<p>Many thanks to the international students posting on this thread. Your experiences and insights are very interesting, and extremely helpful. I really didn’t have any idea that children were “sorted” at such a young age, and although I knew that there was a lot of drill and cramming, I didn’t understand the extent of the pressure that is applied to students.</p>
<p>Good luck to all of you on M10.</p>
<p>@082349: Raffles? Oh, God. It’s more like, if you went to the hospital, the parents and family of half the newborn girls there will be gathered around the babies, crooning “And she’s going to Raffles, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>Comic protrayal. But the mania, once you get down to it, is not so funny at all. By the way, has anybody here watched the Bollywood blockbuster “The 3 Idiots”? BEST MOVIE EVER, <em>AND</em> it deals with education. Hilarious, yet heart-rendingly insightful… truly, truly a must see. I cannot recommend it more highly.</p>
<p>In recent years, the elite boarding schools from UK have showed interest in Asia. Harrow has established boarding schools in Beijing, Bangkok and Hong Kong.</p>
<p>United World College South East Asia in Singapore has been very successful. ( Just that in Singapore, the strict rules do not allow local Singaporeans to enroll )</p>
<p>Woodstock School in India looks great too.</p>
<p>Looks like “the mountain is moving to Muhammad”…
[Prestigious</a> schools have plans in China |Society |chinadaily.com.cn](<a href=“China Daily Website - Connecting China Connecting the World”>Prestigious schools have plans in China |Society |chinadaily.com.cn)</p>
<p>@above:
However, these international schools do not have the same quality of education when compared to their “parent” schools.</p>
<p>That is the reason why many Asians are still heading west.</p>
<p>Cherry Rose, the movie The 3 Idiots is also my favourite movie. It seems hilarious but everything portrayed is so true.</p>
<p>@GMTplus7</p>
<p>Check out some of the schools in Australia. A lot of Japanese, Korean, Chinese HK, Chinese etc send their kids there to be educated in a similar timezone, and Western culture.</p>
<p>Some schools to look at by state (these are schools for boys - there are separate unrelated independent schools for girls)</p>
<p>Vic - Scotch College, Melbourne Grammar, Geelong Grammar
NSW - Sydney Grammar, Knox Grammar, Fort Street High
Qld - BBC, Brisbane Grammar, Ipswich Grammar</p>
<p>Most of these schools are boarder and day schools - parents have a choice. In terms of academics, sports, music etc they are equals to the Exeters, Andovers, Choates, and any other prep around.</p>
<p>@PrepSetter,<br>
Thx for the Aussie tips! </p>
<p>The intent of my original question was why the dearth of elite prep schools in Asian countries, since there is so much demand among Asian families for the product.</p>
<p>Hi, I was wondering the same but have registered my kids for Epsom College in Malaysia as their school in England has a great reputation for getting kids into US schools (i.e. Stanford and UCLA etc last year). It’s near KL and is 50 acres so the boys get all the sport they want.</p>
<p>An interesting read about trends in int’l admissions to prep schools:
<a href=“http://www.admission.org/data/files/gallery/ContentGallery/0312TrendsInAdmissionInternational72.pdf[/url]”>http://www.admission.org/data/files/gallery/ContentGallery/0312TrendsInAdmissionInternational72.pdf</a></p>
<p>Wow, more than half the applications submitted via the SSATB’s Standard Application Online (SAO) are from China alone!
</p>
<p>@GMTplus7:
There are definitely loads of elite boarding schools in Asia. Thus, a valid question is: Why don’t people from other continents compete to attend these schools like they do for American BSes (for example)? I personally believe this is so because these Asian boarding schools just haven’t garnered much repute in other continents.</p>
<p>It’s evident that there are loads of Asians who are perfectly content with finishing their academic careers in Asia. However, American boarding schools, for example, have gained traction in numerous Asian countries (e.g. China and South Korea)- and applying for American BSes have become a trend, almost. As I’ve resided in China my entire life, I have witnessed this firsthand. ONE SIXTEENTH of my grade alone applied for American BSes this year. ONE SIXTEENTH.</p>
<p>Why does this occur? Why don’t we just settle for elite Asian BSes? Shouldn’t Asian BSes stand out more to us Asians since they usually possess similar beliefs and rigorous curriculums? Frankly, I’m not sure-- but my personal theory is that numerous Asians-- although they’ll never admit it-- believe in the age-old concept that Western civilizations are superior. Don’t misunderstand me-- I’m not insinuating in any way that ALL Asians adopt this mindset-- however, it’s indisputable that many do. In China alone, numerous are abandoning local schools for international schools-- even though Shanghai’s local schools had the BEST (<a href=“http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/03/world/asia/pisa-education-study/”>Shanghai teens top international education ranking, OECD says - CNN) PISA results in the entire world. Why is this so again? Because international schools will allow these Asian students to obtain firm foundations in English. They believe Western civilizations induce prosperity. They believe the future is in Western countries. And what’s wrong with that mindset? Many incidents in history have proven this mindset to be correct. Western civilizations have dominated numerous Asian countries since the beginning of time, and their colonization often resulted in wealth for those they colonized. Another example can be: When the British left Singapore, Singapore fell into shambles. The British colonists meant security to the Singaporeans. Singapore was nothing until the British obtained sovereignty.</p>
