Graduates Reflect on University Offers | 耀中毕业生对于大学录取结果的思考

Earlier this month, Jonathan Mellen, YCIS Beijing's University Guidance Officer, sat down with three students from our graduating class to chat with them about their experiences with eLearning and their thoughts on graduating Secondary School in the time of COVID-19.

Sydney Lee, Amy Yin and Hyunju Ju have all received exceptional university offers and will be attending the prestigious Columbia University in New York, the University of Edinburgh, one of Scotland's ancient universities, and the top-ranked Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) respectively.

Amy, who has been at YCIS Beijing the longest out of her two classmates, began her journey as a Scorpion in 2007 as a K4 learner, whilst Sydney joined her in Year 8. Hyunju, on the other hand, became their classmate in Year 10, with 2020 being the last of her 4-year schooling career.

Reflecting on the Application Process 

The university application process was grueling for all three students and took several application submissions before they could decide on their final choices. Sydney applied to seven institutions, Hyunju to three and Amy to a whopping list of 13 universities. As a result, this process offered them opportunities to learn and challenges for the students. For Hyunju the limit to how much she could write on her personal statement was a hindrance "I needed to carefully choose some activities that would reflect on me the best" she said.

Amy who applied to both American and British universities found some of the entry exams to be the most challenging part. The exams were "unexpectedly hard because I was practicing using the past few years' papers, so I did not expect the level of difficulty in the paper that I had to take." said the soon to be Computer Science undergraduate student.

All students took the SAT assessment, designed for college admissions in the US, prepared personal statements and had recommendation letters provided to submit with their applications.

With the above challenges also came lessons, nevertheless. Amy advises that her successors decide early on what major they would like to pursue because that way they "can direct more efforts towards that particular major" something she found to be helpful. Her views were echoed by Hyunju who said this will help you "search for curriculums taught in different universities, which is one of the ways you can use to choose where to go". Sydney, on the contrary, believes that what matters is not choosing your major earlier, but knowing which direction one would like to follow can be help to be better prepared.

The Effects of eLearning

The spread of COVID-19 brought numerous changes to their academic life which included the method of teaching and learning. Online learning was introduced and saw many of our students, teachers and parents step up to the plate.Some senior students found it to be workable, although classes such as Science and Biology required a level of hands-on work. Overall, the transition to online learning provided the senior class with more time to focus on self-study and to complete assignments.

Another substantial change due to the virus was the cancellation of IBDP Exams, which was met with ambivalence from the students. This meant the preparations they had been making would not be tested as originally planned. "I felt disappointed because how could our IB scores be accurate if we do not take exams?" wondered Sydney, but Amy felt relief after finding out the exams would not be taking place, possibly the reaction of many other students around the world.

"We have had a great list of acceptances despite our small cohort" according to Mr Mellen.

The final list of university acceptances will follow once IB results are out, and they will be coming from China, Japan and Korea. 

Press play to watch Jonatha Mellen, YCIS-BJ UGO for an update on University Acceptances

https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?width=500&height=375&auto=0&vid=j0952nxtjvo  

Below are the universities our students have been accepted in:

• Columbia University 

• University of Edinburgh 

• University of Warwick 

• Hong Kong University  

• Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 

• University of Westminister, London 

• City University London 

• University of Leeds 

• King's College London 

• University of Liverpool 

• University of Bath 

• Newcastle University 

• Royal Holloway University

• Queen Mary University 

• University of Nottingham 

• Rochester Institute of Technology  

• University of British Columbia 

• Korean Advanced Institute of Science of Technology 

Although the spread of COVID-19 has meant cancellations of many important events in our graduating students' lives, we are happy to have some of them back on campus since Monday as schools reopened for senior students around Beijing.

本周早些时候，北京耀中大学升学顾问Jonathan Mellen先生与我们毕业班的三名中学生一起坐下来，聊了聊他们在在线学习方面的经历，以及他们对在新冠肺炎疫情期间毕业的想法。

Sydney Lee、Amy Yin和Hyunju Ju都收到了顶尖大学的录取通知书，将分别就读于著名的美国（纽约）哥伦比亚大学、苏格兰历史悠久的大学之一爱丁堡大学和顶尖的韩国科学技术院(KAIST)。

Amy相比于其他两位同学是在北京耀中学习时间最长的，她在2007年入学幼教部四岁班，开始了她的耀中之旅，而Sydney在8年级入学。Hyunju在10年级入学，2020年是她4年学校生涯的最后一年。

反思申请过程

申请大学的过程对这三位学生来说都是非常艰难的，在他们做出最终的选择之前，都提交了好几份申请。Sydney申请了7所大学，Hyunju申请了3所，而Amy申请了13所。因此，这一过程为学生们提供了学习的机会和挑战。对于Hyunju来说，个人陈述有一些困难，“我需要仔细选择一些对我最有利的活动。”她说。

Amy申请了美国和英国的大学，她发现一些入学考试是最具挑战性的部分。这位即将成为计算机科学专业本科生的学生说，考试“出乎意料地难，因为我在用过去几年的试卷练习，所以我没有预料到这次考试的难度。”

所有学生都参加了美国大学入学考试（SAT），都要准备个人陈述，并在提交申请时附上推荐信。

 当然，上述挑战也带来了教训。Amy建议，学弟学妹们应该尽早的决定自己想学什么专业，因为这样他们“就能朝着那个特定的专业付出更多努力”，她认为这很有帮助。她的观点得到了Hyunju的赞同，她说这将帮助你“搜索不同大学的课程，这是你选择去哪里的方法之一”。相反，Sydney认为，重要的不是更早地选择专业，而是知道自己想要选择哪个方向从而帮助你更好地做准备。

在线教学的影响

新冠肺炎的传播给他们的学习生活带来了许多变化，包括教学方法和学习方法。我们引进了在线学习，许多学生、老师和家长都参与了进来。虽然科学和生物这类课程，需要一定程度的动手操作， 但一些高年级学生认为这是可行的。总的来说，向在线学习的转变为高年级学生提供了更多的时间专注于自学和完成作业。

另一个由病毒引起的重大变化是IB考试的取消，这引起了学生们的矛盾心理。这意味着他们所复习的内容将不会按原计划进行考试。“我感到很失望，因为如果我们不参加考试，我们的IB成绩怎么可能是准确的呢?”Sydney想，但Amy得知考试不会举行后，感到如释重负，这可能是世界各地众多学生的普遍反应。

Mellen先生表示：“尽管我们的学生不多，但我们收到了大量的录取通知书。” 最终的录取结果将在IB成绩公布后公布，这些录取将来自中国、日本和韩国。

以下是录取我校毕业生的大学：

• 哥伦比亚大学

• 爱丁堡大学

• 华威大学

• 香港大学

• 香港科技大学

• 威斯敏斯特大学

• 伦敦大学城市学院

• 利兹大学

• 伦敦国王学院

• 利物浦大学

• 巴斯大学

• 纽卡斯尔大学

• 伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院

• 伦敦玛丽王后大学

• 诺丁汉大学

• 罗切斯特理工学院

• 不列颠哥伦比亚大学

• 韩国科学技术院

尽管新冠肺炎疫情意味着我们生活中的许多重要活动都被取消了，但我们都期待着他们中的一些人能于下星期一—北京学校高三年级的开学日重返校园。