September
13, 2005
In this issue:
Study in
the USA - Maplewood seminars
on September 20 and 24
Teen
screening -
admissions dean at Harvard offers
insights and tips
Berliner
Philharmoniker -
crossing Beethoven and education
**
Win $1,200 tickets to Berliner
Philharmoniker November concert ....
(what's
this?)
Cracking the new
SAT code - what
scores you need
Peer
support at its best - Maplewood
students spent a meaningful
summer
SAT and
English workships, fall 2005
Read on ...
The US college and boarding
school application season has
started....
Learn from the experts on how to
...
Get in top US colleges
and boarding schools
Study in
the USA Seminar
- Understand the
US college and boarding school
systems
- Know the admissions process and
the right things to do
- Choose the best possible
schools and build winning
applications
- The latest rankings and
admissions trends
- Q&A
Choose from 2 dates:
9/20/05
(Tue) 18:00-20:00, or
9/24/05 (Sat) 10:30-12:30
Each seminar will
devote the first hour to boarding
school admissions and the second
hour to colleges and
universities.
For
parents and their college-bound
kids.... The US college
application is more complex and
competitive than
ever. Maplewood can help
ease the strain of the whole
process and help students
and parents get into the
college or university of your
choice.
For Year
9-12 students (and their
parents) in local and
international schools who want to
get into the best possible US
colleges that match their
academic goals and abilities.
For
parents and their middle school
kids.... The US boarding
school application requires good
planning and efforts from both
the student and the
parents. Maplewood can help
you understand and tackle
the complex application and get
into the boarding school of your
choice.
For Year
7-9 students (and their
parents) in local and
international schools who want to
get into the best possible
boarding schools to prepare them
well for US colleges and
universities.
Seminar
Enrolment: Send
in your seminar
date, parent's name,
student's name, contact
phone nos. to:
enrol@maplewood-edu.com.
Seminars
are held at Maplewood's
office in Causeway Bay:
31/F, 88 Hing Fat Street, Causeway
Bay, Hong Kong Tel 2772
8303.
(map)
Get
going in your US
college/boarding school
apps! Act now! Seats are
limited. Free admission.
For more
info, please visit our
website: http://www.maplewood-edu.com. |
Feel
free to
distribute this seminar
announcement to any
interested parents and friends
and ask them to enrol directly
with Maplewood.
Teen screening
- admissions dean at
Harvard offers insights and tips
Stuffed
squirrels, life-size statues,
chocolate chip cookies, and a
dozen roses are some of the items
applicants have sent in to the
office of William Fitzsimmons,
Dean of Admissions and Financial
Aid at Harvard College. They have
attempted to leave impressions,
and some of these students did
get admitted.
In
a most recent interview with Psychology
Today, Fitzsimmons, a
23-year veteran in admissions,
gave a rare, first-hand glimpse
into his job and offered some
good insights:
On
Harvard admissions... No
one knows who is in or out until
the admissions officers convene
to debate the merits of each
application. Fitzsimmons may be
king, but when his committee
meets, it's one person, one
vote.... Everything filters
through subcommittees first and
then goes to the full committee -
sometimes spending an hour on a
single application....
Fitzsimmons and his staff of 35
admissions officers scrutinized
nearly 23,000 applications last
year but sent out just 2,100 of
those coveted, thick acceptance
envelopes.... Roughly 80 percent
of those we admit choose to come
here. But the truth is,
competition for the top students
has never been more intense.
On
vetting applications...
There's no way to tell with
certainty whether or not someone
has received inappropriate help.
We're always looking for
consistency, where the teachers,
the counselors and the
interviewers are all really
saying much the same thing. You
might ask yourself why someone
who writes perfectly and
beautifully gets Bs and Cs in
English.... It's very hard for
parents who haven't been through
the [college application] process
to help their children. So the
lack of a level playing field is
a huge issue.... I think the more
personal [the essay] is, the
better, rather than, say, writing
about the national debate topic
of the year, or something that's
dealt with ad nauseam on the
nightly news.
On
what he learned about today's
teens.... It's
impossible not to be optimistic
about the future of the country,
based on reading the
applications....There are
advantages and disadvantages with
any kind of growing-up process.
Everybody would understand some
of the challenges of growing up,
as I did, in the bottom quarter
of income distribution. But there
are also real pressures in the
most affluent communities,
especially given the frenetic
pace today, where people start
their sports and musical
instruments and academic
enrichment practically before
preschool.... We've written a
paper called "Time Out or
Burn Out" about taking a gap
year.... We've encouraged
students to take time off before
coming here. It isn't so much a
criticism as it is a caution.
