In this show we’re going to be featuring a new business dedicated to making it easier for all to apply to American universities.
The company is called AdmitSee and we’ll be talking to Stephanie Shyu one of the co-founders. One of the biggest sources of students to American universities is China, where the university entrance process is quite different. So what would you do if you needed help in applying to a foreign university? In China, they often turn to an agent who charges a great deal of money to help you out with language issues and especially in writing a personal statement, which most Chinese have no experience with. The idea that Stephanie Shyu and her co-founders had, was to create a site where students who had already secured a university place could share various aspects of their successful application for a much smaller fee than an agent would charge.
I must admit that one of my first thoughts was, wouldn’t this lead to plagiarism, but AdmitSee have thought of that too and they put all material through plagiarism software before allowing it to be part of their website. Plagiarism is also a reason to be banned from using the site.
I got to talk to four people from Admit See and along the way I learned a great deal about the differences between applying to universities in different countries. You will find the link to AdmitSee dot com on our blog at absolutely dash intercultural dot com as well as a short promotional video which explains how it works.
For example I learned that in China there are different high school courses depending on whether you plan to go to university in China or abroad. I also learned that hiring an agent to help you with your university application does not always help anyway.
absolutely entrepreneurial
It’s always interesting to find out where ideas for new businesses come from so that was one of my first questions when I had the chance to talk to AdmitSee’s co-founder Stephanie Shyu. So let’s go absolutely entrepreneurial and find out what prompted her to start this business. It looks as though your own immediate context has a lot to do with what type of business idea you’re going to come up with.
absolutely home-based
Next I had a very short chat with Ilse Calderon, another AdmitSee employee, who told me about the big differences she found between starting at university in France and the US.
absolutely complicated
The next AdmitSee employee I talked to has himself been through the confusing process of trying to get a college place while based in China by putting his trust in a third party. Let’s hear why it is so absolutely complicated.
And finally we hear from Mindy Zhou, whose aunt in China found another way to prepare her son for college in America.
So thanks to AdmitSee for getting in touch with us and for being willing to share all their stories. I certainly learned a great deal about the problems faced by applicants outside the US although AdmitSee is also useful for American High Schoolers. It all seems very different from my own experience of using the centralised British UCAS system many years ago.
Now this podcast is coming out on the 4rth of July so if you are American what does the 4rth of July mean to you? And if you are outside the USA, do you celebrate anyway? Or does it feel odd when all around you just carry on as normal? Let us know as a comment to this blog post or as a comment on our Absolutely Intercultural Facebook page . In my next show I’ll be featuring someone who got in touch with us through our Facebook page. You’ll have to wait until September to find out more!
We have over 350 likes at the moment so why not help us reach our next milestone before the next show on August 1st and like us on Facebook? Right now the FIFA World Cup is going on so you’ll find a few related posts, such as how the Dutch airline, KLM got it so wrong on Twitter and why the Swiss team is such a contradiction.
The next show will be coming to you from Germany with Laurent Borgmann on August 1st so until then, stay tuned!
The host of this show is: Anne Fox
