<p>My mom phoned my aunt in china. Apparently, my aunt told my mom that there were 10 students in a middle school in Harbin, China who got into Harvard and such high caliber schools. Most of them received scholarships. WTH? Middle school??? Wouldn't this make headlines?</p>
<p>Wait, I'm sorry. They were high school students. NEVERMIND. Still, it makes me feel insignificant how smart the Chinese are nowadays.</p>
<p>All kinds of people in this world</p>
<p>The average IQ in China is only about 5 points higher. It’s mostly the fact that their schools are better.</p>
<p>“It’s mostly the fact that their schools are better.”</p>
<p>And the students study more, and their society values educational achievement more than U.S. society does in general.</p>
<p>^ That’s exactly what I have heard from my Chinese roommate. (She also thinks it’s funny that I have time to watch movies at night as a grad school-bound math major.)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that the Chinese educational system is better than the American one, but it is certainly much more competitive. To get into a top university you have to attend a top high school. To pass the high school entrance exams, you need to attend a good middle school. To get into the better middle schools you need to pass entrance exams in elementary school. And to get into the better elementary schools, you better attend a prep pre-school.</p>
<p>For those who are wondering about the confusion, here’s why:</p>
<p>In Chinese, the literal translations are a little different:</p>
<p>Middle School = tsu zhong (literally: entry middle)
High School = gao zhong (literally: high middle)
College = da shue (literally: big school)</p>
<p>But aren’t there some prep schools in the US also that send more than 10 kids to Harvard each year?</p>
<p>Don’t forget the simple percentages. China has more honors students than we have students (or so I’ve heard.) Person for person, I don’t think they’d be any more or less intelligent than Americans.</p>
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<p>I thought Harvard and other similar-caliber schools didn’t offer merit based money. Though I do suppose there’s the possibility of a third party scholarship.</p>
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<p>For some reason, I find offense in this statement.</p>
<p>As if these particular Chinese students shouldn’t be as smart as they are or something revolving around this effect.</p>
<p>harvard does not give scholarships.</p>
<p>When we’re looking at middle school to Harvard, what the average is doesn’t matter. None of these kids are in any way average.</p>
<p>^
They’re high school students. Notice the OP’s edit.</p>
<p>what kind of HSers?</p>
<p>forgive my scepticism, but I seriously doubt that Harvard would allow someone with limited English, likely very limited living skills, and who is not yet fully mature come to one of the toughest universities in the world, in a foreign country.</p>
<p>that’s just asking for a meltdown, and possibly a tragedy, to happen.</p>
<p>“They’re high school students. Notice the OP’s edit.”</p>
<p>So there is some high school which sends 10 kids a year to Harvard… That’s not remotely shocking… Hell, I bet there’s another out there which sends 10 kids a year to MIT. I bet there’s another which sends 15 a year to Yale.</p>
<p>They didn’t ALL go to Harvard. Some of them went to other schools. This was a really high caliber high school, and this particular class was apparently exceptionally smart.</p>
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<p>how would that not be shocking? Are you aware of how many international students those kinds of colleges accept every year? In addition, are you aware of how big the world is?</p>
<p>^It’s shocking when you find out that it’s the school you go to, or when you have some sort of connection to this school. When you find out that there is just some school out there like this, it’s not shocking at all.</p>
<p>^ I think that given the sheer number of acceptances from that one school makes it shocking. These are the very best colleges in the world, and they have no particular reason to accept just one student, let alone 10. They got so many students to choose from, I find it hard to believe.</p>
<p>I don’t find this weird at all. I went to a public American HS and at least 5-7 students get accepted to Harvard each year, and many people go to top 20 colleges - if I went to a private prep school, there would probably be way more. If this is like the Chinese version of a pricy New England prep school then it’s not too weird. Kids from those schools are practically bred to go to ivies. There are many prep schools in America where half the student body ends up at top 10 schools.</p>
<p>^ Actually, if we are talking about international schools/elite prep schools than then this is not as shocking. My friend attended HS in Palo Alto and he said that a HUGE chunk of kids were accepted into Standford, I think he said around 20+ every year! Same with international schools, the kids there speak English better than I do, and not only that, but they are fluent in their native languages as well. Those kids are insanely smart, so even if they don;t end up at HYPS et al, they probably at a top 30 with ease!</p>
<p>Isn’t Standford a small village in England?</p>
<p>Haha JK, just giving you a hard time. It’s somewhat of a pet peeve of mine, though.</p>