It’s kind of confusing from my point as a junior student currently in IB program from a not-too-big city in China. I was within Chinese traditional education system before 10th grade, and had been trained for trying to get a place in IMO since 3rd grade. Indeed, students in China, especially in my province(one of the greatest in terms of Chinese high-school education), get prepared for math that early. We learned about 8th grade stuff in 6th and in 8th we finished all regular high-school stuff(though we didn’t have calculus in high school, IMO doesn’t need that). I quitted the training for going universities abroad because I hated our govt. too much then.
I literally didn’t do anything in terms of science in my sophomore year since I was just freed from endless math problems. I worked on English(my second language) and toefl, SAT(1560 last Oct.), participated in lots of activities that are purely for fun and ran for the president of student government of our school(succeeded).
Our school doesn’t have much resources (I’ve just heard of Siemens and intel competition a couple months ago, and couldn’t even have the right to participate!), but I thought I need to do something at the beginning of junior year. I worked on physics for a month but just got a bronze in PUPC . I didn’t bother to attend AMC and AIME because the problems from AMC and AIME are so just easy(if you have access to the problems in even the first round of selection for IMO team in China you’ll know why), and I couldn’t make it to USAMO due to my nationality.
I applied to SSP and RSI, the result hasn’t come out yet but I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t want me as there’s literally nothing on my resume. I began working on APs last month and finished five already(Calculus BC, Statistics, Physics Cs, Chemistry) just by reading the Barron’s book. The whole process of studying and review for one subject is roughly 1 week, and I think that’s pretty enough talented comparing with most cases of HYPSM students I saw online. But my school counselor said I barely have a chance to enter even a top 10. Is that true, and do I have a chance to enter HYPSM?
PS: I could assure that I’m not a super-nerd. I really love hanging out with friends, and I’m the class monitor, president of the student association in our school, and I work out weekly to keep a great shape as I don’t have much interest in sports.
One item that you have to understand is the number of open slots that you competing. Harvard and Stanford both enroll about 15 new undergraduate students a year from China. So in total you are looking for 1 of 100 seats.
“But my school counselor said I barely have a chance to enter even a top 10.”
That’s probably true. If you are not from a school in China that regularly sends students to top 10 your chance is even slimmer.
MIT has not accepted any student from China since the trade war began and I don’t see it change this year.
HYPS have about 12 students /year, but they include Chinese nationals who attend HS in US, Canada and Europe. Only about 3-4 are real admits from inside China.
Indeed I’m preparing for Cambridge, and considering that our school send 10 out of 90 ib students to Cambridge every year and my position in the class, it shouldn’t be challenging.
Getting into Oxford and Cambridge is way easier than HYPSM, you just need to pass the test and even the interview is just to give you another problem to solve.
It might just be the differences in language that accounts for what (to me) is an arrogant tone in your posts, but you might consider if that’s what you mean to convey.
Sorry for any impoliteness that might caused by my words! Though I suppose that I just listed some facts. It is absolutely true that based on our HS’ past stats(in past five years over 50 oxbridge but only one HYSPM), my adequate GPA(3.98), and the difficulty of oxbridge’s past papers of entry tests and sample problems that would appear in interviews, oxbridge are really not as unreachable as HYPSM for me.
Oxbridge is always more likely to suit an asymmetrical student (ie, one with real strengths in a particular field) than HYPSM, as well as those coming from school systems that emphasize testing.
“How you get on” just means how the admissions cycle goes for you
