SHSID Holds a Public Session for UPenn and Brown University

On Thursday, September the 17th, Shanghai High School International Division held a university public session event on school campus in the main auditorium. 600 audience members, including teachers, students, and parents from various local schools and international schools in Shanghai and nearby cities, listened to an insightful talk given by Ms. Elizabeth O’Connell and Ms. Panatha Ott, current admission officers from the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University, respectively. Both Ms. O’Connell and Ms. Ott are responsible for reviewing applications from China, and during the one-hour session, the two provided a complete overview of their respective schools’ curriculum and admissions process, wrapping up the meeting with answers to questions written on cards by students. Students were then allowed to ask further questions to alumni in the front lobby of the building.

UPenn and Brown have frequently travelled together to such public sessions, as the two schools are quite similar in a number of areas. But, as Ms. Ott emphasized, “There are some differences, and we want you to think about those and think about whether our institutions are right for you”.

Ms. Ott started the session with pictures of temples of wisdom from various countries of various ages to stress that wisdom has always been deeply respected by all people of all times. Now, UPenn and Brown, both modern “temples of wisdom”, also look for this quality in the applicants they admit.

The microphone was handed over to Ms. O’Connell, who introduced UPenn. Located in Philadelphia, which is the fifth largest city of the United States, UPenn offers a unique learning experience for students in one of the country’s most historically significant cities. The city is quite accessible, requiring only 15 minutes to walk from UPenn’s campus center to downtown Philadelphia. Ms. O’Connell described the proximity as having “one foot in the city and one foot in the campus”.

UPenn has four undergraduate colleges and twelve graduate professional schools physically on campus, which is very unusual for most American universities, for only a few have all of their graduate schools physically on one campus. As a result, half of UPenn’s students are undergraduates, and the other half graduates.

Students in UPenn are able to mix and match different programs according to their interests and can pursue a number of combined dual degree programs between colleges, such as management and technology, where a student can connect both engineering and business together in his or studies. UPenn also offers a wide variety of activities outside of the classroom, sponsoring about 500 student organizations that include everything that can possibly be imagined, such as sports teams, debate, Model United Nations, and even singing groups that sing in Mandarin.

The microphone was then handed back to Ms. Ott, who brought us 300 miles further up the East Coast into a state called Rhode Island, the smallest state of the United States. Providence, also a historical city, is where Brown University calls home, and like UPenn, it was founded before the United States was even formed.

Brown is a university of contrast because it is a university and a college. It has 2,000 graduate students and 6,000 undergraduate students, with emphasis placed on the undergraduate schools. Brown offers a rigorous curriculum, and the pressure is on the student to make his or her own choices. The numerous options may seem a bit daunting, but Brown believes that students, as young adults, can make such decisions on their own. “You can decide what it means to be well-educated, and you yourself can be the own architect of your own education”, Ms. Ott said. In this regard, both UPenn and Brown are quite liberal and offer many choices to students.

Both universities use the Common Application and have their own supplements that applicants must fill out. UPenn and Brown are both Early Decision and Regular Decision schools. “Early Decision is a very specialized opportunity for some students”, Ms. O’Connell stated. For instance, such students may have started their college search early, have visited the university, or are competitive applicants with the credentials needed for Early Decision.

“We do not have a formulaic admissions process”, Ms. O’Connell said. “But we are competitive schools. There are no guarantees, even for the best students. So it’s very important for you to not close the back door and that you have a safety network”.

During the Q and A session towards the end, one important question that a student asked was: “In what way do you integrate the Chinese community into your campus?” Ms. Ott explained that there are programs in both institutions that help orient new students, and subsets of these programs specifically give assistance to international students. International students are hooked up with other students who can teach them things that they may be unfamiliar with. “Whatever it is that you can’t do, you’ll always have students there to help you”, Ms. Ott said.

To bring the session to a close, Ms. Ott introduced alumni from both universities who majored in different areas. Students with additional questions were able to communicated with the alumni and understand more about both universities through them.

Thank you SHSID for hosting this wonderful event, and thank you to both Ms. O’Connell and Ms. Ott for taking the time to share your information with us! We look forward to seeing both of you again in the future.

(Written by Amber Li 11(1)A Picture by Chen Yu)