by Ryan Cheng

LWBC’ s first semester started a month and a half ago, and the 12 graders are already busy preparing for university applications. Due to the influence of covid-19, the LWBC graduates from last year were having their freshman year in Shanghai. But due to that exact reason, they can come to our school to teach us face-to-face about their experiences in university and the tricks of how to apply to a university. Micole Mao is one of them, who is now studying at UBC for her first year. UBC is a dream school for most of us, so that made us look forward to her presentation.

On October 7th, at 12:50 pm, in room 522, Micole started her presentation. The focus points of her presentation were: how to choose an agency, the differences between high school and university, and what’s the difference between Vantage College and a normal university program. Both students and teachers asked questions actively.

Right off the bat, Micole said: “First, having agent is definitely not a necessary thing to have when applying to a university, especially if you just want to apply to Canadian universities due to the fact that Canadian universities provide several detailed websites. If you follow the rule and plan, it is not that hard for you to apply to universities by yourself. And the second point she made was: “One Night Miracle” is no longer useful during your university studies. You learn a huge chunk of content every week in university. Therefore, if you cannot budget your time wisely, a bad mark will be coming soon. The third point was that all the professors in university are happy to answer your question. Don’t be shy! If you have academic problems, just ask the questions to your professor! It will always be better than thinking about the problem by yourself.”

And then we were talking about the ELP marks. Micole is now studying in the Vantage College program at UBC*. For this point, Ms. Fortin and Mr. Chang asked a question for us. Here is the response from Micole: “Actually, failing to complete your ELP (English Language Proficiency) test is not the thing that you need to be so worried about, because some universities will automatically enrol the students into a language program (Vantage College in the case of UBC) for students.” Personally, she thinks in some ways Vantage College is better than a normal university program. The biggest takeaway is that we can take a shortcut on the language barrier in university, which can help us to adapt to the language problem during our first year in university. However, it would be great if you could pass your ELP requirements because at least you will not have to pay the additional money and time for a transition program.

After the presentation by Micole, we had a clearer mind of what university life and the application process is like than before. Thus, we are able to make more informed plans for our future studies!

*Vantage program: program for students who hit the standard line for academic courses but were unable to pass the ELP test.