Putting aside "perfectionism", how did this peaceful girl use the "snail spirit" to get a full score in the IB and be admitted to Oxford?

When the involution of education is upgraded and the competition for international further education is becoming increasingly fierce, it seems that creating oneself into a "perfect character" is the rule of clearance. In the following, the girl who scored a full score in the IB exam, became 1/179 in the world, and was admitted to Oxford, but after letting go of the "perfectionist" knot, she accepted her true self; And relying on the snail spirit accumulated day by day, I found a path to clear the level.

Wen 丨 Zhou Yingying Editor丨Jennifer

In this year's application season, Sherry, a girl who attended Shanghai Pinghe School in junior and senior high school, ended her high school life with a near-perfect answer.

A week after the interview, she flew across the ocean to study experimental psychology, the world's number one at Oxford University.

As an IB student, her results in this year's IB exam dived, and only 179 students around the world scored full marks, and only 4.27% of them scored more than 40 points, but she scored full marks in one fell swoop, which is really rare.

However, unlike many elite schools that try their best to show that they are effortless in achieving academic achievement, Sherry prefers to show his "imperfect" side.

She admits that her personality has a tendency to "perfectionism", self-demanding, and easy to feel anxious.

Especially in the IB curriculum, which focuses on all-round development and balanced liberal arts and sciences, her weakness in liberal arts and writing once did not dominate;

Similarly, at a time when the competition for prestigious schools is becoming more and more volatile, the rules of the game seem to favor those players with bright resumes and perfect activities and competitions...

However, when she let go of her "perfectionist" knot and tried to do what she was really interested in and show her true self at her own pace in her study life, it helped her usher in unexpected gains.

Sherry

Stumble upon the "light" of life

This season, the UK applied to 5 schools, 4 of which sent her offers, including Oxford, Edinburgh, King's College London, and LSE.

The moment I received an admission to Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, a dream that had traveled through Sherry's childhood finally became a reality.

In the application essay, Sherry revealed his connection with psychology.

Although she was born into a warm and loving family, in her childhood, she once had difficulty falling asleep due to unexplained fear. Helpless parents, led her to a counselor.

This was her first encounter with the profession of counselor. She still remembers the voice, tone and expression of the counselor on the other side. The other party did not regard his fear of falling asleep as a little fart child's nonsense, but very gently gave her some constructive advice from the child's point of view.

During that special period of childhood, the patience, empathy, and empathy of the counselor were like a light that shot into the heart.

Every child has probably encountered the question of "what kind of person do you want to be when you grow up", and since then, Sherry has an answer in his heart.

In middle school, when she decided to major in psychology as her future direction, she seemed to have an extra "treasure map" on hand than her peers - since she knew where the treasure was, what she had to do was to constantly explore the best way to hunt for treasure.

Sherry

In high school, because the school has not yet opened an IB psychology course, in order to accumulate his professionalism in this area and lay a good academic foundation, Sherry has made several efforts:

First, self-study the psychology AP course and "add meals" to yourself.

She taught herself an AP psychology course in her freshman year of high school, and went to take the exam, scoring a 5. This not only gave her a systematic understanding of various fields and branches of the discipline, but also made her more determined in her choice.

In the absence of IB psychology scores, using AP courses as a "meal" also helped her prove to overseas universities that she has academic potential in related majors.

Secondly, through competitions, summer schools and other opportunities, enrich their academic experience.

After the AP exam, she applied to Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Psychology Summer School (online), the former is a professional introductory summer school, which helped her consolidate the content of various branches of psychology; The latter gave her a deeper understanding of the subfield of biological psychology.

"Because both summer schools are directly taught by university professors, the biggest gain for me is that I can familiarize myself with the classroom model of Western universities in advance and lay a good foundation for professional learning at the university level."

In addition, she has also participated in some scientific research projects in psychology.

Pioneer Academics is an online research program for outstanding students in grades 10-11 of high school, and students who successfully apply have the opportunity to complete their own research tasks under the one-on-one guidance of professors from prestigious universities.

Sherry jumped at the chance to become interested in schizophrenia and paranoia while reading papers in the field of clinical psychology.

She felt that research in this area could be more detailed. "Existing scientific research, a lot of experiments, but also proposed treatments. However, few papers are concerned with the causes of different types of delusional disorder, what kind of pathogenesis, treatment differences, and effects. ”

So she came up with her own idea and designed a feasibility experiment. Although the process of checking information and writing papers was painful, it also laid a good scientific research foundation for her.