Students need to determine what
their hearts and souls are
telling them, as opposed to their
heads.
Read the
full interview (pdf
file, 509KB; type in admit to open file) from Psychology
Today, Sep/Oct 2005, Vol.
38, No. 5, p.6.
Berliner
Philharmoniker
- crossing Beethoven and
education
Tickets go on sale
at LCSD today for the
world-acclaimed Berliner
Philharmoniker's
first ever concerts in
Hong Kong! Tickets are gone real
FAST! Maplewood students now have
a chance to win two
HK$1,200-value tickets to the
first Hong Kong appearance by
this sonorous yet refined, and
perhaps the most celebrated
orchestra in the world. The Berliner
Philharmoniker will play Beethoven's
Symphony No. 3 in
E-flat, Op. 55,
"Eroica" and other
pieces by Berlioz and Ravel under
their Artistic Director and Chief
Conductor Sir Simon Rattle at the
Hong Kong Cultural Centre on
Sunday, November 13, 2005.
Berliner
Philharmoniker Concert Mini-Essay
Contest
Submit an
essay in English of 200 to 400
words on Why I want
to win a ticket to the Berliner
Philharmoniker concert to berliner@maplewood-edu.com by September
30, 2005. Send in also your
full name, age, year of study,
music instrument(s) you play, and
school information.
All submitted
essays will be adjudicated by Ms
Katherine Lu of Katherine Lu
Music Centre, Hong Kong, and one
of our Maplewood education
consultants. The essays will be
judged on:
- originality,
ingenuousness, refinement
in personal thoughts on
music listening or
concert-going
- specificity
on the orchestra or the
concert program
- essay
flow, delivery,
conciseness in a short
space
- use
of English
All
full-time students under 20,
whether you are a Maplewood
client or not, are eligible to
enter the essay contest. The
best two essays will be announced
by October 21, 2005 and their
authors will win the two student
tickets to the concert on
November 13 evening. Essays
by the winners and selected
finalists will also be posted on
the Maplewood website. (Read
contest rules.)
Maplewood has
sponsored student
tickets at the Hong Kong Arts
Festival 2005. This Berliner
Philharmoniker concert essay
contest represents Maplewood's
ongoing efforts to encourage
students to appreciate and
express their passion and
feelings for their hobbies or
pastimes - in this case music
listening and concert-going - as
an integral part of their
educational and developmental
experience.
Cracking the new SAT
code
The test
changed. Now a 1600 isn't a good
score at all. So what is? And how
much does the new essay count?... If I get, say, a
2170 or even a 2380, is this a
good score? What is its
counterpart on the old 1600-point
scale? Is my score on the new
writing portion of the test less
important? And should I be
considering taking the test
again?...
Until this year,
the SAT came in a neat 1600-point
package, burned into the
subconscious of high-school
seniors and admissions officers
alike. Anything above a 1500 gave
you a good shot at one of the
nation's best universities. Score
about half that, and you should
be really, really good at
football.
Now that familiar
scale is gone, thanks to the
writing section of the test,
which had its debut in March. A
perfect score-now 2400-will
surely still be a ticket into
some top school. But farther down
the scale, there's already plenty
of confusion as the first
students who took the new test
prepare to send off their college
applications for 2006-07. Many
colleges, unsure how much weight
to give the writing test, will
muddle through the first year or
two.... Even the College
Board, which created
the test, wants colleges to go
slow.
For students
figuring out where to apply,
that's not so helpful. The
best advice? Do your homework.
When you visit schools, don't
just ask whether they require the
SAT writing test or the optional
ACT writing test. Ask how the
writing scores will be used. Will
they get the same weight as math
and critical reading (formerly
verbal)? Or will they be treated
like the old SAT writing
achievement test?
Each college has
its own answer. Some schools
won't consider the new test at
all. Some will collect the
results but use them sparingly.
Certain schools will compare the
timed essays with those
polished-perhaps
Mommy-aided-essays sent with the
application. Others will dive
right in, using the new scores to
select the class of 2010....
So what's
in the new SAT after all?
The College
Board added tougher
math questions, axed analogies
and developed the essay. The
800-point writing test includes a
multiple-choice section that
looks like an editing test.
Students don't have to know
technical grammar terms but must
be able to fix bad sentences.
The essay counts
for just one third of the writing
score, but it's the biggest
departure from the
multiple-choice SAT of the past.
