Adis_taiwan

Taipei American School was established in 1949 as an institution for the children of remaining American troops after WWII to attend. The school has an enormous scale, spanning from kindergarten all the way to high school. For its high school department, TAS is renowned for its abundance of both AP and IB courses, but other equally interesting electives like Honors Research: Synthetic Biology and Honors Quantum Mechanics and Relativity are also offered.

Some famous clubs in the school include MUN, Red Cross, Amnesty International, Speech and Debate, and Doctors Without Borders. TAS hosts numerous remarkable events such as senior lock-in, field day, teacher karaoke, and much more. TAS also yielded some pretty famous alumni like Wilber Pan.

Recently, TAS has been expanding its funding to the robotics and science research programs. A few years ago, the school constructed a colossal tech cube solely dedicated to technology-related courses and the FRC robotics team’s training. Even more recently, TAS significantly upgraded its synthetic biology lab by acquiring a wider variety of equipment and expanding the space in general.

Established in 1989, Kaohsiung American School(KAS) is a private, nonprofit, college-preparatory school with an American curriculum that provides education from pre-k to grade 12. Although the school provides both the AP courses and IB diploma, they are actually planning on canceling the AP system. Located in Zuoying, the school is famous for their modern building and well-equipped facility.

Out of all the clubs (there are many) in KAS, the Street art club is one of the most well-known one in the school. With around 30 students, they held events outside of the school and even collaborated with celebrities. Of course, all the profits made via the events will be donated to charities. Other than the Street art club, there are also clubs like Red Cross and Model United Nation.

As for the lunch provided in school, KAS is currently changing their chef, so students can anticipate better food quality in the school cafeteria. Students in the school are often under different meal plans and buy their meals through pre-bought card or 一卡通.
Having facilities include a swimming pool (not to mention, the level of the pool can be adjusted), GYM, and dancing studios that students can use after school, life in KAS looks pretty awesome.

Founded in 2007, the bilingual division of Fuhsing Private school is one of the famous international schools in Taipei. With 14 AP and 5 honor courses provided, students in Fuhsing have the opportunity to delve deeper into their academic interests. The academic performance in Fuhsing is also decently great, with 100% of high school graduates receiving college admission abroad and quite a few Ivy League admits in the class of 2020.

Students' life in Fuhsing is abundant. They could join numerous clubs such as TEDx, Robotics, and Girls Up. Club classes are held two times every week for students to focus on their passion. Besides club classes, Fuhsing also has its unique expeditionary courses which students are brought to the Yilan Campus for outdoor activities. Climbing the Snow Mountain, rowing Dragon Boats, and doing mountain services are also included in the expeditionary courses.

As Fushing’s bilingual division continues to provide students with great quality western education, there still remains some Chinese point of view. For example, the strict appearance rules forces male students to have haircuts once every month and female students to have their hair length above their shoulders. Fuhsing’s chairwoman is always seen to be wearing Chinese cheongsam. Chinese related courses such as calligraphy, and Chinese musical instruments are also required courses. Many science related subjects are also taught in Chinese.
With the excellent academic results of Fuhsiing’s students year by year, this school is likely to thrive and survive well among the international school market. If you’re a Fushing student, feel free to leave a comment below and tell us more about your school! Be excited for the next school!!!
@ 台北市私立復興實驗高級中學

Located in the small city of Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan boasts a campus so colossal that its students typically require GPS systems to navigate around the campus. It is home to 19 schools and colleges, including the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the Medical Center Complex, and its newest School of Nursing Building, a modern construction that houses some of the most state-of-the-art clinical learning technology in the nation. A unique feature offered by U Mich’s vast curriculum that typically goes unnoticed is the variety of linguistic options, such as Persian and Turkish, all of which are scarcely found in other American universities. Though U Mich does not impose a strict course requirement upon its freshmen, it does administer an introductory course that help facilitate the students’ transition to college. The bonding activities entailed by this course, like ice cream socials and DOG SLEDDING, emphasize how U Mich cares deeply about its students’ wellbeing despite being an academically rigorous school.