In the end, the foundation of interest, coupled with good academic skills, led her thesis to get an A in the highly valuable Pioneer Academics.

Accept your imperfections

In the dark, there is always a light for IB students. Staying up late to catch up with homework and writing papers is the norm for many IB students, so there are "IB purgatory" and "survive IB".

But Sherry said that he rarely stayed up late in the three years of high school, even when he was most nervous before the exam, he could maintain a good sleep and rest. "I usually go to bed around 11 p.m., and I basically don't stay up late."

Is it because of talent? Not really.

With the heavy IB curriculum and overwhelming application preparation, Sherry often and inevitably feels anxious.

As a graduate of the Class of 2023, her high school career coincided with the epidemic, and even for the entire semester, she had to take online classes from home. Away from familiar classrooms, unable to communicate with teachers and classmates, lack of face-to-face interpersonal interaction...

At that time, it was precisely when the study tasks were the heaviest - she had to review the final exam, she had to set the EE (extended paper) questions, and at the same time there was a thesis competition, a scientific research project...

What she can do is to constantly carry out inner construction, try to make various study arrangements, and follow the established rhythm, step by step.

1. Give up at the right time, make use of strengths and avoid weaknesses

For many students, how to choose courses in the six IB subjects and how to combine SL and HL levels is a headache.

Sherry said that he was thankful that before officially starting the IB program, the school offered a year of Pre IB study, as a transition, so that he had a general understanding of the content of the IB subjects, and also found out which subjects he was more interested in and better at.

Therefore, when choosing courses in her second year of high school, she chose science (mathematics, physics, biology) for all three HL subjects, while in the humanities subjects such as Chinese and English that she was not very good at, she chose SL, so as to maximize her strengths and avoid her weaknesses as much as possible.

But even so, there are times when there are detours.

In the first semester of her second year of high school, she also chose economics, which is a popular subject that many students will choose. However, after studying for a while, she found that her results in several monthly exams were not satisfactory, which hit her hard.

So, after tossing for half a semester, she decisively chose to give up, no longer fighting with herself, but changed to the course of environmental science, and quickly caught up.

She found that when recognizing her shortcomings in some aspects, not entanglement and internal friction is the best way to combat anxiety.

2. Do a good job of task management and prioritize

When time was tight and it was difficult to juggle, she set herself an important order - "internal curriculum> standardized exams> competitions > activities", and selectively gave up.

According to this order, the study and preparation of the IB course has become the part of her most energy.

In order to make time for essay writing in various subjects from the second semester of high school to the first semester of senior year, she will arrange her own competitions and activities "staggered".

On the other hand, her strategy on standardized exams is "long-termism", making good use of fragmented time rather than short-term raids.

For example, from the first TOEFL test in junior high school with 100 points to the last test to 115 points, the 15-point increase was completely raised by her using fragmented time, without delaying other learning tasks.

"With each exam, my listening, speaking, reading and writing have improved slightly. As a language, I think English can be accumulated continuously, so that it does not take up too much time and the review will not be stressful. ”

3. Do task disassembly and set deadlines

Sherry, who is not good at liberal arts, feels that the biggest challenge of IB is still that each subject has a large number of essay writing requirements. Even science subjects like biology and chemistry need to write experimental reports.

Not to mention the extended paper, based on a certain discipline, you need to find an original research problem and write a paper of three or four thousand words.

"Writing a thesis is a relatively large project, but it can be broken down into many small tasks such as determining research problems, collecting information, reading materials, and outlining them. Even the writing of each topic segment can be a small task. In this way, the psychological pressure will also be much less. ”

For each small task, she sets herself a deadline that must be completed, ensuring that she accumulates steps day by day, rather than staying up late to hug Buddha's feet.

4. To prepare for the IB exam, you can also brush the questions appropriately

What should I do if I can't raise marks in a subject that I'm not good at? Sherry's approach is to brush up on the questions appropriately.

IB literature, for example, was the subject that made her feel most anxious and overwhelmed. Her results, for a long time, have not been able to break through the bottleneck from 6 to 7 points.

Although she has no expectations of getting high scores, she is like a seemingly clumsy snail and does not give up looking for a way that suits her.