Students get a "prompt"
that lays out a topic and then
asks an open-ended philosophical
question. In June, for example,
some students were given a
paragraph explaining that many
people intentionally forget their
pasts to become successful, while
others build their lives on
personal histories. Then they
were told to tackle this:
"Do memories hinder or help
people in their effort to learn
from the past and succeed in the
present?" Got that? Answer
it, in 25 minutes....
How
the New SAT essays are
read

Nearly 1.4
million students have
taken the New SAT tests
in March, May and June
2005. Each essay was
read, scored, and
reported by two different
professional readers, all
high school or college
teachers, under stringent
requirements. Ninety-five
percent of the essays
were read, scored, and
reported within the
16-day scoring window as
expected.... (more) |
Mindful of the
various uncertainties, many
colleges will make limited use of
the writing test, at least until
they can match incoming students'
scores with their grades in
freshman English.... Some
schools... for now won't require
the writing test at all. But many
will, making it difficult for
most applicants to avoid an
essay....
Read
article Cracking the SAT Code
by Richard Rubin, Newsweek,
Aug 22, 2005
Peer support at its best
- Maplewood students
spent a meaningful summer
Twelve student
tutors recruited by Maplewood and
25 local school students
participated in the Chinglin
Tutoring Program, a peer-to-peer
English tutoring program in
summer, 2005.
Volunteer student
tutors have come from the German
Swiss International School, West
Island School, Diocesan Girls'
School in Hong Kong and the
Cheltenham Ladies' College and
Queenswood School in the UK.
Three times a week, three hours
per session, student tutors
provide conversational English
and reading/writing workshops to
their peers at Hon Wah Middle
School, a local Chinese-medium
secondary school in Hong Kong and
the program's co-organizer.
Our students
believe that through such
meaningful community services as
the Chinglin tutoring program,
they can gain a deeper
understanding of their community,
show their concern for others,
and develop better awareness and
maturity in themselves. Not to
mention the fact that solid,
reflective community service
experience is an important
personal attribute that many top
schools would look for in
assessing their applicants. Our
student tutors have also gained a
good understanding on how
difficult it is to be a good
teacher and learned how to become
a better student.
Tutors and
students participating in the
tutoring program held a lunch
party on August 18 for all to
celebrate the end of the program.
Few were not touched by the
heartfelt speeches and impromptu
remarks by participants on their
experiences as teachers and
learners in the program. Students
who had put in a total of 24 or
more hours of tutoring were
awarded Certificates of
Recognition for their services.
Maplewood plans to
expand the peer tutoring program
in summer 2006.
 
Read Peer
Support, a cover
story from SCMP Young Post,
August 29, 2005 (pdf
file, 292KB).
Read
essays by tutors and students on
their experiences in the program.
Program
chronicle and album.
Maplewood SAT and
English workshops, fall 2005
Sign up now for
our New
SAT Workshop this fall which
takes a blended learning
approach combining both
self-study and one-on-one
personal guidance to achieve the
best results. Each SAT Workshop
focuses on pinpointing your
current areas of weakness and
improving your test scores in an
8-week period.
Designed
for high school students in the
Class of 2006 and beyond who are
taking the New SAT test in
November 2005 and after.
More on
New SAT Workshop
Students enrolled
in our English
Workshops in the summer
have enjoyed an effective and
motivating way of learning
English through e-Learning and
individual guidance. Students
work and study at their own pace
with progress constantly
monitored in all areas -
listening, speaking, reading,
writing, grammar, vocabulary.
They most enjoy the chance to
talk to a real teacher online and
meet fellow students from other
countries. We are expanding the
workshop program to cover
students from age 6 to 18 in
fall, 2005.
Maplewood
English Workshops Fall
2005 Specially
designed for:
1. Students
from age 6 to 12
who study English as a
second language. Build a
solid English foundation
for speaking, listening
and writing fluency to
prepare the child for
future success in our English
for Kids
workshop.
2. Students
from age 13 to 18
who study English as a
second language. Improve
on English listening,
speaking, reading,
writing, grammar and
vocabulary. Master the
language to speak in
extended conversations,
discuss on familiar and
unfamiliar topics,
problem solving in our English
Head Start
workshop.
For
more information, email
Maplewood or
contact your Maplewood
consultant.
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About this
newsletter: Aspiration is an occasional
news and events announcement by Maplewood
Education Services, an independent
college counseling service
provider and is distributed to
Maplewood students and parents
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