<p>gonnastop:</p>
<p>Just believe in yourself! your results are going to be awesome! And by the way, aren’t a lot of schools are need blind? And schools do accept students who applied for FA without actually offering any money. I mean they don’t just turn people they really like like that. And you are definitely an outstanding applicant. I can tell. :)</p>
<p>Only Andover is need-blind this year…right???(but there’s much debate about whether A is really “blind”)</p>
<p>The sad thing is, if there’s a pretty good applicant(who’s …ummm let’s say…not as intelligent and nice as me, who doesn’t really show great initiative and intellectual curiosity) and he/she doesn’t apply for FA, it’s 99% more likely that he’s/she’s gonna get in, right???</p>
<p>Oh gosh I’m worrying too much…Is it common that people get stressed out one year before Mar.10th?</p>
<p>gonnastop:</p>
<p>Would you please share name of book about Chinese student who went to Andover and then Harvard? It would be interested in reading what he wrote in this book.</p>
<p>It would be great if someone can share a few zhongjie name and how much they charge. </p>
<p>Please post the link about Chinese students in US BS successful stories.</p>
<p>Which schools are Chinese students applying the most? and which one has higher acceptance rate for Chinese students?</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Amazon.cn???/???-??-???%5B/url”>Amazon.cn]???/???-??-???[/url</a>]</p>
<p>BostonMom, check this. </p>
<p>As for zhongjie, I have no idea. Just avoid choosing some bad ones which will very probably mislead you in the app process. (I don’t know which ones)</p>
<p>I do think that your child should be looking for the info him/herself. I’d like to help =P</p>
<p>^^^ Wow, it’s so weird to have Chinese characters all over your screen. I think I will learn them someday… How hard do you think it is for foreigners to learn Chinese?</p>
<p>Are there any “characters” on this page??</p>
<p>Easy Part:
Chinese grammar is like English, though there are some major differences.
There are no masculine or feminine forms. </p>
<p>Hard Part:
We have four tones and a slight change in the “tone” could completely change the meaning.
We have the “x”,“q”,“j”,etc pinyin which are super hard for English speakers.
We use characters, not letters.
We have “idioms” which regularly have 4 characters. It’s really hard if you want to learn advanced Chinese and go in-depth. </p>
<p>It’s hard, probably one of the hardest. For me, I wouldn’t have learnt Chinese that well if I hadn’t used it as my native language. (English is much easier I assume)</p>
<p>i think the fact that Chinese is not a derivative of Latin poses major challenges for people whose native language is English/Spanish/French, etc. It doesnt even use the alphabet!!</p>
<p>Haha gonnastop,
I actually think Chinese grammar is the hardest part (there aren’t really any rules/patterns you can learn and follow, it kind of all depends on “hmm…this sounds right”)</p>
<p>I will get the book to read it. No wonder I saw many Chinese like visitors on the Andower campus a couple months ago. </p>
<p>gonnastop, </p>
<p>Thank you for your offering for help. That’s great! You aren’t not applying this year, right? It seems to me you know many Chinese students who are in US BS now. Do they come from your school? I heard that it’s very hard to get in NFLS. I’d be interested in learning your school daily life.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What do you mean are there any characters here? If I understood correctly - yes, I can see Chinese characters instead of any boxes or other symbols.</p>
<p>Thanks, gonnastop. I might learn Chinese as it will be very helpful for my career despite the fact that it is very hard. As for “x”, “q”, they are also “kind of” used in my native language so, I don’t think pronunciation will be a problem. Yes, the tone and characters instead of letters is the hard part. I have once had Chinese lessons at my schools back in 6th grade and it was really hard. As far as I remember the tones were: ^, /, , - (i think you get what i mean) and it was frustrating to memorize the characters and the writing order of each line. Now all I remember are: Wo- I, Ni - you, ni hao - hi, wo men - we; i, ar, san, si - numbers, xixi - thanks, and few more words, :P</p>
<p>Oh waitt, I meant to say “Wow, it’s so weird to have chinese characters all over MY screen”</p>
<p>Back to Chinese - So, yeah, it seemed really hard just as you described. I am trying to decide between Chinese and French. What do you think?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I visited the link you posted.</p>
<p>Wow. I really can’t picture a lot of Chinese parents talking with AOs. </p>
<p>I know quite a few, but am not that familiar with them. You can PM me for more info. They don’t come from our school. Normally Nanjing kids are not rich haha. Most BS students are from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. </p>
<p>Eventually there’s someone interested in our school! LOL you just need to take a really stupid test. My life sucks for most of the time, especially this year(9tu grade). How on earth can we spend half a year preparing for ONE TEST?! I just have to. And I’m stuggling to finish my regular schoolwork while entertaining myself by reading, watching movies, etc. </p>
<p>Yes, I’m applying next year. (I won’t be on CC after Mar.10th,2011—I’ll be so sad after getting a dozen of rejection letters)</p>
<p>I’d like to help everyone though I usually can’t provide firsthand info.</p>
<p>Clover,
You got most of your words right! Congrats!
