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| Jack |
Jack’s words should
be shared. His journey from secondary school to an elite university
to a job at a top consulting firm demonstrates that putting in hard work, doing
well, and having high goals isn’t always enough. His willingness to go beyond
these great attributes should educate may that in an increasingly competitive
world reaching out and demonstrating interest can sometimes make a difference.
In addition, knowing how to get help from students, mentors and alumni can often
open doors too.
******************************************************************************
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| Beijing |
You grew up in Beijing. If you could tell someone who has
never been there what it is like, what would say? What do you like and what
would you change?
“Big” is the first
word that comes into my mind since the city has over 20 million people and is
over 300 times of the size of New York’s Manhattan Island. Just like Manhattan,
Beijing has a melting pot nature as it gathers people from all over the country
who moved there for better opportunities and then finally settled down for
good. Statistics show that approximately 90% of the people or their elders have
a recent history of moving from an other part of China to Beijing.
Being one of those
people who moved to Beijing at a young age, I became the beneficiary of the
advanced education resources in Beijing. Many of the most nationally and internationally
well-known colleges and secondary schools are located in Beijing. This provides
opportunities for young people in Beijing to receive better quality education
since these schools offer bigger quotas to students who have Beijing residency.
This admission
process raises discussion about education inequality between Beijing and other
cities, as people in other parts of China claim it lowers their chances to
receive a top education. Having now seen both sides of the story, I think it
would be best to change the way that schools allocate quotas to admit students
from all over China. I believe this change would have a significant impact on
discovering more top talent nationwide.
You attended one of the best secondary schools in China.
Can you tell us about your school? How big is it? How many students were in
your grade and in your class? How competitive is it between students?
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| Jack at Renmin |
I attended The High
School Affiliated to Renmin University of China. It ranks as the No. 1 high
school in the nation for almost 10 years according to multiple sources. The
school has six grades (7th-12th) and a special
international study class. Each grade has approximately 800 students and the
international study class has 200 students.
Given that our
school has ranked No.1 for many years and the student classes are formed on a selective
basis, student competitiveness exists at the highest level among other schools
in terms of the high school admission test score. Hundreds of thousands of students would want
to attend Renin, but only 800 a year are chosen. Once students are enrolled, in
order to develop a sustainable competitive environment, the school adopts a
flexible class structure where students are allocated into different units by
their annual evaluation. In pragmatic
terms, 10% of the students move either up or down in comparison to others at
the end of each year.
Your school offers options for those taking the Gaokao
and those who want a chance to study outside China. At what point did you
decide you wanted to pursue your education outside of China and what went into
your decision making process? How involved were your parents in this decision?
How hard did they push you?
I took the Gaokao
but didn’t get in the major that I wanted to study in my ideal school Parke’s
note: although a student may get accepted to a top university in China, the Gaokao
score also serves to determine which major a student must study. For example, I
knew a student who transferred out of Beida--almost unthinkable to many in
China-- for a school in the US because she wanted to study architecture. In Beida
she was placed in the Hebrew major.)
After my first week of college study, I made the decision to take a gap
year instead and start applying colleges in United States.
My parents were very
supportive of my decision. They didn’t really push me hard, but they did
provide full financial support.
How good was the college counseling in your school? Did
you get any outside help in picking schools etc.? Did you do SAT and TOEFL prep
and if so how good was it?
How did you decide which schools to apply to and how many
applications did you submit?
The major focus of
my high school study was the Gaokao. As for applying to U.S. colleges, I picked
schools by either researching by myself or seeking advice from students who had
already studied in the U.S. I prepared for the SAT and TOEFL by attending
training sessions held by New Oriental, as many other students around did.
(Parke’s note: New Oriental has a reputation for increasing scores on
standardized test by many hundreds of points. They do this in part with good
teachers and much data about how the tests work, but it is the way they get
students to put in hundreds of hours of study that makes them so successful.)
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| Jack with fellow Renmin student in Chemistry class |
It would be great if you could share your story about
getting into your university late in the process.
It’s a long but
ultimately good story. At first, I was not surprised to find out that I got
wait-listed for admission at my top choice because I understood that the
student pool was very competitive while the application I submitted lacked
preparation in terms of time put in. (I made my decision to study abroad on
September and started application and exam prep from scratch.)
