I am looking for some information about the United World College especially the one in Germany which offers the IB. If you are strong academically with a desire to study medicine at an Ivy league university, is it advisable to stay with A-levels? My daughter is very excited about applying to UWC, however I keep reading that they do not focus as much on academics? Can anyone advise?
Try looking in the Study Abroad subforum.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/study-abroad/1487603-uwc-applicants-year-2014-p1.html
@Zazu2015 - All UWCs offer the IB. My impression is that they are very highly regarded and students lucky enough to attend any of them tend to do well in college admissions.
Thus, for a strong student, attending a UWC might help with Ivy League undergraduate admissions, but I don’t believe it will have any direct effect on Ivy League medical school admissions. Remember, one cannot study medicine as an undergraduate in the USA.
My wife attended Atlantic College, and let me assure you these schools very much focus on academics. You essentially have to be in the 97th percentile or higher to even get in. Yes, they do require service hours, etc., but this is part of the educational environment.
Successfully completing the IB program at a UWC college – which includes making decent scores on the tests – will help your daughter get into a top college. One of her roommates failed to earn her IB degree but nevertheless gained admission to Wellesley. Apparently just attending a UWC school was enough.
The only way attending a UWC school in Germany might help with medical school admission is if your daughter became really fluent in German. Lots of technical and medical journals are written in German, and that’s said to be a good school to have in the science field.
@Zazu2015 - It is perfectly OK for you to contact the college placement advisors at the UWC that your child is thinking about, and enquire about university placement after completing the program there. They will be able to tell you whether or not their graduates get into the universities that your child is currently interested in.
Regarding German- with computer translations now available and so much is in English that is not useful.
Also, why is studying medicine at an Ivy the goal? Are you aware that in the US, most of the top med schools aren’t Ivies? Furthermore, that you don’t apply to med school straight out of high school?
Actually, that would be the reason to max out on the German. IIRC, one of the parents on the old 2013 thread had a D who learned German well enough to go to university there where you can study medicine as an initial degree.