Tag: international

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Yul ’20

Yul ’20

Hong Kong

The In-Person Visit

 

Brown

We met Yul while giving an admissions overview presentation in Hong Kong his freshman year. Starting early with The Short List helped Yul stay focused in his academics, extracurriculars, and summer programs. He joined a rock band that performed regularly at school and Hong Kong conventions. He auditioned and became one of three finalists out of 1,000 for a K-pop band. Yul also co-founded a student-led A Capella group.
We introduced Yul to New York University’s prestigious Clive Davis Institute Summer High School Program, where he explored producing music. Spending the summer in the USA gave Yul an opportunity to visit colleges.

Yul loved writing, performing, and producing, but his college visits showed him there were compelling business opportunities outside of music. We helped him reduce his college list and focus on schools that would allow him to pursue music and business. Yul’s Brown visit helped him articulate why their open curriculum and supportive community of musicians and entrepreneurs motivated him to apply.

Brown waitlisted Yul just as COVID put his school into remote learning. His counselor told him, “It is unlikely you will come off the waitlist, so we won’t be able to support you.” We told Yul’s family we believed otherwise and showed Yul how to appeal the waitlist decision. Brown eventually accepted Yul and gave him the option of starting online or postponing his entry until the following May when they hoped to resume in-person learning. Yul opted for the latter so he could continue producing his music during COVID’s most challenging year. His father wrote, “Thank you again for not giving up and encouraging Yul!  That made all the difference!”

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Yoong ’22

Yoong ’22

Hong Kong

The Online Audition

 

NYU

When we first met Yoong, he was already a member of Hong Kong’s Youth Arts Foundation and was regularly cast in their theater productions. He was the lead singer in a school Pop Rock band, actor in the annual 48-hour Film Festival, and dancer in the school’s K-pop dance group.

Yoong had previously attended Michigan’s world-renowned Interlocken Center for the Arts, where he was surprised to discover he was the only Asian student in their Summer Theater Program. Nonetheless, he joined the program with confidence, deciding to be “just like the other kids.” That earned him a small 16-second solo. We encouraged Yoong to return to Interlocken the following summer and be himself. During a dance rehearsal, he showcased his K-pop talents, and the directors cast him as one of the leads in Sweeney Todd.

Yoong was unable to return to the USA in 2021 due to COVID travel restrictions and missed the opportunity to visit colleges. We introduced him to online research tools to investigate programs that matched his interests. We coached him for his Zoom auditions, reminding him to continue being himself as he performed from his bedroom. We also encouraged Yoong to remain engaged at school and were delighted when he sent a video of a dance he choreographed for a holiday recital. We advised him to send it to the universities to which he was applying.

In the end, Yoong was accepted to NYU, USC, and UCLA, the three most prestigious theater programs in the country. He always dreamed of living in New York City, the theater capital of the world, and will be enrolling at NYU this fall.

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Ailbhe ‘21

Ailbhe ‘21

Hong Kong

The Relationship Builder

 

Scripps College

We started working with Ailbhe at the beginning of her junior year. Seeing how naturally shy and soft-spoken she was, The Short List encouraged her to seek out opportunities to pursue her concern for the environment while building her confidence. She took a leap of faith and volunteered to organize the interviews for a school-wide environmental sustainability project.

We felt it important that Ailbhe not lose momentum when COVID disrupted international travel during spring of her junior year. We helped her reimagine and deepen her extracurricular interests and showed her ways to continue building academic relationships remotely so her teacher recommenders would be able to write detailed and persuasive letters.

As the year progressed, we urged Ailbhe to dive deeper into colleges and programs that would best suit her academic interests. We introduced ways for her to connect meaningfully with admissions officers, professors, and current students despite her inability to visit campuses.

We helped Ailbhe craft a balanced list of schools and introduced her to the supportive dynamics of a few distinctive all-women colleges where she could continue to develop her self-confidence and powerful voice. By January 2021, she was ready to apply Early Decision II to Scripps College and was overjoyed when she received word in mid-February that she had been accepted. Ailbhe moved to Southern California last fall.

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Jason ’22

Jason ’22

Greece

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The Co-op Curriculum

Northeastern

Jason was a strong student who saw himself as an entrepreneur and business leader. He enjoyed problem-solving, even designing a solar scooter to lessen his commute to school. His love for experiential learning would influence his final college list.

