SHKOLA at roughly B1–B2. His goal: tighten his grammar, build out school-level vocabulary, and get ready to apply to an international university.

Results:

• 4 months of lessons
• Confident B2 level
• Fluent speaking, solid grammar, and academic vocabulary

Teacher: MS Diana.