The order of the tone should be: - / ^
It’s my first time seeing people posting the “tones” online like this haha!!! Good job!</p>
<p>Chinese
1.5 billion native speakers and counting. China is playing a more important role nowadays politically and economically. There are really a lot of people doing business with China, the largest market.
But you won’t learn a language because of this, will you?
So the best part is all about getting familiar with East Asian cultures. As you may know, Japanese, North Korean and South Korean cultures ALL came from Chinese. The languages, clothes, architecture, customs, festivals… You will have a deeper and better understanding about Asia after learning Chinese. We have more than 5,000 years of history (which makes our history book really thick)!
You can come over here and experience the unique Chinese food(nothing like food in China Town), people, festivals, historic sites(most of them are super old), etc. You can learn taichi, yiching, cligraphy, traditional Chinese instruments and many, many more. </p>
<p>French
Widely used in Africa, some parts of Canada, France, and other parts of Europe. It’s similar to English/Spanish. So it’s much easier if you speak those languages compared with Chinese.
It’s known as the world’s most beautiful language, used in the olympics as an official language. It’ll be an advantage if you choose to work in Africa/the Olympics/France. It has the masculine/feminine forms. Pronunciations of letters never change. </p>
<p>That’s all I know about the two. You can ask more about Chinese and I’m willing to teach you(online) if you need help.
Anyways, my idea is that learning a language is all about culture. If you wish to understand literary works in a certain language, or talk to the local people directly, just go ahead and learn it! It’s not about “making you stand out” or anything like that. Follow your heart!</p>
<p>I don’t think these Chinese were talking to AOs. Maybe they heard about the school and wanted to visit the camp just like any Chinese come to Boston will visit Harvard. </p>
<p>I’ll PM later.</p>
<p>Haha I’ve visited Harvard! LOL I should have saved the money for BS…I was a naive 7th grader then. </p>
<p>I shouldn’t have spent so much money…sigh</p>
<p>Williams just turned need-aware towards int’l applicants.
Sad Sad</p>
<p>
Actually, for me, that’s the biggest reason to learn Chinese. Learning Chinese, I think, will be very beneficial for me as my possible majors are business, international relations and economics.
As for Asian culture - I am from Asia 
So, I pretty much know about Asian cultures. As there is a tendency to want to learn new things, I am more interested in cultures of other places. Also, I have visited China and I like Chinese food more than Korean or Japanese. Korean food is too spicy and Japanese is umm… different.
I am really interested in France and it’s culture. So, I don’t know. You said follow your heart, right? Well, my heart wants French and brain wants Chinese. However, I can’t decide basing on my wishes. As I have told you before, Chinese will be very useful for my career and probably everyday life too. Ughh, I don’t know… What about you? What language are you planning to learn if you go to boarding school? Thanks for your help, by the way! =D</p>
<p>check this [Will</a> Americans Really Learn Chinese? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Will Americans Really Learn Chinese? - The New York Times”>Will Americans Really Learn Chinese? - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Always Remember:
<p>So, I’d choose…French??? (IDK it’s your choice!)</p>
<p>As for me, I’m learning Spanish this summer no matter I got into BS or not. It’s my dream! I love soccer, latin-american literature and the Spanish language itself(every language, to be honest. They’re just amazing!). So my heart and mind both tell me to learn Spanish haha! I want to be a translator who introduces great books to China, so this is definitely the best option! And it becomes pretty handy if I can make it to American schools.</p>
<p>Hope it helps!
I’ll be glad if you choose either French or Chinese!</p>
<p>
as a much younger dinosaur, i recall reading that english is actually a germanic language, despite dawing some of its vocabulary from latin roots.</p>
<p>Jay is right. English is from the german branch of the West Indo-European language I believe. English was originally brought by the Anglo-saxons but it was heavily influenced by Norman French hence the Latin roots. I think this is right, I’m no expert.</p>
<p>gonnastop, I sent you a message.</p>