We have two types of students applying for dual region; and Debbie is the “Superman” type. She has been pursuing up to 30 extra curricula activities whilst balancing her academics at a local school. Whilst aspiring to apply for Oxbridge and Ivy League, the issue with her “seemingly strong” application is that she has no idea what subject to pursue in the UK and what’s her “story” for US. Quality over quantity; and the challenge here is to draw out her genuine passion and to ensure she can handle the timeline applying to top universities. We first helped her switch school and curriculum to better align to her academic strength and provide her with more school support. We then drew out her exam preparation timeline which she needed to stick to religiously in order to get top scores. On the UK side, our team of expert tutors guided her to explore HSPS, PPE and Law; whilst on the US side, our team of consultants helped tease out her innate interest in environmental and social sciences (contrary to her initial thought of sciences). Both teams helped her extensively with statement drafting, university list, course choice, extra curricula enhancement, strategic application decisions, exam and interview preparation etc. Another “superman” born this year – well done for Cambridge and Columbia offers!

Juliana came to ARCH expressing an aspiration to apply for the most competitive subject, Medicine, in the UK and Hong Kong; and to the Ivy League in the US. Juliana was at a boarding school in the UK at the time and we first conducted a series of mocks to determine her academic standard for top universities, and to identify any gap that we needed to start bridging. Given Juliana was aiming for all the top universities globally, managing the timeline was the key challenge – balancing the need to apply for medical schools (that require aptitude tests, academic enhancements, work placements, interview preparation, statements etc.), we also had to extend and build up Juliana’s extra curricula profiles within the confines of UK boarding school logistical constraints. Planning ahead for holidays became a critical task. On top of all these, Juliana wanted to apply for Oxford University with organ scholarship and pursue the IB curriculum (despite our suggestion of A-Levels). It was therefore an extremely busy and challenging 2+ years working with Juliana. Under our guidance and many impromptu surprises that arisen throughout the process, Juliana received an offer for organ scholarship, successfully achieved multiple medical school offers (including UCL, Manchester and HKU); as well as multiple top offers from the US including the Ivy League UPenn, where she ultimately chose to attend. We are proud of Juliana’s perseverance throughout the entire process and we are happy that the UK-US-HK consultation teams pulled together to provide seamless guidance, mitigating unnecessary stress along the way, to achieving excellent results all around.

Sarah was attending US boarding school when she approached ARCH to help prepare her for UK law schools, including Oxbridge. Personal statement was key as the style of writing statements for UK and US universities differs hugely. As US system is not subject focused, we provided Sarah with guided reading to expose her to Law. We also supported Sarah in her preparation of Cambridge supplementary essays, Law aptitude tests, monitoring of mock performance and interview preparation. We are happy Sarah landed an offer at Cambridge, especially considering the tougher transition from US system.