The journey of choosing your higher education
A must read for GWA parents. Written by a former GWA parent!
In GWA, with its international student population, we have been confronted with many different school systems, admissions procedures and requirements and educational methodologies. Having taken the decision to give our kids the opportunity to pursue their higher education in an international context, there were lots of questions to be answered and a lot of research to be done to get a better view on the worldwide offer of higher education. The search for potential colleges started in grade 10 and intensified in grade 11. The shortlist of universities shall be finalized by the end of the college tour which has been planned to take place at the end of grade 11.
In grade 10, we started to gather general information about American, Canadian and European colleges. We attended information sessions organized by the counselors at GWA, collected and analyzed brochures and talked to university representatives at the different college fairs in school. Also the parents of seniors or students already having started with higher education were a very important source of information. On the base of this information, we narrowed down the scope of our research. At the end of grade 10, we took the decision to take a further look into the possibilities of higher education in the England, Scotland and in the Netherlands.
In grade 11, we continued to attend all kinds of information sessions, mostly organized within GWA. At this stage, the reflection about professional and personal aspirations and academic ambitions played an important role in the course selection. Two major sources of information were useful in this part of our research. Because of the rigorous and intensive character of education in the 6 subjects in the diploma years, a student soon develops a deeper understanding of these subjects. Our daughter developed a special interest in economics and philosophical thinking. With this new insight in her personal preferences, she used UCAS as a search engine to determine the specific university courses she would be interested in. On the UCAS website, she browsed through the course descriptions, with a special focus on all economics/philosophy/politics related courses. This helped her discover which courses she was passionate about and which other courses didn’t make her heart beat faster.
Having defined the geographical area and the type of course, it was time to start with the university selection process. There again, the UCAS website and the brochures gathered at the fairs were important research resources. In this stage of the search for a good university, we defined a couple of selection criteria. In our case the content of the courses, the teaching and assessment methodology, the safety of the environment, the internationalism, the entry requirements and the size of the college were key factors in this process. On the base of these criteria, she made a selection of fifteen universities in the UK and two in the Netherlands. Finally, she narrowed down the list to 8 in the UK.
Because we think it is useful to compare the info on the websites and brochures with the reality, we’ve decided to organize a college tour in both countries, this month. We sent personalized mails to all the different universities informing them about our plans to visit them. All 8 universities responded within 24 hours. We will go to four open days. In the 4 other institutions, the international officer or admissions officer of a specific department is arranging a tour and meetings with relevant people. In the Netherlands, we will follow the same procedure.
This “journey” has been a very intensive yet bonding experience with our daughter. The whole process has taken 2 years so far with a peak during the last 3 months. And we are not yet at the end of the journey. We’ve been blessed to receive lots of support and guidance from lots of people, family and friends, the school counselor and the economics teacher. We are hoping that solid decisions can be made after the college tour so that time and space can be created to fully focus on the academic challenges of grade 12.
Finally, I would like to add that parental coaching in this whole process is very important. It is still difficult for young adults to define what they really want to do and what the Implications of certain choices are. Parents can put this in perspective and help the young adult make the choices that are right for them.
Mrs. Anna Hermans
A must read for GWA parents. Written by a former GWA parent!
In GWA, with its international student population, we have been confronted with many different school systems, admissions procedures and requirements and educational methodologies. Having taken the decision to give our kids the opportunity to pursue their higher education in an international context, there were lots of questions to be answered and a lot of research to be done to get a better view on the worldwide offer of higher education. The search for potential colleges started in grade 10 and intensified in grade 11. The shortlist of universities shall be finalized by the end of the college tour which has been planned to take place at the end of grade 11.
In grade 10, we started to gather general information about American, Canadian and European colleges. We attended information sessions organized by the counselors at GWA, collected and analyzed brochures and talked to university representatives at the different college fairs in school. Also the parents of seniors or students already having started with higher education were a very important source of information. On the base of this information, we narrowed down the scope of our research. At the end of grade 10, we took the decision to take a further look into the possibilities of higher education in the England, Scotland and in the Netherlands.
In grade 11, we continued to attend all kinds of information sessions, mostly organized within GWA. At this stage, the reflection about professional and personal aspirations and academic ambitions played an important role in the course selection. Two major sources of information were useful in this part of our research. Because of the rigorous and intensive character of education in the 6 subjects in the diploma years, a student soon develops a deeper understanding of these subjects. Our daughter developed a special interest in economics and philosophical thinking. With this new insight in her personal preferences, she used UCAS as a search engine to determine the specific university courses she would be interested in. On the UCAS website, she browsed through the course descriptions, with a special focus on all economics/philosophy/politics related courses. This helped her discover which courses she was passionate about and which other courses didn’t make her heart beat faster.
Having defined the geographical area and the type of course, it was time to start with the university selection process. There again, the UCAS website and the brochures gathered at the fairs were important research resources. In this stage of the search for a good university, we defined a couple of selection criteria. In our case the content of the courses, the teaching and assessment methodology, the safety of the environment, the internationalism, the entry requirements and the size of the college were key factors in this process. On the base of these criteria, she made a selection of fifteen universities in the UK and two in the Netherlands. Finally, she narrowed down the list to 8 in the UK.
Because we think it is useful to compare the info on the websites and brochures with the reality, we’ve decided to organize a college tour in both countries, this month. We sent personalized mails to all the different universities informing them about our plans to visit them. All 8 universities responded within 24 hours. We will go to four open days. In the 4 other institutions, the international officer or admissions officer of a specific department is arranging a tour and meetings with relevant people. In the Netherlands, we will follow the same procedure.
This “journey” has been a very intensive yet bonding experience with our daughter. The whole process has taken 2 years so far with a peak during the last 3 months. And we are not yet at the end of the journey. We’ve been blessed to receive lots of support and guidance from lots of people, family and friends, the school counselor and the economics teacher. We are hoping that solid decisions can be made after the college tour so that time and space can be created to fully focus on the academic challenges of grade 12.
Finally, I would like to add that parental coaching in this whole process is very important. It is still difficult for young adults to define what they really want to do and what the Implications of certain choices are. Parents can put this in perspective and help the young adult make the choices that are right for them.
Mrs. Anna Hermans