@DrGoogle More or less correct. Predicted means that since the exams are not conducted until much later, a predetermined set of results, which is calculated by the school, is sent to colleges. These forecast what our performance will be like during the actual examinations. If a student’s actual grade falls below the predicted grade, then universities will know that either the student slacked off, or the school was being far too lenient, either of which COULD result in a rescind. I say could, because it does not always happen.
@DarkEclipse Why do I need to research on the A level? It’s irrelevant. International students and domestic students applying to UCB are competitive. Both international students and domestic students applying to US colleges don’t have final grades and HS diploma in early spring. Their acceptances are subjected to grade verification.
Besides, having grade A in A level classes, in US AP classes, or grade 7 in IB diploma does not guarantee admittance to UCB. Also it does not mean UCB only accept A level students. There are several international students who don’t go to IGCSE A level schools and they are accepted to UCB or Harvard. I was an international student myself and I am familiar with college admission for international students both in the past and now. Most students from my former country who are accepted to UCB or other selective US colleges attend public schools. They are mostly poor and don’t have money to attend private British international schools that follow IGCSE curriculum. On the side notes, I think students who have resources to attend private international HS might be expected to have higher performance by UCB and other US colleges.
I’m going to have to disagree with your point about variation over the years between classes. Though in your experience some classes may be stronger than others, I believe that when you expand your scope to the nation it ends up being about the same every year. The only difference is that the standard is raised due to the ever growing class sizes.
However, I do agree that colleges keep it as vague as possible so they have wiggle room as required.
Remember when I said:
Of course you don’t. That’s because you ignored it.
I have never said this. Stop jumping to conclusions.
You don’t say?
No it’s not.
I used the A levels as an EXAMPLE. I will not quote where I said this, because you can look for it yourself, because I am tired of you overlooking everything I’m writing. I have NEVER said that A levels are the only way into UCB or Harvard.
IGCSE is something completely unrelated to the A levels. See, this is why I told you to read up. You’re throwing random terms without knowing anything. Also, what about UK? Hong Kong? Sri Lanka? Singapore? They NEED the A levels for high school graduation. A levels are NOT exclusive to the British international system, they have their own variants/versions in different countries.
I don’t think schools keep admission criteria as vague as possible at all. The most competitive schools want to weed out the perfect student whose major focus in high school was to graduate looking like the perfect student to get into college. They want students engaged in the learning process rather than engaged in carefully crafting an image or application they (or their parents) think will make them attractive to the most competitive schools. Have you ever been in a class filled with the perfect students who spent high school crafting an image? Deadly. These students have few academic interests besides chasing A’s cause they don’t know anything else. They may be just as bright as those that spent high school learning but they are often vapid. And they can achieve A’s in competitive schools but that isn’t what the competitive schools are all about.
The most competitive schools don’t want that perfect A student who has no intellectual interest. The crafted student can sit through a fascinating talk and at the end, only have the question “Will this be on the test?” They had prep from the cradle to 12th grade. They are passive and could not entertain themselves if given a weekend not structured by mommy and daddy. Well, maybe they could but it would involve shopping or partying. They are passive recipients (often with strong feelings of entitlement, something formed while they were being crafted), something that makes things worse) rather than active engaged students. Given the chance to have a private hour with Neil deGrasse Tyson or an hour with a personal shopper at Nordstroms, guess which they’d choose. “Who? Nah, that’s not what I’m majoring in”.
How is the difference between a genuine student and a crafted student captured by a rigid application process with specified stats? If it were, the carefully crafted student would purchase that mould. {Add stated interest in “Neil deGrasse Tyson”.} The point is, they want to weed out that perfectly crafted student. A class would be far more interesting if filled with students with 500 SATs and B’s then 780 SATs, A’s and interest only in grades. Naturally the most competitive schools are not choosing between the B student or the crafted A student. They have to find a way to sieve through their A pile and find the genuine article. If the criteria were spelled out, the crafted student would adopt it to a “T” and then what?
@lostaccount
So let me get this straight: smart kids are inauthentic drones, and mediocre kids are genuine?
Because the OP is not a US resident I will add this: US universities are primarily for US residents. Consider what would happen to US schools if nothing but scores were counted. Here is a quote from an Atlanta article “There are over 160 cities in China with a population over one million people. In the United States, there are nine.” Students from China alone would overwhelm every US college. We don’t want that! China should think about ways to improve their ability to educate their own students. That is true for many other countries now exporting its college age population. It isn’t a matter of foreign students being better than US students and therefore more likely to get in but the schere number of students at every achievement level would simply be overwhelming. Most US schools get a major portion of their funding from tax payers. Even the increased tuition for foreigners doesn’t cover the actual costs so US residents are footing the bill. More importantly, the major goal of US schools is to…guess what…educate US residents. Yeah, I know this is not PC speak.
Post #64, I’m afraid I know too many kids that got accepted to top schools that were grade and ECs grabbers, not in the least bit interesting. I’m afraid you painted a very lopsided picture of kids who were not accepted to top schools.
Can we please move past this now?
@DarkEclipse wrote:
No. It’s related. IGCSE prepares students for A Levels or IB Diploma. Many British international schools program offer both IGCSE and A Levels or ICGSE and IB.
http://www.igcsecentre.com/what-is-igcse/
Take a look a some schools that follow ICSGE + A Levels/IB path in Hong Kong:
http://guides.wsj.com/hong-kong/guide-to-hong-kong/education/
Look. You quoted two sources about admisson requirements: UIUC and UCB. But none of your quotes is correct.
One source does not exist. And you changed the wording of another source to a different meaning and put in a quote.