For students who yearn for a more thorough exploration of the nearby vicinity, carpooling with your friends to Detroit, the closest city to Ann Arbor, is quite a popular leisure activity among the student body. If you are a sports fan, you should totally pay a visit to a Detroit Pistons or Tigers game. Even inside the campus, athletics stands at the pinnacle of on-campus entertainment. Not only did U Mich single-handedly invent the notion of intramural (casual) sports but it also house’s one of the nation’s top football and Solar Race Car teams. The massive crowds drawn by these sports events demonstrate a very patriotic school spirit and create stronger identities for U Mich’s students.
@ University of Michigan

People often belittle the power of a good recommendation letter. It can not only help the admission officers to get to know you better, but also explains the academic achievement or slip-ups you have at school. So on that note, we are here to tell you that if you get a C in biology, it is okay to ask your bio teacher to write your rec-letter.

The most important part of a recommendation letter is your communication with the teacher. You can tell him or her what aspect of your personality you want to present in the letter, or even how you envisioned the letter(but be polite about it). If you only “ask” the teacher to write you a recommendation letter, he or she could write whatever they want and you would never know. So take the opportunity to meet them personally or draft them an email because at the end of the day, it is YOUR application and future.

For the rising senior, take your chance to reconsider the teacher that you chose and connect with them. Also, do not forget to show your appreciation. For freshmen and sophomores, have a good relationship with your teachers. This is crucial. It not only affects your GPA but also your opportunity for a great recommendation letter.

Good luck and keep up the good work.

This small-scale university in Rochester, New York has a finely structured and flexible course curriculum with no general graduation requirements. Courses are generally categorized into three clusters: arts and humanities, social sciences, and STEM. Students can designate one as their focus and complete three extra courses in each of the other two clusters. One of their outstanding freshmen programs is a series of Quest courses, where students will work intensely with faculty members on original projects via a Rochester-style liberal arts method. U of Rochester is also lauded for its optics programs at its Institute of Optics, America’s first educational center dedicated to optics research. Even more, if a student just absolutely falls in love with this school and a mere four years no longer suffices his/her hunger to learn more, U of Rochester shall answer with its Take Five Program, which allows its students to stay for a fifth year without demanding an extra tuition. During this time, the school can help refine a student’s resume and assist the students in exploring more diverse fields beyond their majors.

Like Rice, the lifestyle at U of Rochester is highly residential. Even though living in the university’s dorms is only required for freshmen and sophomores, over 90% of its students choose to stay for the remaining two years. This university may not be considered as a party school, but it still has a thriving social life prepared for its students. It is typical for students to chill at the beaches of Lake Ontario and even venture to Niagara Falls, which is only 70 miles away, during their holidays. Within the university, there are popular events like the Boar’s Head Dinner, a medieval-themed dinner banquet with a momentous “Reading of the Boar” ritual performed by celebrated humanities scholars the university typically invites. It is common for outsiders to misjudge the University of Rochester as a academically weak school, but with its flourishing curriculum and liberal arts education, the school is slowly debunking that misconception, so this school is definitely worth considering.

GPA is one of the only things that couldn’t be changed on your college application.

This fact worries a lot of students as they proceed to apply for their dreams school. It is true that GPA is important in a college application, but the trend of GPA is also a crucial part to look at. Let’s say that students A and B both have a cumulative GPA of 3.7. Although they look the same, the trend of GPA sets them apart. Student A has a GPA growth from 3.4 to 3.9 in 4 years, yet student B dropped from 3.9 to 3.4. The admission officers will not judge a student based solely on their cumulative GPA, they will take the trend and class difficulty(mentioned in last week’s post) into account. So do not think that you are doomed based on the cumulative GPA. Never thinks that you can loosen up your academics because of that. Think about how the admission officers will think if your GPA dropped from a 4.0 to a 3.7

Keep in mind that continuous effort to push and challenge yourself is what colleges are looking for.
For the rising seniors, keep up the great work and do not give in to senioritis.
For juniors, Sophomores, and freshmen, don’t give up on yourself because of that one grade, find your solution and keep that trend up.

