Re: 面試表現更重要拔萃女小學戴何天美校長- Powered by Baby Kingdom!

Basically, the problems of the admission procedure of Oxbridge/Ivy league schools fall into these categories:
(I'll try to focus more on US because I don't know the UK system very well)

1) Sexism:
From a Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong, there were once reports quotinng from professors at Oxford that "while getting straight A's from a guy suggests intelligence, getting straight A's from a girl suggests hard work".

In another occasion, the president of Harvard claimed that women are incomparable to men in the science fields. That guy is called Lawrence Summers, not sure what happened to him in the end, btw.

I'm not sure how much effect it would have on admission, yet to some degrees, it certainly affects those who apply for fields like civil engineering/physics?

2) racism
There used to be "ratio quota" for different racial groups when you apply to US universities. Now it's optional for private schools to state your ethic backgrounds when you apply, provided that you're not asking for scholarships.

In some public univerisities in US, this rule is still maintained because the universities have to obtain funding from the government.

3) Discrimination against religion:
According some research, one factor that suggests the difference in SAT verbal scores among students with relatively similar school marks is the students' religion background. Students who are familiar with Christian terminology find it more comfortable to do reading comprehension, esp the articles that concern history (Medieval Crusades/Pope/18th,19th century literature that were written by religious authors). The difference, if I remember correctly, is about 30/40 marks out of a scale of 800.

4) Discrimination against students' place of birth
In the written exams, formal English is stressed, where colloquial languages are seen as incompetent.

5) Discrimination against students' family background:
If you wish to apply for private universities (if I remember correctly, including public universities for non-US applicants), you need to submit your tax form to prove that your family income is sufficient for you to study without having you to work part-time. Your parents' as well as your siblings' degrees/graduate degrees/ are being asked as well.....

All these are commonly seen as the inequalities in the academic realm... Yet, many school tries to alleviate the problems by offering scholarships to really talented applicants.

If you want a "sure-win" application, these are what you have to do:

1) try to enroll your children in a famous high school, meaning those that have a history of sending students to Ivy League and making sure that they'd graduate successfully.

2) try to go for summer camps offered to gifted children at universities (such as Duke/Harvard, etc)

3) try to get a volunteer position in some international associations (Unicef, Red Cross, etc)

4) get prizes in international contests (Olympiad...)

5) GOOD reference letters (those from alumni are especially preferred!)

BTW, a survey done by UBC medicine school (not so famous when compared to Ivy League) shows that roughly 85% of the students have at least ONE relative (father/mother/uncle) who are doctors, and 50% of students have both parents as doctors.....

hm.... what do you think? Fair? Not quite?

Still, I'd join the game... how I wish to have a son from Columbia law school/Harvard medical school/Princeton Institute for Advanced Study! :oops:

Seriously, I guess even if my son (imaginary) doesn't get in the most famous ones, joining the game is not a bad thing... Other than Harvard/Ivy League, we still have the UC's/Washington/McGill/LSE/UMich....

SO, my view regarding these admission procedure is: face reality; know what's really there/what they're really looking for before applying. After that, it's luck and chance. If accepted, be happy, yet simultaneously reminding myself that there're "dirty tricks." If not accepted, no worries. Being rejected doesn't mean that my son is worse than the day when we apply...

That's all!

教育王國