That does not give much credit and it is considered as plarigism.
Besides the above ethics, you should calm down to clearly present your arguments instead of shouting and telling other stop doing this, stop doing that. You assume too much about what you know and other people know.
Regardless, I don’t see anything showting that UCB is more straightforward than other colleges (your main point).
@woogzmama
If a “prospective romantic partner” picks “the scruffy guy who makes her pay for his beers over a respectable young investment banker,” it is usually rooted in psychology. The former might have more “game” than the latter.
@coolweather Following your advice, I am calming down.
First, IGCSE is stated as preparatory for the A levels, but it is not. Anyone can take the A levels without studying the IGCSE. A levels are simply started off at the 11th grade. Both are offered in conjunction with each other because it makes the system more ‘linear’. My first point.
Second, it is not compulsory for IGCSE students to proceed ONLY to the A levels or the IB. They can proceed to any 11th grade curriculum in the world. Speaking from experience.
I did not. I only quoted one line, which you followed by quoting the previous four lines which have nothing to do with the main point. If you do doubt me, feel free to email UCB admissions. This is something I am absolutely sure about.
I have already addressed this, so forgive me if I don’t repeat it again.
The discussion’s getting a bit heated and personal, but I’d just like to add my two cents as an international who’s applying to both UK and US universities and is familiar with both systems.
I think there’s a general consensus amongst internationals that the UK system is definitely more straightforward and transparent. As far as I know, every university posts the grades they expect for every course (e.g. Biological sciences at UCL requires 3 As at A-levels, including one from biology and one from chem/math/physics). They also post the equivalent standard for many different international education systems. In this way, it’s much easier for students to see the academic standard they need for the course/uni they’re applying to.
Take the top two unis, Oxbridge, for an example. Oxbridge has (in my opinion) one of the fairest application systems in the world. You submit an application, and they select a certain percentage for an interview (in person or via skype). The interview is with a professor of the course you’re applying to, who brings you through a tutorial, essentially giving you a question and seeing you work your way through it. For sciences, it might be an advanced question that requires further application of A-level science knowledge. For humanities, it might be a very multi-faceted question. The emphasis is on seeing how you think and reason. There’s no penalty for asking for help or tips, especially if you’re able to use those tips to come up with a good answer. Essentially, they’re looking for someone who is truly intellectually curious and teachable - the same thing every university is looking for. But an interview with a professor is much harder to cheat your way through as compared to the requirements of the US system, which many people find unethical ways to give themselves an edge (e.g. hiring people to write essays, faking academic transcripts, etc.)
Obviously this system would take far more resources for US colleges to adopt, and Oxbridge does have less applicants than top US colleges, but in comparison you can see how internationals often find the UK system more transparent.
Another issue is due to the fact that there are just too many qualified applicants. It’s basic demand and supply - when demand outweighs supply so much (assuming supply is completely inelastic), the colleges have the right to pick and choose who they want. I’d like to think they pick and choose the best and most deserving students regardless of background, but 1) that’s very difficult to do, especially without an academic interview as described above, and 2) frankly, they don’t have to. It’s completely within their rights to favour certain groups of people.
But when you’re a high school student who’s been working hard your whole life, who is truly passionate about certain fields which you want to study and who hopes to pursue these interests at some of the best colleges in the US, but you get told that because you’re an international from Asia looking to major in a STEM field, you have a much lower chance - it hurts, and it feels unfair. It’s not a sense of entitlement, except maybe entitlement to an equal opportunity so preached by US colleges.
US colleges have all the right to pick and choose, and disadvantage or advantage certain groups - but when they do so while simultaneously saying that they are unbiased and pick truly the most deserving applicants, they lose their transparency and end with with many applicants who feel somewhat lied to.
@aznraffe slowly claps
Good job. I completely agree with you.
Cambridge receives ~17 000 applications and Oxford ~18 000.
“But when you’re a high school student who’s been working hard your whole life, who is truly passionate about certain fields which you want to study and who hopes to pursue these interests at some of the best colleges in the US, but you get told that because you’re an international from Asia looking to major in a STEM field, you have a much lower chance - it hurts, and it feels unfair. It’s not a sense of entitlement, except maybe entitlement to an equal opportunity so preached by US colleges.”
Everybody applying to an elite US college has a low chance. Such is life.
And elite US colleges are not claiming to find “the best.” They want to create the most interesting stew, which encompasses talents that are often correlated with, but not exclusive to, test scores.
Here’s what I don’t get:
“Why can’t Ivy League admissions be more like Oxbridge’s? It’s not fair”
“Because they’re not Oxbridge. They’re the Ivy League. They’re happy with their process. Perhaps if you’re not you should apply to Oxbridge instead.”
“But I don’t want to go to Oxbridge. I want to go to an Ivy League School.”
“Why? What’s wrong with Oxbridge?”
“Nothing, but they’re not what I want. They’re different from the Ivy League.”
“Um, isn’t that what I just said?”
I think people see things in black and white too often… things aren’t that extreme most of the time. I can recognise the fact that many US colleges are great schools that I would love to attend while simultaneously having an opinion that their admissions process might not be the best.
The argument of “if you don’t like it don’t apply” is somewhat simplistic and childish.
Also I would love the chance to attend Oxbridge haha, I am in fact applying to both uk and us 
Aren’t OxBridge quasi-public? Ivyies are private clubs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8069342/Cambridge-University-may-go-private.html
@GMTplus7 They are, and their admissions differ a lot from a typical UK university.
@DarkEclipse
Then by the same token, why don’t u whine about why OxBridge admissions isn’t the same as a typical UK university?