In this way, many parents of international schools are considering applying for American high schools for their children.
In their opinion, Meigao is a shortcut, able to bypass the increasingly volatile U.S. applications in China and grab half of the favored position of Ivy League schools by landing in the United States in advance.
This time I visited Boston's top beauty and high school, and found that this was not the case at all.
On my first day in Boston, I met a Chinese mother and gave me a school choice lesson.
01
This Boston mom has lived in the United States for many years, has two young children, the eldest is studying Cornell, and the younger is now in high school.
The goal must also be to go to the Ivy League school, and she shared her precise plan with me.
At the beginning of his studies, he was the feeder school in Exeter, and the top boarding boys' school, Fessenden, paved the way, and chose to play in golf.
I was a little surprised and asked this mother why she chose golf for the boy? Because I know that many Shunyi mothers take their daughters to practice golf, in order to enter the top American reserves, because the junior group competition pool is small, relatively easy to produce results, if the competition can rank in the top 100 in the United States, the probability of lying in Stanford...
But boys playing golf are fiercely competitive, because there are many people who play and they have to fight for talent, and it is very difficult to come up with results.
Boston Mom nodded and said that it is indeed as you said, it is difficult to get results.
So why choose this path for children? I asked her very puzzled.
She smiled slightly, it was because the top boarding schools did not have golf courses.
What is the logic of this?
Boston mom said, you know, sports come up with grades mainly for long hours. Everyone has similar talents, and they are not professional players like Tiger Woods, who spend more time on the court and win.
There is no court in the top high school, and the children who are studying lack the ability to compete. If you want to practice golf, you can only find a venue outside the school to practice, which means that you can only choose to go to school.
Of course, TOP boarding high schools can apply for day school, but each school has a different ratio. A large proportion of boarders will affect the extracurricular programmes of day students.
For example, Middlesex boards 70%, so school schedules and calendars are scheduled at the time available to boarders.
For example, after 12 noon on Wednesday, if you do not attend class to participate in the sports sixteen school league competition, the time on Saturday morning is fixed, and you can make up for half a day's class.
Usually, various clubs activities for students are arranged after dinner at six or seven o'clock, and there are team activities on weekends.
If 30% of day students want to participate in these activities, they usually have to go home after eight o'clock, and it is also time-consuming to travel to and from school, which is not good for sports students, where is there time to practice sports?
However, if the proportion of day students exceeds 70%, the activities arranged by the school for boarding are only weekends and weekdays for self-study, because it is necessary to ensure that day students go home after three or four o'clock.
Therefore, she chose a large percentage of high schools for her children, so that they could practice golf every day and play with other top American high schools (the venue limit TOP American high school chose golf students are few), and it was easy to get results.
Meigao will definitely be able to choose the captain in the last year, and he will be able to become the armed of the child leadship.
Hearing this, I was amazed, Boston mom engaged in education is definitely not inferior to Haidian parents:
Not only the characteristics of the top beauty and high schools, but also fully grasp the advantages and disadvantages of children, clear thinking on the strategy of further education, with golf as a stepping stone, in the seemingly roadless beauty and high involution, stunned is to reclaim a road to climb the vine...
02
For the shrewd Boston mom, there is a logic in this: it is better to make a chicken head than a phoenix tail.
She said that her child's junior high school, read the feeder school known as the first American high Exeter, there is never a shortage of cow and baby families, but someone who gets an offer from Exeter may not go, because think clearly, choosing a school is ultimately to fight for college, although the high school ranking is good, but can you send your child to an Ivy League school?
Although about 20% of Ivy League school admissions are accepted every year, there are excellent children everywhere.
No matter how many school resources there are, it is impossible to focus on one person, and if you want to get it, you can only rely on your own skills, kill the siege, and achieve the top in a certain field.
But that's easier said than done!
For example, as we all know, the Ivy League story must be to show your leadship, which actually has many ways, be a leader in the club, be the captain of the sports project...
But in comprehensive universities, such as Andover, which has more than 1,400 people, high-energy players gather: if you want to engage in sports, you can't fight the specially recruited sports talents; I want to run a school newspaper, and I find that this track has long been crowded.
Andover has more than 300 clubs alone, and as long as you find a tutor, you can start a group. It is to open a new map and become the king yourself, and there is a leadship story to tell when applying for the United States.
Even so, in Harvard Yale's feed school, only 20-30% of students can get Ivy League offers every year, and 70% of children become companions after having enough of life's hardships.
Are they not good enough? Definitely not. Andover's acceptance rate is even lower than Harvard's.
However, the density of excellent is too great, and excellent has become a mediocrity.
Instead of getting involved in doubting life in such a school, it is really better to retreat to the second place, rise to the top in a slightly weaker school, and enjoy the blessing of the resources that are thrown at you...
Moreover, even if the resources are not TOP, the GPA is at the top of the school and has a chance to get an offer from an Vine League.
Before a child told me that her reading results in China were too poor, and her parents struggled to read a book, and she was sent directly to an American community school, and a good school could not be applied.
What kind of family is rolling, and the wording "either rich or expensive" is to underestimate the strength of others.
I can't get in, so I can only enter a bad school casually, and mathematics is simply weak! The little foundation she saved in the domestic public sector can directly crush her classmates without learning much. The GPA grade ranked one of the best, and finally applied to the top beauty book...
Angry with a large number of parents in China, carefully planned and struggled for ten years, it is better to step on the point accurately...
Again, choice is more important than effort. Climbing the vine is very rolly, but there is not only one path to success, unless you are really super confident in your abilities.
The Chinese child I met at Andour is one such existence.
Before going abroad, I had been studying at a public international school in Beijing, but chatting with her did not tell that she had only studied in Mei High School for one year——
The course selection focuses on the direction of science, the club is engaged in humanities and social sciences, sports love athletics and cycling, artistic specialties can sing and write songs, and the music club alone has signed up for 8...
Q: Is it stressful for her to be busy like this in Meigao? She said that she does everything she loves and never feels tired! And I enjoy it because I'm a very curious person.
From the top American high school to the Ivy League school are such a baby, bitterly studying and relying on grades to enter the super middle school, what capital do you have to fight with others?
03
Boston mom also instructed me that the ED application is very important, but many parents do not understand it.
The top and best children failed to climb the vine and fell out of the school outside the 30th place, according to her observation, the ED stage was not done well.
Too many parents and children can't understand that the desire for Hayeps is too strong, so they treat ED as a trial and error opportunity, and want to gamble on luck -
Start applying from Harvard, and there is a high probability of failure, because there are many competitors, and you may not be lucky enough to get out of the siege;
Then retreat to the second, choose your own level school when you apply again, but I don't know that the competition that fell from the Harvard pool is still fierce...
So defeat after defeat, and finally take an offer to read.
On the contrary, those children who have long thought clearly about their goals and do not bend their waists for the reputation of Daiteng, ED chooses target schools that match their strength, such as the top twenty Ivy League schools, successfully avoided the top high-density student competition, and finally was recorded...
Therefore, climbing the vine to read the high school must also have a clear idea, the Ivy League school may not be all the top cow babies, but behind every offer, there must be a wise Boston mother.
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