Instead of believing that there is "a best school”, we should shift our thinking to “a best school for me”.

——YCYW  University Guidance Office (UGO)

Although the economy has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, students have still been able to progress with their 2020 university applications. In fact, our Yew Chung International School (YCIS) and Yew Wah International Education School (YWIES) final year students have been receiving news of outstanding university offers, reaping the rewards of their years of hard work at school. 

Whether it may be an Ivy League university or entry into institutions with a specialty they are passionate about, they will soon call a new city their home and embark on another bright, new chapter of their lives. 

Over 250 of our graduates, from YCIS-Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing and Qingdao, to YWIES Shanghai, Guangzhou and Yantai, have received more than 800 offers from worldwide universities and institutions of higher education. 

Our graduates will soon attend world renowned universities, such as University of Oxford, Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley, as well as top liberal arts colleges such as the long-established Wellesley College. 

Prestigious institutions including Parsons School of Design in the United States, Pratt Institute, Savannah College of Arts and Design (SCAD) and École hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) in Switzerland, are also on the list of university acceptances, which are well-known for their high selectivity and tough admission requirements. 

In addition, our graduates are also accepted into distinguished universities in Asia including Waseda University in Japan, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Yale-NUS College in Singapore, The University of Hong Kong and Peking University. 

Competition for admission into prestigious universities worldwide is increasingly intense, and we know how difficult this process must have been for our students. Without the determination and perseverance, they would not have been able to reach the achievements as they have now. 

Staff at the University Guidance Office in Yew Chung and Yew Wah have worked alongside each of our graduates and their parents in the past four years. From advising them in selecting the most suitable courses, to planning for their future career development with personality tests and identifying the most suitable schools, our staff, students and parents have worked and made decisions as a team. 

Each of our one-on-one university counselling sessions are underpinned by six questions “Who, Why, What, When, Where, How”: Who are you? Why do you wish to study at this school? What do you wish to learn? When and where are you planning to go? How would you achieve that? 

As university rankings fluctuate each year, it does not fairly represent the true strengths and culture of each institution. Therefore, students and parents should see rankings as an indicator of the quality of a programme, but not as the final answer when choosing a school. 

More importantly, students should consider if the curriculum matches their interests and expectations of a chosen career. Oftentimes, students find a university’s culture and style of teaching, as well as the climate and atmosphere of a city, to be the decisive factors in choosing the perfect school. 

Rather than rote learning, purely working to attain high scores to gain admission into distinguished schools, as educators, we are proud to see our students cultivate their own interests, follow their passions by choosing areas of study in STEM and other disciplines, thus embodying our values in holistic education.

The gifts we wish to give to our Yew Chung and Yew Wah graduates are strength in willpower and healthy minds, the tenacity to face any challenges, curiosity and a lifelong love of learning, and more importantly, the spirit and kindness of a servant-leader willing to contribute and make this world a better place. 

“Know thyself”, the Ancient Greek aphorism inscribed in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, has gifted us the advice of living a meaningful life by first understanding who we are. It is after learning about ourselves that we can move on to the next stage, to “become thyself”.  

This is not only a time for you to rejoice and celebrate your university admissions, but also a time for you to start asking “What can I do for my university?”

University Offers (partial)

U.K. 

University of Oxford

Imperial College London 

The London School of Economics and Political Science

University College London 

University of Edinburgh 

University of St Andrews 

King’s College London 

The University of Manchester

University of Warwick 

U.S.A. 

Columbia University

Wellesley College

The University of California, Berkeley

Emory University 

University of Southern California

The University of Michigan

New York University

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Parsons School of Design

Pratt Institute

Savannah College of Art and Design(SCAD)

Berklee College of Music

Other Countries or Regions 

University of Toronto

University of British Columbia

McGill University

École hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL)

The University of Sydney

Waseda University

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Yale-NUS College

The University of Hong Kong

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Peking University

Shanghai Jiao Tong University