Location/Person:
• Gender: Female
• Ethnicity: Caucasian
• Country: Finland
• Native language: Finnish
• Current School: All the schools are public in Finland. D is in a selective accelerated math and science program, on the 8th grade
• Grade Applying For: 10th grade in the fall of 2020. D wants to graduate from Finnish 9-year primary school in the summer of 2020.
• Age: 14
• Financial Aid/Full Pay: Full pay.
Stats:
• GPA: 9.91 out of 10.00 (5 is a passing mark, 9 is an honors mark)
• Rank: School doesn’t rank, but probably in top 3 out of 150
• Standardized tests: we don’t do these in Finland
• SSAT: Not available in Finland, but possible to do in London, UK (1000 miles from Helsinki airport)
• SAT: This can be done in Finland, but especially reading/writing tests are hard for an 8th grader who isn’t a native English speaker.
• TOEFL: I hope D will score 80 points out of 120. She has studied English for 6 years now and the mark is 10 out of 10. Attended a 3-week language school in the US last summer and will attend a similar one in Canada next summer.
• Studies also Swedish and German as foreign languages.
Recommendations:
• Recommendations are not a part of the culture in Finland, but surely the teachers can send what’s needed. D gets very positive feedback from teachers.
• Math teacher is very impressed by D. The recommendation will be enthusiastic.
• English teacher will give a good/excellent recommendation
• Guidance counselor / principal will give a good/excellent recommendation.
Awards
• State champion in math competion for 7th graders (there are no nationals for 7th graders).
• National finalist (top 20) in 9th graders’ math competition as a 7th grader.
• National finalist (top 20) in 9th graders’ math competition as an 8th grader. The final will be in January 2019.
Interviews:
• There are no interviews when we apply to schools in Finland. It’s obviously hard to make an impression in English. D has a year to practice interviews, but will not be on the same level as the best US students.
Sports:
• 8 years of gymnastics, 20-23 hours per week + competitions and training camps
o 2016: national champion in level E (A is the lowest level)
o 2 years in pre-national team training group
o Had to give up gymnastics because of overuse injuries
• After gymnastics 1 year of competitive cheerleading (8 hours per week).
Other Extracurriculars
• Coaching little gymnasts once a week
• Studying to be a gymnastics judge (must be 15 years old before actually judging in competitions)
• Girl scouts
• German club in school.
D’s idea is to study in a US boarding school for a year. After that we’ll re-evaluate and D maybe continues until graduation or comes back to Finland and starts the secondary education here. In Finland she will be admitted to any senior high, because GPA (and maybe a math test for some programs) is all that matters.
Long term goal is to graduate from a college in the US or UK.
The most important thing in a boarding school is to learn English in an ESL or ELL program. I think mainstream English classes are too difficult to start with, but after the first semester D will be fine in standard English classes.
We’d also like the school to have a strong math and computer science programs. A math team would be great.
An outdoor adventure program instead of (ball) sports would be optimal.
An ideal boarding school would have a high percentage of boarders, be non-denominational and not be in a very hot location like Florida or Arizona. Also a town or a city near the school would be nice.
What do you recommend, where should my D apply to and why? Thanks in advance.