College Preparation Seminar in Milwaukee Modern Chinese School

      —- Emily Wang

The Milwaukee Chinese Community Center (MCCC) had their first event of the Youth Leadership Academy (YLA) which is the annual College Prep Seminar on May 20th. Four high school seniors and one college freshman came to share their different experiences and recommendations on preparing for college acceptance. Led by Hana Li, the questions were collected and prepared earlier where each student was given a chance to answer.
Some important advices that were emphasized by all students in the seminar:

• Work hard for your test scores
• Create a good relationship with a teacher who can write a personalized letter of recommendation
• Along with that, It will be the best if the teacher is also good at writing
• Have a lot of volunteer service to show your leadership
• Interviews are about finding out information on the school and not so much getting accepted
• Focus on your passion; although this is very cliché, it shows a school that you will be able to put your heart into your work

All in all, congratulations to all the students for their hard work and initiative!
Sophia Sun

Parent: Jianguo Sun (Father) and Nianhong Liu (Mother)

A student of Brookfield Central HS, who was admitted to Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, and UW-Madison. She will attend Harvard in the fall.

“A big thing that I did during my high school career that made me stand out more was my use of summers. During the summertime while most students were sleeping in and watching movies, I attended different camps across the state that furthered my education past the usual knowledge that high schoolers will know. My freshman and sophomore summers I attended a math camp in Texas and after those years I went to a camp at MIT. These research opportunities pushed me to achieve great things and showed how great my work ethic was. The best part about it was the fact that it did not even seem like work. It is important that you are doing something that you enjoy and something that will surround yourself with great, intelligent people. That way, you will know that you are actually doing something that you are passionate about and love.”

“One of the biggest pieces of advice that I would say on preparing for the application process is to manage your time effectively. I often pushed for all my projects and activities to be done on time even if it involved doing my homework in other classes just to get it finished. Contrary to many other people in high school, my junior year, I got many hours of sleep and managed to not procrastinate. This is not saying that acceptance will be automatic just because of time management, but it definitely did make the job easier. It gave me more time to focus on being a captain of academic decathlon and allowed me to be the president of the Chinese Youth Leadership Academy (YLA).”

Alena Huang

Parent: Huazhang Huang (Father) and Qiong Wang (Mother)

A student of Brookfield Central HS, who was admitted to the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, UW-Madison, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of Notre Dame. She will attend the University of Notre Dame in the fall.

“In high school, it is important to try new things just to see what extracurricular and subjects will best fit you in the future. By doing this, I was able to realize that I wanted to be a part of my school’s key club and create the first chess club. I also was a part of varsity tennis which helped greatly with my physical health and mental because of how much I enjoyed it. In addition, I utilized my school classes to find out what exactly I liked. In high school, I realized that I really enjoyed computer science and economics. Although those are on two separate sides of the spectrum, this helped with narrowing down majors and also schools. Colleges that offered these two topics became the colleges that I would most likely end up choosing.”

Catherine Zhao

Parent: Dazhong Zhao ( Father) and Min Chen (Mother)

A student of Whitefish Bay HS, who was admitted to UM-Twin Cities, UW-Madison, Smith College, and Swarthmore College. She will attend Swarthmore College in the fall.

“Different from many other applicants, I am completely undecided on my major so that led to me choosing to go to a liberal arts college. These colleges are much more loose when it comes to the curriculum which allows there to be much more wiggle room; therefore making it easier to come in not knowing what exactly to major in. Along with the curriculum of the school, I chose Swarthmore College because of the location. I would like to emphasize how important location is when choosing a school. You will be spending the next four years at this school, and it is essential that the feel of the city is somewhere you will enjoy living in. Swarthmore is very close to big cities like New York City and Philadelphia, and because I love being near these cities, I chose it. Basically, when choosing schools, proper research must be done and possibly even visiting the college is necessary, because how it fits is a deciding factor.”

Steven Chen

Parent: Qian Chen ( Father) and Naxin Wang (Mother)

A freshman at Emory University and a previous student at Brookfield Academy. Last year, he was admitted to Rice University, Emory University (full ride), Boston College, University of Rochester, Case Western Reserve University, St. Louis University (Medical Scholar program), UW-Madison, and Marquette University.

“Make sure that you are putting your health above all other things in high school. It is very common to over-stress and work as a high schooler. There always seems to be so much to do. However, when it comes to being truly successful, it is very important to focus on your physical and mental health more. This will be able to motivate you to your best when it comes to your application and eventually, get your application to stand out. I was able to do this and pursue my passion of photography in high school. Without the sleep and mental capacity, I most likely would not have been able to go through my days and succeed as much as I did.”