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Dulwich College leads the way in SAT preparation

January 20, 2009, Tuesday | Print Edition

IN recognizing the increasing number of international students who are looking toward the United States for their university studies, Dulwich College Shanghai has recently become a SAT testing center and offers a 12-month SAT preparation course for its students.

This may come as a surprise to some, since Dulwich is a British school.

This year Dulwich College added Year 13, so for the first time it will have students graduating with the view of attending university. As Dulwich College has a significant number of students from the United States, the college applied for and was accepted as a SAT testing center.

SAT test is strictly controlled in China and students are only allowed to sit the exam at the school they attend. If the school is not an authorized SAT testing center, students must travel abroad. With only a limited number of testing dates per year, this can add pressure as most dates are during the school term.

Britt Jones, SAT and college counsellor at Dulwich College Shanghai, says it is a very intense exam. "It is four hours long, covering a range of areas, for example, math, reading and grammar. Traveling to another country, organizing a visa and sitting the exam in an unfamiliar environment can add pressure to students. The benefit of sitting the exam in an environment the student is familiar with makes him/her more comfortable, more rested, both of which help contribute to a good exam result."

For people not from the United States, the university entrance process is something of a mystery. Essentially, if a student wants to attend a university in the United States, they will need to take the SAT exam. University entrance in the United States does not solely depend on the result of a student's final school grades as is mainly the case in Australia and the United Kingdom. It is a combination of the SAT result, the student's school record up to their final year and their extracurricular activities.

The SAT exam is also increasingly being used by universities in Singapore and South Korea as an entrance measure for students educated outside of their respective countries.

As SAT results are an important component of a university application, Jones suggests that students should not wait until just before applications are due to sit the exam.

"A student can sit the exam numerous times, so I advise students to give themselves enough time to re-sit the exam two or three times. It is an unknown entity to them but the more familiar they are with the style of the exam the better their chances of success.

"At Dulwich I also run a SAT preparation program for our Year-12 students. It runs for two periods a week throughout the year and covers test strategies, content review, grammar work/essay writing, maths review and critical reading."

The course is designed to minimize a student's anxiety and fully prepare them for sitting the exam. "It is such an important exam in their schooling life that it is crucial they have the necessary tools to help them do well," Jones says.

Obviously in the United States, students have access to many external companies that offer SAT preparation courses. But in China this isn't the case. "In keeping with the Dulwich College philosophy of striving for excellence, we introduced the SAT preparation course for our students which they can do as part of their normal school study," he adds.

The counselling assists students in how to choose a university/college, matches students to universities and helps them with their university applications.

"Every country, every university has a different system and this can be confusing to parents and students. Due to the international nature of our student population we have a number of students applying to universities in multiple countries. This year about one third of our final year students are tentatively planning to apply to the US as one of their options and next year we expect it to increase to about 50 percent. With Dulwich offering the IB Diploma Program and the ability to sit the SAT exam, it definitely opens up the students' university career options," Jones says.

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