<p>To answer your other question: Why don’t Asian patrons create their own elite BSes in Asia? They already have. I live in Shanghai, and there are many prestigious boarding schools near my house (prestigious in China, at least). And why aren’t these Asian elite BSes famous in other continents? Because, as I’ve stated before, loads of people subconsciously adopt this mentality that Western civilizations will offer more opportunities.</p>
<p>@boardingschoolx Haha, I chuckled at your 1/16. As far as I know, I’m the only one who applied to any boarding school, and we’re pretty close to a bunch of them. :)</p>
<p>@boardingschoolx,
</p>
<p>I believe the reason is something much, much more practical than culture worship; the reason is financial. In China, a lot of the wealthy are laying out an exit strategy:
<a href=“Hedging their bets”>Hedging their bets;
</p>
<p>Getting into a Western boarding school is also a strategy for bypassing the gaokao. Once the Chinese kids are in a Western boarding school, they will have a substantial advantage for getting admitted into Western universities. Then they get to skip the whole gaokao rat race for admission into Chinese universities.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your ONE SIXTEENTH number surprises me only in that I would have expected the fraction to be even higher. When we toured schools w GMTson2 last October, there was not a single admissions waiting room that didn’t have a family from China also waiting there.</p>
<p>I have been following closely the trends in int’l applicants, because my kids are in the int’l pool. The rise in the number of applicants from China is just STAGGERING. In this interview w Leo Mashall, Director of Admissions at Webb in California, he says 25% of its entire applicant pool is from China alone!!!<br>
<a href=“Testimonials | Vericant”>http://www.vericant.com/testimonials/</a></p>
<p>That means, whatever the overall admit rate is for Webb, if you are not an applicant from China, your chances are already improved by dividing the admit rate by 0.75:
25% Webb admit rate / 0.75 = 33% admit for non-Chinese nationals</p>
<p>When I was looking at U.S. east coast schools for GMTson2, I just automatically divided all the school admit rates by 0.8 to estimate how much better his chances might be (i.e. I assumed that 20% of the applicants were from China).</p>
<p>What really blows me away is that Webb is not even in the top 20 for most popular boarding schools for Chinese applicants, It is interesting that contrary to the lemming-like mania for Andover & Exeter among domestic applicants, those 2 big name schools have the same level of popularity as Webb for Chinese applicants.
<a href=“http://www.vericant.com/favorite-american-boarding-schools-with-chinese-students-fall-2013/”>http://www.vericant.com/favorite-american-boarding-schools-with-chinese-students-fall-2013/</a>
</p>
<p>This is why I am not impressed by boarding schools touting that their admit rates have gone to a record low this year-- most of the rise of applicants is probably attributable to China. </p>
<p>Until both GMTsons are done with college admissions, I will deliberately avoid taking an int’l job assignment in China.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The gaokao is indisputably very difficult, and can make/break one’s future in China-- however, I doubt that wanting to evade the gaokao is a major reason why the Chinese are applying to American BSes. Most Chinese students find the SSATs/SATs to be more formidable than the gaokao-- mostly because of the emphasis on the Verbal and Reading sections. Moreover, the admissions process at these boarding schools can also be VERY grueling. IMO, these Chinese students are applying to American BSes because-- as you’ve said-- they believe that attending American universities will provide them with more opportunities in the world market (in comparison to Chinese universities).</p>
<p>@boardingschoolx,</p>
<p>They’re not all applying to Andover:
<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?;
<p>@GMTplus7 Of course not! I was not insinuating that in any way.</p>
<p>Of course, it seems as if you are only considering China and other eastern countries as Asia (correct me if I am wrong). However, from what I have noticed, it is true that there are many international students, predominantly from China. However, there are no international students from India, and other Southeast Asian countries, only Indian-Americans. Is it perhaps because India already has it’s fair share of boarding schools (due to Britain’s rule), or is it just because the high achieving students from India have just not been acquainted with the American boarding school system, unlike the Chinese? Hmm…</p>
<p>There are plenty of int’l students from SE Asia. Plus, a lot of schools send their admissions officers to recruit in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. </p>
<p>The main reason is family-centered culture in those countries as someone mentioned above.</p>
<p>In S Korea, there are only two prep schools with boarding facilities that are focused solely on prep education for American colleges. It’s because the families would rather send their kids to US boarding schools directly. But along with China and Japan, it has many great international day schools where the kids aim at top US colleges. </p>