Northbridge students continue to attract interest from many of the world's major universities

Northbridge students continue to attract interest from many of the world's major universities Every year, Northbridge International School Cambodia is fortunate to have universities visit from all over the world. They come from Europe, Asia, North America and Australia in the first semester and then the United Kingdom tends to be more of a focus in semester two.

Every year, Northbridge International School Cambodia is fortunate to have universities visit from all over the world. They come from Europe, Asia, North America and Australia in the first semester and then the United Kingdom tends to be more of a focus in semester two.

This September has been particularly exciting as we have had a great increase in the number of universities visiting and being available to meet with our students - in September alone we have seen 37 universities. 

This flurry of activity started with our students attending a one-off information session with Vanderbilt University from Tennessee, Princeton University from New Jersey, Duke University in North Carolina, Northwestern University just outside Chicago, and Columbia University in New York. 

Some essential takeaways from this dynamic session were that these institutions, although all very prestigious, are situated in different cities and therefore each has a very distinct flavour.

All of them, however, agreed that the transcript, which is the student's academic performance record, was essential in presenting what they are looking for in the ideal applicant.

Most interestingly also, when talking about extracurricular activities, they all agreed that they were looking for students that represented evidence of meaningful engagement, passion and commitment in an area of interest, instead of an endless list of unrelated activities.

This is a really important consideration for our students who are still choosing the Service Action involvement and aiming to meet their CAS requirements. 

On the whole, it was great to establish contact and expose our students to what highly selective U.S. schools are like and see how they look at potential applicants. 

CIS University Fair

On the 13th of September, we hosted a CIS University Fair where students in Grades 10, 11 and 12 were given time to inquire into the options that 17 different universities presented.  

The students were introduced to a focus of over 70 majors, from African Studies to Zoology. Some interesting new finds were NSU in Florida, with some of their premier programs in entrepreneurship even offering to seed startups; University of New England with guaranteed admission to medical school on graduation for successful pre-med students; and a number of interesting merit-based scholarship offers from a number of universities at the fair. 

A really encouraging fact is that I was stopped by several universities who complimented me on the depth of questioning and level of engagement our students showed at the fair.

This is particularly important as a meaningful level of engagement in their independent university research is vital to them being able to articulate what they want when it comes to choosing a university. 

Other universities who visited us in September 2019:

Barnard College- Columbia University	Johns Hopkins University- Maryland
Shoreline College- Washington	Glion & Les Roche- Switzerland/ Spain
University of Chicago	Wesleyan University- Connecticut
Columbia College	Eastern Connecticut State University
Florida Institute of Technology	Johnson & Wales University
Marymount Manhattan College	Stony Brook University, SUNY
Wichita State University	Northern Arizona University
Singapore Institute of Management	Rhodes College-Memphis

Still to come in October are Yale-NUS, UTS, and the University of Calgary, with even more in November!

This month has proven to be comparatively very busy when looking at the university calendar and the number of visits we have had has had a direct impact on the students who have been able to attend.

We will continue to promote university visits through the SWAG and trust that students will continue to attend and actively research their future options.