<p>Hi guys,
I'm a highschool students in Viet Nam ( has anybody heard of my country?) and I'm intening to go to study at a prepschool in the US.
Unfortunately, I'm not quite familiar with the way you guys apply to prepschool and I hope I could receive some help from you.</p>
<p>Here are a few things that make me confused:
-What is some specific information that an international student should look for while applying to US prepschool?
- What is the decent TOEFL and SAT score that could help me to gain admission and receive financial aid from a good prepschool? ( say Tenschools- I must be in reverie, but why not give it a try)
- Any prepschool suggestions? I prefer schools in either Massachusetts or Connecticut.
-What are some special fields that some schools focus on? (Taft, Hocthkiss, Loomis, Deerfield or Williston Northampton)
- For you who are in prep school, are there any international students from Asia in your school? Are the well-treated?</p>
<p>Thanks a bunch guys, and by the way, I'm planning to attent grade 11th</p>
<p>There are a number of students from Asian countries that attend Williston, although I couldn't say that I know of any who come from Viet Nam specifically. Still, since it isn't a huge school and there are a fair number of students from Asia, I think that it speaks well for the school's ability to incorporate and encourage students from very different cultures and vast distances, which is one of the things you would want to know about the schools you apply to.</p>
<p>Some other things to consider: proximity to an airport, or shuttles provided to and from at vacation time; provisions made for students during vacations if they can't get home because of distance; English as a Second Language programs (IS English your second language?); early orientations for international students.</p>
<p>And, as Runefx said, if you give us some more particulars about your academic record and particular interests we could make some more helpful suggestions about specific schools to consider.</p>
<p>I'm an educational consultant and I work with Asian families applying for boarding schools. I can give you a little bit of information that you might not find anywhere.</p>
<p>Boarding schools have limited visas and also try to keep the % of students from any one country to a certain low number, like 5%. For example, Williston has room for 1 Korean boy and 1 Korean girl in 9th grade and they will receive about 200 applications for those spots. That is a very tiny acceptance rate! There aren't as many applicants from Vietnam, but there are still a lot, so the acceptance rates are much lower for Asian students. My advice to you is that if you really want to come to the US apply to a few schools which are not as selective in admissions. It also helps to apply to schools outside of the Mass-CT area, since this is most popular with international students. ANd finally, be sure to visit the campus in person rather than doing a phone interview.</p>
<p>If you come to the US for visits, apply to a diversity of schools, you will probably get accepted somewhere. Good luck!</p>
<p>thank you guys a lot for providing me such useful information.
At the moment, I am waiting for schools to send their information packages and I do consider applying schools outside the Mass-CT area.
Have you taken the PSAT or SAT? since I only have 4 months to prepare for either one of these, what exam should I take?
@Olivia: thank you so much for telling me about this girl-Hanh. I emailed her and she gave me some good advice and even informed me about the schools' recruitment plans in Vietnam ( I don't know if I use the right words). Taft and Loomis will come to VN this November to recruit students, so I'd better prepare for the TOEFL also, cuz Hanh said that would be a big advantage.</p>
<p>gal<em>from</em>VN: Just so you know...I read this thread backwards and just now came across the references to Viet Nam. And until I saw that, I assumed from your excellent English and choice of words that VN must be shorthand for Vancouver, Canada -- meaning I thought you were a native English speaker (or writer). Wow.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Have you taken the PSAT or SAT? since I only have 4 months to prepare for either one of these, what exam should I take?