However,
acknowledging the fact that my university is one of the top public schools and
it has one of the best undergrad business schools, I didn’t want to wait passively
for the final decision from the school. Instead, I spent additional time in researching
the school and found out my top choice would be the best fit among all the
schools I applied to. Moreover, I reached out, via email and phone calls, to multiple
first year students at my top choice. They, as other university people I met
later, immediately encouraged and advised me to stay in the process. Moreover,
several students who got pulled from the waitlist the previous year told me
that the priority on my to-do list should be staying connected with the
admission office.
Therefore, accompanied
by both trust and doubt about my chance of getting in, I reached out to you
(Mr. Parke Muth) via email and followed up by several phone calls, in order to
express my strong interest in the school. Feeling this was not enough; I also
sent an appeal letter to express my strong interest of the school and updates
on my extra-curricular activities since my last submission of all the
application materials. On top of these moves, I even reached out to several
newly admitted students and received a 7-person recommendation letter after we
found out that I fit into the student pool naturally in terms of academic
achievements and activities. My research and efforts further confirmed my
strong will to break into my top choice because I believe people with lots of
similarities in doing well will ultimately become friends and should be
together. Finally, after almost a three-month wait, I received the admission
notice from my top choice.
The waitlist process
became a learning process for me. It required patience, networking, guts,
decision-making ability and even more. I’m glad I went through it fearlessly.
Finally, I believe the waitlist differentiates U.S. Colleges and a college in
China, given the former allows second chance opportunities. This opportunity
will trigger the unprecedented potential of a person and take the bravest to
the next level.
How did you prepare for your journey to the US both in
terms of mental preparation but also things you know you needed to do?
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| Jack in his first year at university |
Mentally, I knew I
was used to accepting a brand new environment because I have done that once by
moving to Beijing. However, the biggest difference between that and coming to
the US was the language difference. Therefore, I spent a month in improving
spoken English after getting admitted. Moreover, I continued to reach out to enrolled
upperclassmen for tips about living in my college town.
When you first arrived to your university how was it? How
did you get along with your roommate and the people in your dorm?
My first impression
was that the University is much bigger and more beautiful than colleges in
Beijing. People here were very nice and gracious to offer help on finding the
right directions and ways of getting around.
I believe the each
dorm of the University has its own culture based on the personalities of the
students who live there. Then, each of us started to adjust to such an environment.
For example, the community that I lived in my year was pretty quiet compared to
other communities. Therefore, I easily got along with people in the dorm by
attending welcome sessions and some icebreaking games. As for my roommate, we
easily got along by sharing a common mind of being international students, as
he was from Thailand.
Did you choose to hang out with a range of students from
different backgrounds when you first arrived or did you spend most of your time
with other Chinese students? If it was the latter do you wish you had not done
this?
To be honest, I
spent 75% of the time hanging out with Chinese students during the first couple
weeks after arrival. I believe this tendency is common for those students who
have never been in Western countries. Hanging out with Chinese students
presents a safe harbor and minimizes the unforeseen culture shock.
I believe the
process is natural and necessary. (Again, I can only speak for students who
have never been abroad before.) Spending most of your time with people who have
similar backgrounds serves as a base to build confidence upon, as traveling far
away from home already offered sufficient unpredictable challenges. It takes
time for international students to regain energy and confidence in the first
couple weeks. But of course, after getting used to the environment, it then becomes
time to step out of the comfort zone and spend more time with other communities
at the University.
Can you describe the academic atmosphere of your
university? How hard were the classes? Can you describe how you got accepted to
the Echols program?
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| Jack in his 2nd year at university |
The academic
atmosphere focuses on offering a fair and general study environment. The
fairness is presented by the honor system where students will be governed to
stay away from fraudulent activities such as cheating or plagiarism. General
study means the curriculum at the university is not hard but addresses wide
range of subjects and topics.
In terms of getting
accepted to the Echols program, the key is maintaining top grades academically
in the first year. Getting involved in handful leadership experiences is also
important because this shows a strong initiative and that falls in line with
the selection criteria.
Many students from China come into your university
wanting to study business. The competition among Chinese students for the
limited spaces for the program is intense. Can you describe how you approached
getting in to the Commerce School?
I approached the
process by continuously showing strong interest to the program. But at the same
time, I must admit that the grades are also a very important factor because the
average GPA of Chinese students who get in Commerce School rose to the 3.8
level.
Therefore, I
recommend future applicants from China who are truly interested in getting into
the Commerce School to maintain top grades during their first two years of
study. As important, each student needs to demonstrate a strong interest by
visiting the student service desk occasionally to learn more about the program,
as well as to let the admission committee learn more about you personally.