Doing what you love in extracurricular activities is way more important than volunteering just because that will complete your “perfect formula”. Do not feel pressure to do something because you wanted to be a “well-rounded” student. The admission officers want to see the well-rounded YOU, not a template that you mold yourself into!

After reading thousands of applications, it is almost guaranteed that the admission officers would sense a passionate student’s application from a spurious one.
The two of the most important elements in every extracurricular activities:

Dedication

Putting time and effort into the thing you love to do and try to be extraordinary! Don’t “do it for the application”. Be consistent with the thing you love, no matter it is solving Rubik's Cube or bake!

Theme

This kind of connects with the last element, if you are interested in environmental issues, dedicate yourself to your community to help! It doesn’t mean that you have to give up your hobbies, but to make sure that your ECs don't look random and scattered.

All of the advice mentioned are very general and there are many exceptions out there. For example, someone could package themselves as a person who likes to try out everything and has a broad interest. So most importantly, don’t try to “make up” an activity just for the sake of doing it. Be genuine and your awesomeness will shine through.

Let us kick off the series with a school you are all very familiar with. Cornell University is part of the distinguished Ivy League and is dubbed the “Easy Ivy” for its relatively high admission rate among the Ivy schools. Even so, the school is quite academically intense. Over 4000 courses are offered across its eight undergraduate colleges. Although Cornell is renowned for its agriculture-related studies, its English program is also top-notch and yielded some of the most prolific writers today, such as Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut. Other than the Cornell Botanic Gardens, a popular feature of Cornell is its underground Carl A. Kroch Library, which builds up a serene, natural ambiance perfect for studying or hanging out.

Cornell’s location is a paradise for the nature-lovers out there as Cornell sits atop of a stunningly beautiful hill that is surrounded by trees and wildlife. Another gift bestowed by nature is the variety of activities and opportunities Cornell students have access to. For instance, there are state parks, ski slopes, and forests you can explore within the immediate vicinity of the school. Life in the college town may be monotonous as compared to that in Manhattan, but this also means that students and faculty members live much closer to each other, which can foster stronger relationships and valuable collaboration between you and your professors! So there you have it: Cornell, where you can read from the finest Fiske Icelandic Collection in an underground library and grab your snowboard to ski to your heart’s content on the exhilarating ski slopes once you get bored from reading all the literature! (Sources used: US News, Fiske College Guide, Cornell’s website)

➡️ follow for more college application/ international students related information

Those who study abroad are people who aren’t good enough — a phrase commonly heard by people who don’t understand us.

As mentioned earlier in the previous post about holistic admissions, colleges evaluate applicants holistically, treating every applicant as an unique individual. Different from the traditional eatern style of education, which stresses more on exams, western education focuses more on the comprehensive development of students. Having a killing score of SAT alone will definitely not be a ticket to Ivy League Schools. Similarly, a student who only has great extracurricular activities will also not be enough. The biggest difference and challenge we encounter is making ourselves well-rounded people, taking both academic performances and extracurricular activities into our accounts. Therefore, we actually have to focus on more different things when applying to colleges. Balancing between academics and extracurriculars is undeniably important. In this series, you will see more information about how people like us deal with college app and their stories of high school life that are worth a look.

➡️Stay tuned for more information and the next episode— Cornell

When searching for colleges, you should not get distracted by prestige alone. The most important part of the college application process is finding a good fit for you, somewhere with the ideal environment, people, curriculum that are perfectly compatible with your personality and preferences.
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“College Crash Course” will present to you a wide spectrum of American universities that range from the eminent Ivy League behemoths to the lesser-known yet equally remarkable small-scale liberal arts colleges. This way, you can acquire more convenient access to basic information about American universities that will unequivocally streamline your preliminary college search.

➡️Stay tuned! (If possible, this section will also feature colleges in Europe and Canada. It all depends on your precious feedback!)