Update from the University Guidance Department February 2016

Offers from UK universities

Last term, our Year 13 students were busy completing their UK and USA university applications.
Applications to other anglophone destinations are ongoing (for example, most USA decisions will
come in at the start of April, most Canadian decisions from March to May, and Hong Kong
decisions from now until summer). I am delighted to report that our students have already won
some exciting conditional offers from UK universities, and we expect more to come in over the
next few months. We dont have space to list all of the offers received so far, but they include:
Kings College London (2 students)
Queen Mary, University of London (2)
S.O.A.S. (2)
U.C.L. (1)
University of Bath (4)
University of Birmingham (1)
University of Bristol (2)
University of Durham (1)
University of Exeter (3)
University of Edinburgh (4)
University of Leeds (4)
University of Manchester (1)
University of Oxford (1)
University of St. Andrews (2)
University of Surrey (2)
University of Warwick (3)
Congratulations to all students for their achievements so far, which are a credit to them and their
teachers.
BridgeU

This year we are trialling a university guidance online platform called BridgeU It has several
functions; the most useful one is its university matching module. Students enter their current IB
levels (and ACT/SAT scores for the USA) and their personal preferences (for example, degree
area, country, location and size of university, urban vs. campus, international student numbers,
selectivity). The platform then helps them to generate a list of reach, match and safe
choices. At the moment the platform covers universities in the UK and USA, and BridgeU plan to
phase in Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Singapore by June. Year 12 students now have
their own login details and can begin to explore their options. The platform is very intuitive, and
we hope that it will help our Year 12 students (along with the individual guidance that they will
receive) to have a well-researched university list by the end of the academic year.

Summer Courses

Summer courses can be an excellent way to:

Help you to decide which subject area really interests you

Gain experience of undergraduate-style study (for academic courses)
Gain experience of a subject area in advance of your university applications experience
that you can reflect in your personal statement (UK), college essays (USA) or statements
of intent (Canada, HK and others).
Develop wider personal skills (e.g. interaction, teamwork, organisation and management)

It is worth considering a summer course in the summer of Year 11 or 12. Please note that parents
should not feel under pressure on this front, but if you do not already have summer plans for the
family it is worth considering this option. It is also important to note that attendance at a summer
course does not automatically improve a students chance of university admission, but as
indicated above, it is a good way to develop skills and experiences.
There are many on offer, both in Hong Kong and overseas. Some academic courses are run by
university staff, whereas travel, charity and adventure courses are usually run by independent
companies. Often, academic courses combine both undergraduate-style study and social
activities.
The most useful academic courses are likely to be those offered directly by universities (as
opposed to independent companies using the name of a prestigious university). Look carefully at
who is actually running the course, and the staff who will actually do the teaching! Overseas
courses tend to be very expensive, so do your research to make sure it's worthwhile. There are
some great options here in Hong Kong!
This list will be updated as and when the Guidance Department receives details of new courses,
so please check back regularly. You can access the list here: http://orientation.fis.hk/summercourses-anglophone.html

Liberal Arts degrees

For many years, at the mention of Liberal Arts degrees, one would immediately think about
colleges in the USA. The U.S. higher education system has always valued a broad, holistic and
multidisciplinary degree structure. The idea of the Liberal Arts approach is that students should
be able to explore several disciplines in their first and second years at college before focusing on
a particular major. All students take initial core modules, so that even future scientists might
study core modules in philosophy, literature and foreign languages, and future historians might
study core modules in mathematics and science. This has always been at odds with the UK
model, which generally requires students to know, at the age of 17 or 18, exactly which degree
subject they will study for the next 3 or 4 yearsand they will study just that.
Interesting changes are now afoot in the UK. Feedback from employers to universities indicates
that employers are increasingly looking for flexible, creative problem-solvers who will be able to
apply their skills to the multitude of tasks demanded by current and future jobs. Many employers

feel that the Liberal Arts model produces these flexible thinkers better than the narrowly focused
UK model. Therefore, more and more UK universities, and also some anglophone universities in
Europe, are now offering excellent Liberal Arts degrees. This is definitely a growing area.
Universities currently offering such degrees include U.C.L, who offer an exciting but highly
selective BASc degree (Bachelor of Arts and Sciences), Durham, Birmingham, Kings College
London, Exeter, Surrey, The New College of the Humanities and Kent. Warwick have also just
launched their first Liberal Arts degree. We are already seeing increasing interest from our
students in these degrees, both in the International and French Streams. In many ways, they are
a great transition from the multidisciplinary nature of the IB and the French Baccalaureate.

University Rankings

With so much online information about universities available to students and families, as well as
opinions (often conflicting), its no surprise that many students and parents turn to the perceived
security of rankings as a major tool in the refining of the university list. One can easily become
obsessed with rankings, and caution is needed here. One ranking will weigh certain criteria more
heavily than another, and some of the criteria are in themselves questionable. For instance, most
rankings incorporate scores related to the number of research papers published by the
universitys staff and PhD students. While high scores in this regard may be laudable, it is
questionable whether this has any positive bearing on the actual experience of the
undergraduate student. In fact, one might argue the opposite that university staff focused on
publishing their own papers will be less focused on providing high-quality undergraduate
teaching.
Another point worth making is that, when one is looking at the more selective end of the scale (as
many of our students do), the difference between university number 10 and university number 12
will be minute, and certainly not a basis for making an application decisionand the positions
may well be the other way round the following year! It is far wiser to choose on the basis of
factors that will directly affect the students enjoyment and interest for instance location, size of
student body, style of teaching, campus vs. urban setting, and opportunities to connect with
employers. This last criterion is really important: there is evidence that employers are becoming
less obsessed with the name of the university attended, and much more interested in what the
student did at university apart from studying. Students who have completed internships and
professional experience while at university will be especially attractive.
If rankings are to be consulted, those giving individual subject rankings, rather than institutional
rankings, will be more useful, especially for single-subject degrees. Examples: the Guardian
rankings (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/may/25/guardian-university-guide-2016the-subject-tables) and the QS subject rankings (http://www.topuniversities.com/subjectrankings/2015). The Times Higher Education has just published a new-style ranking that is based
on employers opinions a relevant and interesting approach. It throws up some names one
would expect (Oxford, Cambridge, L.S.E, Imperial etc), but the universities of Manchester, St
Andrews, Bristol, Edinburgh, Nottingham and Leeds are also named as top preferences for UK
recruiters (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/news/best-uk-universities-chosenmajor-employers.)
D. Hammond