She found that text analysis of what the teacher was talking about in the classroom was important.

"The extracurricular reading time in high school is very tight, so you can maximize the use of classroom texts, follow the guidance of the teacher, taste the author's writing intentions and emotions, the expression effect you want to convey, what arguments are worth excavating, etc., you can improve your acumen and do more with half the effort in preparing for the exam."

After class, she will also find various analytical papers, just like science questions, to summarize different types of theses and sub-theses; In order to make the argument more substantial, she will also memorize some famous texts and compile a familiar database of exam preparation.

The effort pays off. In this year's exam, a text analysis question about "intention" was completely within the range she had prepared. Brushing the questions appropriately actually allowed her to get a full score of 7 in the subject she was least good at.

Looking back, what helped her score the IB full score and bring the application season to a successful end was to let go of the "perfectionist" knot and make the most suitable choice in her limited time and energy.

The days ahead, living with anxiety

Compared with the bumper harvest of the British application direction, Sherry's application results in the American direction are snubbed, and several top big U that applied for it were rejected.

In fact, she had this hunch before the application results came out.

"In the application materials, I was missing some extracurricular activities that reflected leadership; In terms of sports, music and other specialties, I also performed mediocre. She said that she is not a student with a strong personality, which does not fit the "well-rounded development" of the values of admissions officers at prestigious American schools.

At school, Sherry participated in only two niche clubs.

One of them is the Psychological Society. As president, she worked hard to overcome her introversion and designed a series of popular science lectures and academic courses to attract students who were also interested in psychology.

Psychological societies

The other is the Origami Society. Compared with common hobbies such as equestrian, fencing, MUN, and debate, hobbies such as origami are too low-key and even a little deserted.

Sherry's reason for choosing is also simple. She did not expect to win the favor of admissions officers by applying for weight for herself through club activities.

Since childhood, Sherry has loved origami, a hobby that can make her feel at peace inside. In junior high school, due to the increasing academic pressure, with the encouragement of the homeroom teacher, Sherry picked up this hobby again, until now.

Sherry's origami work

Also helping Sherry relieve her anxiety is kickboxing. This sport, she has been practicing since junior high school. Every time she finished fighting, she felt a complete relaxation in her body.

Origami, fighting, and two hobbies of still and moving became two important ways for Sherry to self-regulate and accompany her through those anxious times.

Boxing practice

Compared with tall activities and the full bloom of sound art and physical beauty, Sherry is more willing to spend some time and energy to lay a good academic foundation and improve in the professional direction he is interested in.

"Only by showing yourself truthfully will you go to a school that is truly suitable for you, not only academically competent, but also temperamentally consistent."

Now, being admitted to Oxford and being one of the world's top experimental psychology majors flatters Sherry.

She prefers to attribute this return that exceeded expectations to some kind of luck, which is inseparable from the support of parents, teachers and peers.

Whenever she is under academic pressure, she will chat with the teachers in the school and get a lot of encouragement and advice; She also likes to take a walk and chat with her classmates, and these little details of life often give her great comfort.

And the love of her parents is more like giving her anxiety a foundation. "In my elementary and junior high school years, they paid more attention to cultivating my study habits and had some academic requirements, but when they reached high school, they completely let go and trusted me very much."

In Sherry's memory, year after year, her mother prepared a delicious breakfast for herself every day, and her father insisted on driving her to school every day, these life-filled support were the warmest embrace in her heart.

Looking ahead to university life, she remembers a quote she heard at freshman camp, "Don't let Oxford be the most important label in your life." ”

Sherry attends the Oxford Freshman Summer Camp

Sherry agreed. "Oxford is a good place to start, but I don't feel like I can relax in the days ahead."

But she is mentally prepared to accept her imperfections and live with anxiety.

postscript

During the interview, Sherry has repeatedly revealed that whether it is a full score for IB or an Oxford offer, it is an unexpected surprise for her.

She didn't think about the outcome, just did "every little thing" that she thought she should do well.

At the same time, this goal-oriented girl has a rare "self-awareness": knowing what she wants and how to choose; Know enough about your strengths and weaknesses and be honest enough.

Her story also allows us to see that when everyone tries to package themselves as "perfect", accept themselves as they are, and do what they are really interested in, perhaps in order to break free from the inner roll and find their own direction and pace.

The road is far away, but the journey is coming.

*Photo courtesy of interviewee