Dear Parents who have children in UWC or who have children who are currently in Year 11 or 12 in any other International Schools,
i have a daughter currently doing Year 12 in UWCSEA. She is academically sound though not fantastically brilliant - we expect her to score between40-43. (that's how she finished her year 11). Her ECA is adequate and ordinary.
She is currently having to make choices about university placement. I don't know what other kids are like but my daughter seems undecided about her career direction which makes application difficult and she is also very demoralised by her counsellors. She has this to say about the counsellors in her school.
1. They talked down to her and made her feel dumb, small and insignificant
2. While the ethos of the school is to strive for your dreams, in reality, she felt that all her peers were forced to make conservative choices which will increase the school's first choice acceptance stats.
As a result, she is somewhat depressed, and for the first time, we see that she is unhappy with herself. We are concerned as we are talking about a teen who never had issues with academic confidence and this is a good the time to have a confidence crisis.
She has now been in the school for 4 years and has been adapting well academically and socially. We have nothing but praise for the school's pastoral care system up till now. Hence, it comes as a big surprise/shock to us that she would be so negative about the process. As my daughter is normally a level headed and sensible person, we are reluctant to discount her perception totally and would like to ask experienced parents in the forum the following questions:
1. Is her perception valid? If so, what should we do as parents?
2. why are the predicted grades such a secret? wouldn't it be better for the students to know exactly where they stand?
3. How do we find out about placement statitistics for each school?
4. How do most schools handle kids who are not clear about career paths?
5. My daughter does not want us to take this up with the school counsellors but would it be advisable for us to do so.
Not everyone has a passion to be a doctor or a lawyer and not everyone knows whether they want to do science or arts and this becomes increasingly difficult when you can straddle both spheres well. As a parent, I have some sympathy for that as I didn't know what I wanted to do at 18 but I understand that the world is changing and there is less tolerance for ambivalence.
We realise that it is important to be realistic, strategic and prudent but it is a concern when this comes at the expense of demoralising our kids. We would like to hear from parents out there (privately or in this forum) who have experience with this process of University application.
It definitely was simpler during our times.
thank you.