Jason lost his childhood friend in a boating accident when he was 10 years old. Witnessing such a tragic accident had a huge impact on his life. At first, he struggled. His late friend’s family approached him to join Safe Water Sports to help raise awareness for water safety. He began with simple clerical work and assisted on various projects.

In high school, his brother introduced him to The Home Project, an organization that supported refugee minors. He couldn’t stop thinking of the refugees’ isolation when Greece went into COVID lockdown. He proposed a Zoom series co-hosted by Safe Water Sports and The Home Project. Jason felt he was the perfect person to introduce “safe water sports” to refugees who lost loved ones to the sea, having lost his own friend years earlier. He held his first one-hour Zoom meeting on Christmas Day 2020. As an experiential learner himself, he kept the refugees engaged with interactive games. The Ministry of Health learned about his efforts and cast him in a national PSA focused on the health of teenagers during the pandemic.

COVID prevented Jason from traveling to the USA for a college tour, but he knew he was looking for a business program with an emphasis on entrepreneurship. We researched schools with unique interactive curriculums that would satisfy his interests. In April 2022, as travel restrictions relaxed, his family was finally able to plan a college tour of his accepted schools. Jason knew before he arrived that Northeastern, with their global experiential co-op program, was his top choice. Visiting the school affirmed his decision, and he will move to Boston—popularly known as College Town, USA—this fall.

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Philip ’21

Philip ’21

Greece

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The Core Curriculum

Columbia University

Philip '21Philip approached The Short List as a sophomore wanting to discuss whether he should continue following the Greek national curriculum or move to an International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum for his final two years of high school. That was not the last time we would discuss curriculums with him.

The Greek refugee crisis dominated Philip’s high school years. He co-founded Make A Difference with some high school friends and organized a basketball fundraiser featuring a game between his basketball team and a refugee team. He liked being a leader and expressed an interest in touring USA colleges with strong business programs. We got him involved in test prep, believing top scores would open opportunities, and we helped map out a college tour that included a stop in New York City to visit Columbia.

On his return to Athens, Philip wanted to make a more lasting impact in the refugee crisis, so he joined The Home Project, an organization hiring math tutors to work with young refugees. The Short List also helped Philip explore organizing a summer math camp for refugees, but COVID prevented his plan from moving forward.

We began brainstorming alternative summer initiatives, including a webinar series, applying for a prestigious online research program, and securing an internship with a national bank. His thinking began to shift that summer as he explored COVID’s economic impact on the European Union while working on the research project.

That fall, Philip said he no longer wanted to focus on a narrow pre-professional business curriculum. He began seeing himself as a social scientist and decided to apply Early Decision to Columbia for their renowned economics program and Core curriculum.

We brainstormed responses to Columbia’s supplemental questions and encouraged him to share how writing his research paper and his direct experience with the refugee crisis had shaped his concern for humanity. Philip was thrilled when Columbia made him an offer in a year their acceptance rate dropped below 4% for the first time in the school’s history.

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Jack

Jack

New York

The Gap Year

University of Chicago

Jack
Jack was born in Australia, and his parents make their home in Hong Kong. He was home-schooled for several years and often joined his parents on their global travels. In a world of adults, Jack found his personal escape in books. Those books motivated him to become a storyteller.

Jack’s family enrolled him in a boarding school in England at the age of eight, where he learned to adjust from a world of all adults to one of only kids his age. Jack still loved stories, and by the time he got to high school, he was telling them through photography. His classmates began asking him to photograph their events. They often joked that, while Jack followed their moves on the football pitch, they followed his movements up and down the sidelines capturing them in action. After the games, Jack’s room would come alive with students eager to relive the game through his photos.

We met Jack in the spring of his junior year and began helping him plan a gap year. In late summer, Jack suddenly announced he wanted to apply to university now, instead of during his gap year. Jack hadn’t visited a school, taken a standardized test, or done any preparation to apply. We knew he—and we—needed to move quickly.
We helped Jack register for the SAT and lined him up with our test prep division. We then helped him research schools. He had a growing list with no demonstrated interest, so we recommended he plan some visits and helped Jack put together a college tour for the fall of his senior year. He fell in love with the University of Chicago and wanted to apply Early, but meeting the Early Decision deadline with the quality application we knew he needed was going to be difficult. Thankfully, UChicago has an Early Decision II deadline. It would still be binding but would give Jack six more weeks to prepare.