Lastly, leadership experience is also important given that each recent admitted
student has held more than three significant leadership positions.
A large part of your grade in many business classes
depends on class participation. Was this challenge for you since English is not
your first language? Did you feel self-conscious speaking in front of a large
group and if so did this get better over time?
It was definitely a
challenge for me, especially during the first semester in the business school.
However, I believe the challenge mostly comes with the public speaking itself,
not from the language issues.
I believe feeling
self-conscious while conducting public speaking is automatic for most of
people. However, people demonstrate different levels of nervousness by
controlling the responses to nervousness differently. I feel I was able to
handle this uncomfortableness better and better over time, so I would say that practice
would be the key to improve public speaking skills.
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| George Overstreet |
Can you name a professor or two or a class or two that
really both challenged you and educated you?
Professor George
Overstreet – COMM4790, 4791, 4792 The Fundamental of Real Estate
Did you find any mentors and if so who? Did you go to
office hours and get to know your Profs?
I define a mentor as
somebody who you can follow and learn things from. Therefore, lots of my
university alumni have become my mentors in lots of different ways. Also, I found
most of the professors at my university extremely helpful. I received not only
academic advice but also career advice from several of my professors in the commerce
school.
In terms of office
hours, I usually went to office hours for career advice since professors have
all done a great job addressing my academic questions through emails. I believe
discussing things face to face with professors is the fastest way to solve the
problems because professors have seen many similar issues with former students
so they can always provide the best solutions.
Getting into the business school is more than just
getting a great GPA. You also need to get involved in activities. What sorts of
things did you join and what did you learn from them?
The rationale behind
my extracurricular activities is diversification. That is, I wanted each of my
involvements to fall into different areas. So, with this mindset, my major
involvements in the past four years include: Mainland Student Network (MSN),
McIntire Investment Institute (MII) and Madison House Community Service.
Among all three
activities, I have learned teamwork skills through working with other students
in groups. For specific learning experiences, MSN taught me how to position the
Chinese student community on campus by initiating and conducting various activities.
McIntire Investment Institute provided me opportunity to learn more about the business
world and equity investment prior me joining the commerce school. Madison House
is a volunteer organization where different types of voluntary activities are
conducted. I served as a volunteer under a program called “CASH”, in which I
helped local low-income Charlottesville residents prepare tax returns. I
learned how I could transform in-class knowledge about taxation into goodwill
and deliver this to people who need it.
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| Jack in his 3rd year at university |
Group work is essential in your business program. Can you
describe how your group divided up tasks for your projects? Can you describe
the favorite project you worked on and why you liked it?
The bottom line is
everybody should be doing task that he or she is most efficient in doing.
Therefore, horizontally, upon receiving a new project, the operational group
leader of my group would break down the project into pieces and group mates
into sub-groups. Then, each sub-group will solve pieces of the project
separately and finally pool all the efforts together. Vertically, team dynamics
are created and maintained by some fun group activities such as a group dinner
or a movie night. So, by planning out ahead both horizontally and vertically,
we guarantee a high quality work and at the same time keep everybody on the
team involved and happy.
My favorite project
was the final project of my first semester in commerce school. The reason is
that the learning curve of the project summed up everything we have learned
previously and addressed lots of real-world applications. The project in my
year was about preparing a marketing campaign for a Swiss engineer company
“ABB” to attract support from the U.S. government and earn a national defense
contract in the energy/power industry. Pushed by the tight semester schedule,
everybody in our team contributed strong work ethic and research skills to
finish the project well. More importantly, I have solved a team conflict by
communicating to both sides of the conflict at the right time and in the right
way.
How did you go about searching for an internship after
your third year? What did you end up doing and did you like it?
90% of my research
centered on the official career development website of my university. The
reason why I focuses on this is simple: I haven’t seen any other route to land
a career opportunity more natural than alumni recruitment. Alumni post most of
the jobs on this site.
