<p>@laodicean: nearly all East Asian education systems have that problem, though. I personally think East Asian kids are memorizing too much while North American kids are memorizing too little. To be a true Ivy/great person you can’t just have a brilliant mind, you need to have a brilliant heart. As naive as it may sound, you need to have conviction in something seemingly unachievable but noble. You need to want to be great for the right reasons - not just because you want a good degree or a good job or whatever. It goes beyond materialism.</p>
<p>@aloice
Exactly.</p>
<p>@Aloice - are you a guy or girl applying to SEAS? cuz I heard girls engineers have it slightly easier</p>
<p>@laodicean - I think there’s just way too much of an emphasis on doing well on the end of high school exam. Nothing matters to the colleges other than that one score.</p>
<p>@sweetcookie
Are you talking about the SAT?</p>
<p>@sweetcookie: I’m a girl. Being a girl and not asking for financial aid are the only two identity hooks I can give to Penn. The only two hooks, period, actually.</p>
<p>@laodicean: I think sweetcookie meant the Chinese end of high school exam (gaokao). Chinese colleges admit students only by the score on that exam, they don’t care about your ECs and whatever.</p>
<h1>thewhitegirlfeelsleftout</h1>
<p>@EmPaige21: join us! It doesn’t have to be an all-Asian conversation :D</p>
<p>@aloice
Ohhh, my dad told me about that. He scored really high on that and got into Beijing U, but couldn’t go because of Mao (this was in the 1960s. His family was not Communist and so his mother hid his acceptance letter). He ended up going to a community college. 'Tis a sad story…</p>
<p>@laodicean
My father wanted to become a policeman but couldn’t because his family was prosecuted as well. Good thing for him, because that meant he had to go study the geosciences. If he had become a policeman, he would never have met my mother and later gotten the opportunity to work in the US :P</p>
<p>@Aloice - I think your unique background (e.g. moving around the world) and fighting ability certainly helps too.</p>
<p>Yeah the gaokao is a killer. My cousin in China is aiming for Tsinghua and Beijing University. Needless to say, the competition is ROUGH.</p>
<p>Good things do come of this!</p>
<p>@sweetcookie
It’s only going to get harder. My uncle (mom’s brother living in China) is a math major and he heard about kids doing Calculus as 3rd and 4th graders, doing problems and equations even he couldn’t. It’s ridiculous over there, and the intense competition means that it’s only going to get worse.</p>
<p>@laodicean: it’s more like you try to make the most out of what you have. Also, I have a Chinese friend who’s like 3 years younger than me. I can’t do her math and science problems although I’m in all three AP sciences and Calculus BC. Taking Calculus as 3rd or 4th graders is a little extreme even for Chinese kids though o.o I went as far as 5th grade in China and that math lasted until about Algebra II.</p>
<p>@sweetcookie: thanks, although I don’t think I talked about China much. Some Brunei stuff, yes, but I didn’t really make them impressive. Good luck to your cousin! Hats off to him/her for being competitive for those schools in the first place. I don’t think I would have survived Chinese high schools.</p>
<p>@Aloice - My aunt often comments about how my cousin doesn’t even have time to go to the bathroom because she’s so busy studying all the time.
Brunei is gorgeous. I’d love to travel there.</p>
<p>Hello my Chinese brethren, what did you eat for breakfast… ? </p>
<p>Haha, I’m trying to make it a more universal conversation.</p>
<p>Nutella sandwich!!!</p>
<p><3 nutella</p>
<p>Chinese Pancakes! Sorry for bringing up some more Asian stuff again</p>
<p>@sweetcookie: oh wow. Well that certainly makes sense lol. Brunei IS gorgeous - my house was practically in a rainforest (we had monkeys) and I wrote about doing the Duke of Edinburgh International Award in the middle of the jungle for my CA short answer. It WAS short answer though so I couldn’t get very detailed about it :(</p>
<p>@EmPaige21: I haven’t eaten anything yet. LOL. I can kinda survive on like nearly no food, but it’s not healthy and I know it. I’m 5’4’’ and weigh 97 pounds >.> Now you’ve guilt-tripped me, I need to go on a food scavenger hunt…</p>
<p>@aloice
Go eat like 3 big-macs or something!!</p>
<p>@Aloice - wow, what an interesting life! way more impressive than mine.</p>