Jack worked hard on his essays and activity resume and secured recommendations from his teachers and counselor. We held our collective breath until we saw his SAT results were within range. Jack stayed focused and submitted his application before the deadline. In mid-February, we received an email confirming that Jack had been accepted, and will join Zoe at UChicago after his gap year.

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Wonjai

Wonjai

South Korea

The Social Scientist

Pomona College

Wonjai
We met Wonjai during his freshman year attending an international school in Seoul. Wonjai is an extremely bright young man who did exceptionally well in school. He had a near-perfect GPA and was a two-sport athlete, but found his greatest joy as an active member of Global Issues Network and Model United Nations.

Wonjai loved both classroom and experiential learning, so we encouraged him to explore summer programs in global politics. Prior to high school he enjoyed a three-week Global Issues Network program on the John Hopkins University campus. We recommended he spend part of sophomore summer at Georgetown University’s two-week summer MUN development program, followed by a Habitat for Humanity build in Cambodia, to continue broadening his worldview.

Wonjai entered his sophomore year understanding firsthand how economically divided the world is. He became more involved in both MUN and GIN, attending MUN conferences in Seoul, The Hague, and Beijing during his remaining high school years. He also organized an annual Habitat trip to Thailand. Junior summer he participated in a four-week social internship for low-income communities in the Boston area.

Junior year is often the most difficult year of high school, and Wonjai reached a point where his intense academic and extracurricular commitments threatened to overwhelm him. He decided to hit the pause button and give himself permission to dial back on his club commitments and take a more relaxed approach to his studies. The change worked for him. As Wonjai focused on learning rather than grades, a surprising thing happened—his grades actually went up.

Between his junior and senior years, Wonjai was accepted into Notre Dame’s selective GIN program, “Towards A Just Peace,” where he met equally passionate students. He also went on several college visits and had settled on an Early school, but we encouraged Wonjai to make one final trip to visit Pomona College in Claremont, California, before returning to Seoul. By the end of the visit, Wonjai’s entire college outlook changed. He discovered a diverse international community focused on the liberal arts and learning. He walked off the campus knowing it was the school for him.

We were equally excited but knew he had an uphill battle. It had been years since Pomona had accepted a student from his high school. Wonjai was fearless and determined, so we worked with him to tell his story through his application and leverage the support of his teachers and counselor. In December we received an email from Wonjai with the subject line, “AMAZING NEWS!!!,” followed by, “Forgive the all-caps, I figured the occasion warranted it!” We couldn’t have agreed more.


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Tucker

Tucker

Japan

The Multidisciplinarian

Tufts University

Tucker
Some people are born performers. Tucker is one of them. His mother is Japanese and his father American. They raised Tucker and his older brother in both Japan and the States. Both boys were young musical prodigies. We worked with Tucker’s older brother, now a student at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, when he was attending an international school in Japan. Tucker attended the same high school in Tokyo but transferred to a boarding school in Massachusetts after freshman year.

Tucker is known throughout his school as an actor, singer, and musician. He has played the violin since he was four and composed music for as long as he can remember. He has been a member of numerous jazz bands, orchestras, and a capella groups and has played the lead in countless school productions. Whether it’s Grease, Spamalot, or Hairspray, Tucker’s classmates expect to see him front and center.

Tucker’s world off stage is very different. He is an unassuming, quiet student who cares deeply about the world around him. He spent six weeks prior to 10th grade in a language immersion program in Spain, and half of sophomore year as the only Western student at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. Tucker attends school in rural Massachusetts where environmental protection defines the area. He is the president of his school’s Environmental Action Club and helped write the school’s environmental policies. This combination of music, culture, and environment has come to define his goals.

Tucker longed to find a way to combine his interests in a meaningful way. He knew of schools with strong environmental science or music programs, or even cultural or international programs, but longed to find one that combined all three. Tucker visited many schools, but always came back less than enthusiastic. He would rave about aspects of the school but never about the whole school. The Short List refused to give up on helping him find a school that could offer everything he was seeking.