[/quote]
The PSAT is easier than the SAT. It's shorter, there's no essay (which I assume would be better for an international student), and I'm pretty sure that less people take it (so I think it should have a better curve).</p>
<p>
[quote]
The PSAT is easier than the SAT. It's shorter, there's no essay (which I assume would be better for an international student), and I'm pretty sure that less people take it (so I think it should have a better curve).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, typically younger students take the PSAT than the SAT, but the percentiles are against a large enough of a population that the curve is very normalized.</p>
<p>And there are charts to convert the scores between the two tests, so for most students, it doesn't make any difference which test they take.</p>
<p>However, with a student who English is a second language, the points lost for not having as large of an English vocabulary MIGHT not be as bad on the PSAT as it doesn't measure as high of a level of vocabulary. </p>
<p>I would go online to get a better idea of the composition of both tests to see if there is a significant format difference that might be to your advantage. You should be able to find information as to the general makeup of the numbers and types of questions on each test.</p>
<p>I would bet though that there isn't much difference, except that the PSAT probably won't have as challenging of language structures in the questions... probably to your advantage though.</p>
<p>I saw an article on Yahoo yesterday about SAT preparation and they had some sample questions (in an online test format) that the college board put out there. I took the test myself (got perfect score, but I have a degree from a top tier university), but even I had to re-read many of the questions twice before completely being confident in my understanding. I found the sentence structures they use in their problems very complex and intentionally difficult to follow. I'm not sure if the PSAT is less complex in its language structure, but if it is, it might be more to your advantage than the average native English speaker.</p>
<p>gal<em>from</em>VN:
If you can, buy a PSAT practice test book and a SAT practice book and try out some of the practice tests. You may find that you prefer and score much better on the SAT than the PSAT or vice versa. I have found that I do much better on the SAT than the PSAT because you can get more questions wrong on the SAT and still get a decent score, while since the PSAT is much shorter, you can not get that many wrong to get a good score.</p>
<p>Well, I'm preparing for the SAT, but people are like crazy about taking the SAT in Vietnam. All the seats for the SAT test in October have been registered (in less than 2 weeks!!!). I think I will have to take the SAT in November or December. If the deadline is in 15th Jan, should I take it in December? I'm really confused right now, 'cuz some students said that the Nov test is more difficult than Oct one. Besides, the majority of test takers is the 12th graders, they all got like a year to study for the test, and I only have about 4 months, so...(sigh).
By the way, do you know what is the decent SAT score that could help me gain admission and receive the financial aid?</p>
<p>Also,can you suggest some good schools outside the Mass-CT area, 'cuz I'm having difficulties finding ones. >.<</p>
<p>gal from Vietnam -- I have been following this board for more than a year now, and one of the topics that has been discussed is financial aid for international students. According to what I have read, it is very difficult to receive financial aid if you are an international. However, I do not know this from personal experience -- only from what I have read on this board. You might contact some of the schools you are interested in and ask them if they offer financial aid to international students, and if so approximately what percent. This will give an idea of what your chances are. </p>
<p>There are many good schools outside of MA-CT. Take a look at Mercersburg, St. Andrews, the Hill, and Lake Forrest Academy. There are many more. Look at some of the schools in California. </p>
<p>I think it would be better to take the SAT in November. Are you certain that your schools require the SAT rather than the SSAT?</p>
<p>The Kiski School is a private boys boarding school located in Pennsylvania.
Here is the website. They do not have that much English requirement. There are a lot Korea boys there. I think you can find some schools for girl somewhere.
<a href="http://www.kiski.org%5B/url%5D">www.kiski.org</a></p>
<p>A good source of preliminary information is BoardingSchoolReview.com</p>
<p>I have used it myself, and recommended it to others. You can access information about many (though not all) American boarding schools. You can search by state, region, type of school (eg., all-girls) and diversity of student body. It's a decent place to start your search, although you will want to take what you learn there and do some further research.</p>
<p>Just apply like a regular student. I"m vietnamese (first generation, although I was born here) too. lol it's not rare to see an asian student, especially since I live in California... but it depends on the school. Contact admisions department or a counselor. They will help you.</p>
<p>-What is some specific information that an international student should look for while applying to US prepschool? Look for low teacher/student ratios and a high percentage of graduates who went to college.
- What is the decent TOEFL and SAT score that could help me to gain admission and receive financial aid from a good prepschool? ( say Tenschools- I must be in reverie, but why not give it a try) You should try to be in the 90th percentile or higher.
- Any prepschool suggestions? I prefer schools in either Massachusetts or Connecticut. Andover, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, and Choate are all really good schools.
-What are some special fields that some schools focus on? (Taft, Hocthkiss, Loomis, Deerfield or Williston Northampton) Schools mostly focus on distinctiveness. Whatever you have a passion for, let them know and make yourself seem distinctive (different from other applicants).</p>
<p>When I read the viewbooks of schools, I see that they always encourage students to vist the schools, unfortunately, I'm not able to go to the US and visit the schools, is this a disadvantage?</p>
<p>I'm sure your situation is not uncommon for international applicants. The schools probably have a standard way of dealing with it, like phone interviews or meetings with local alumni. Some schools might actually have a school representative travel to your country to interview students there (I know that happens for Korean applicants since there are so many Korean students applying to US schools). In any case, I would just contact the schools you are interested in and explain the situation.</p>
<p>I think the biggest disadvantage will be that you won't be able to see the campuses, students, faculty, etc., for yourself. You can get a much better idea of what it would be like to go to a certain school by actually visiting. But it isn't necessary and, as I say, I'm sure international applicants make their decisions that way all the time.</p>