How to stand out from a competitive crowd
Print Edition
When we start the college or university search process at Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong, we begin by talking to students about the worldwide global opportunities. Every year there seems to be more diverse, more global, more interdisciplinary and overall more enticing options than ever before. So how do we help students boil this down into post-secondary research and our school’s limit of applying to 10 universities?
One of the first discussions we have with students is to consider when they felt they were truly in the “flow.” We explain “flow” as the mental state in which a person is engaged in an activity where they are fully immersed with a feeling of energized focus, involvement and success in the process of an activity. We emphasize that while courses in university can prepare one for employment, if that is all you focus on during your three-to-five years of attendance then you are missing out on the wider opportunities to truly develop.
Secondly, as we further explore their personal and academic values, we talk to students about what they want to study and what problems they want to solve. We want them to see their post-secondary years as a means to engage in the world not simply as it is, but as it could be. At Dulwich we find we have as many students pursuing pre-professional degrees in business, medicine and engineering, and just as many interested in sustainability, international development, the liberal arts and humanities.
Location of their university for access to their family and support network, as well as future living and work visas, is equally important.
We are planning for the next three-to-five years of study and also for the next three-to-six years of post-tertiary life.
This is often a new parameter for students to think about. As the importance of internships and relevant work experience have increased during university study, so has the value of being able to access those same networks once a student graduates and wants to enter employment.
Finally, we remind students that they remain in the driver’s seat of this decision.
We are fortunate to receive over 250 university admission representatives a year from all over the world to whom our students can ask questions and learn what academic and extracurricular opportunities there are on campus.
Ways to stand out among your competitors?
Young people from China make up the largest number of international students worldwide. So how does a student stand out from other applicants in this competitive arena amongst the many young people who are academically eligible? University representatives unanimously report, “We’re looking for students who are curious about the world around them. We like students who ask the questions other students don’t ask. We’re looking for the innovators — the students who take things as they are and make something new out of them.”
So much of students’ time is spent in front of adults and in school and structured activities that it is sometimes difficult for them to switch off the dutiful part of them and turn on the creative part. At Dulwich we start this process of self-assessment and awareness through a university counselling lens as early as Year 7 (11 years old).
It takes time to cultivate the initiative, intellectual curiosity, independence and innovativeness that will be the foundation for life outside the classroom, but by Year 12, the activities that remain on their busy schedules are the ones to highlight in a university application.
I have been continually impressed with the way that Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong has supported students with an emphasis, not just on academics but, on staying involved in all activities through their graduation.
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