One weekend, Tucker was visiting his brother in Boston, and we encouraged him to visit Tufts, a school renowned for its international focus, strong musical partnerships, and environmental programs. Tucker discovered a world where he could pursue environmental studies in close collaboration with professors and classmates, audition for a dual degree with the New England Conservatory of Music, and even design and teach his own course in the Experimental College, affectionately known as the ExCollege. Tucker took the holidays to consider his options and eagerly applied Early Decision II.

Tucker found a way to communicate his background and interests in one of the best-written essays we had ever read. He communicated the same in his supplement essays, always viewing them as a way to express himself. He eagerly hit the submit button. Six weeks later he sent a text that simply said, “I got in!”


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Summer

Summer

China

Multiple Applications

Princeton

Client: Summer

The Short List started working with Summer after she had been denied by most of the schools to which she had applied. We had worked with several of Summer’s classmates who recommended she speak to us before deciding between acceptance to a U.S. school that did not excite her, school in the U.K., or a gap year before applying again.

Summer was a top student who should have had more choices. It soon became clear that her application materials were a key part of the problem: There was no theme to them. Her essays were not very well thought out and she did not highlight the things that we felt would have made her stand out.

We helped Summer plan a gap year to deal with her loss and find a new purpose. Summer had gone through a very difficult year. In addition to applying to college, she was completing the final year of her IB diploma program. While challenging, this workload should have been manageable for someone with Summer’s academic record. We pressed for more information and finally learned that her father had passed away during the previous year. We asked if she really felt ready for college. It was as though a watershed had opened; someone had finally given Summer permission to deal with her loss.

We helped Summer plan a gap year to deal with her loss and find a new purpose.

She spent the first months after graduation at home with her mother as both adjusted to life without her father. While home, she learned that she had scored a perfect 45 on her IB final exams, something that only 1% of students worldwide achieve. She then signed up for an art history course in Italy and was awarded a two-month marine conservation internship in Madagascar for December and January. From February on, she stayed in Beijing with extended family and took an intensive language course.

Summer had started running as a coping mechanism and, as she built her endurance, decided to run the New York City marathon, registering with the American Stroke Association to honor her father. She spent several weeks prior to the race in the U.S., and we encouraged her to use the time to visit schools. She wrote essays that revealed her strengths in meaningful ways and sent her early application to Princeton only once she was fully satisfied with it. Days later she found herself at the start line of the marathon. Summer shared that she met other families who had lost loved ones and thought about her father throughout the race: “This year is bittersweet; wonderful developments are happening in my life but I can’t share them with my dad. I know that wherever my dad is now, he is looking down on me with pride.” Six weeks later, Summer learned that she had been accepted to Princeton.


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Souhail

Souhail

Lebanon

The Coach

Villanova

Client: Souhail

Souhail is Lebanese and was a junior in high school in Beirut when he was referred to The Short List. He was hoping to earn a degree in engineering from a U.S. college, so his parents engaged The Short List to help guide their son through the admissions process. We started by trying to uncover what made Souhail special.

The more Souhail shared with us, the more we could see that he loved soccer. He had been playing since he was a little boy and was now the captain of his high school team. But his leadership extended well beyond his school team. He organized his teammates to build a soccer field for boys at a local refugee camp and was able to obtain donated soccer balls for their practices and games. The boys were not accustomed to being organized or disciplined, and had little trust for anyone outside the camp. over the next 18 months, Souhail and his friends organized regular practices, helped the boys build their skill level, and arranged games. Slowly, Souhail gained the boys’ trust and saw changes in them that most people would not have dreamed possible.

One day, Souhail and his teammates showed up for a practice only to find the refugee camp abandoned. The boys had been taken away the day before, and Souhail was given no further information on where they had gone. He was devastated because he had bonded with many of the boys and worried about their future. The experience changed his life, and Souhail wanted to find a way to continue community outreach in college. Souhail’s family dissuaded him from applying to binding Early Decision programs because he had not been able to visit many schools. They asked The Short List to come up with a list. We looked for schools with strong engineering programs, as well as strong outreach programs. Souhail was accepted to several schools but chose Villanova, a Catholic school outside Philadelphia, for its Top 10 engineering program and its reputation for having one of the most community service-oriented student bodies in the United States.