I ended up working
as a summer analyst at Greenberg Advisors, a boutique M&A investment bank
located in Washington D.C. area. I liked the people and the lean deal team
environment the firm provided. However, the firm doesn’t have the ability to
sponsor me for work authorization so I have to leave the job and seek for other
opportunity after that summer (Parke’s note: international students face much
greater challenges securing internships and jobs because very few companies
sponsor international students as it costs money and time. In addition, more
than half the students that companies sponsor end up not getting approved, as
the number of places of H-1 work visas is so limited. Great students who would be
offered jobs and would contribute to the economy a who are not approved must
then leave the US and companies are hesitant to hire people they may lose
because of these limitations.) In terms of the learning experience, one thing I
liked the most was the close relationship between the junior people and senior
leaders in the firm. I was able to get my questions answered easily and receive
feedback on my work frequently throughout the summer. As a result, the learning
curve was very deep.
How helpful were the career services personnel?
Both University
Career Service (UCS) team and McIntire Career Service (MCS) team have done
tremendous jobs on full-service career preparation for their designated student
communities. I benefitted from both UCS and MCS in different fashions.
Based on my
experience, UCS is responsible for spreading first-hand career opportunities
information on the website or via a Newsletter. Also, they have done a fair job
on resume review and mock interviews. MCS becomes, in effect, a peer advisor
board to conduct more authentic mock interviews and prepare a more professional
resume for business-oriented jobs. More importantly, they hold a closer
relationship with Commerce students than UCS by sending weekly “push
notification” to inform students about important deadlines of job applications.
When it came to look for a job how did you go about
applying and can you take us through how you found the position you are in now?
My strategy of job
application was broadening my interest to as many areas as I could. That is, I
applied to all the jobs that interested me upon reading job description and
after further research to check the fit for the job during the job interview.
This strategy might look strange to some students, as it seems to go against
their belief of only applying to the job that they are truly interested in.
In fact, many
recruiting firms don’t have the capacity to hire international students. For
some of those firms, you only find out this truth after you attend the
interview. Also, I always believe the recruiting process should be a two-way
process. That means interviews not only give a chance for employers to know you
but also gives you a chance to know them. Therefore, in my opinion, in a
shortage of time due to the tight semester schedule, the most efficient way to
learn whether you will fit for the job is through interviews. In order to put
myself in the position to get interviews I wanted, I always made sure that my
resume was competitive.
The process
described above is basically how I found the position I’m in now, as well as
other positions I attempted to pursue. However, the quality of the interview
plays a bigger role on landing a job. The key to succeed an interview is always
be yourself (sounds mundane but it is so true!). Also, always prepare for
technical questions because that’s a must if your competitors for the job are also
sufficiently prepared.
Can you talk a bit about how an older student helped you
at PwC? Did you do a lot of interview prep and resume reviews?
I was fortunate
enough to have a large alumni presence at PwC. I first approached them by
emails and almost every one of them replied and answered my questions about
many aspects of the job.
Surprisingly, I
found an older student who works under the team that I applied for and has a
very similar background as mine – born and raised in Beijing, China and studied
in the commerce school. Therefore, I reached out her by phone calls and
received advice not only about interview preparation but also about how to
leverage your international status as a strength. This advice helped me stand
out among different applicants during both first round and second round
interviews.
In terms interview
prep and resume reviews, Career Services team had us prepared to stand out in
the coming challenges. I can’t recall the specific number but I did visit the
career service office over 20 times during my fourth year, for resume review
and mock interviews.
How do you think you have changed since coming to the
US?
Physically I lost
some weight and formed a more systematic lifestyle of eating healthy and
exercising wisely.
Mentally, I’m able
to handle problems more professionally and less emotionally. That means I spent
less time in thinking why problems come up. Instead, I spend more time in
finding the right solutions to solve the problem and prevent the problem from
happening again. To sum it up, I want to use the line that appears occasionally
in many U.S. movies: “shut up and do your work.”
What skills do you think students in high school in China
should work on in order to be successful at highly selective schools in the US?
I’m not sure if I’m
qualified enough to answer this question because there are many, many
outstanding young people in China who would have exceptional skills and
personal qualities. I am not sure how I would do if I had to apply U.S.
colleges along with them nowadays. The most elite schools in the US limit the
number of students coming from China and the
competition for places increases each year.
But just to express
some honest opinions, I suggest students focus on one or two strengths and
spend plenty of time developing and showcasing them during the application.
Based on my experience of conducting video interviews on prospective students
in China, almost all of them were able to tell me about many leadership
experiences (Parke’s note: the Mainland Student Network was founded in part to
conduct interviews with students applying from China.) However, only a handful of them
could answer my follow-up questions and dive deep on those experiences
accordingly. Therefore, in my opinion, it’s easy to get involved but hard to
stay engaged.
Also, if time and
budget allows, students should take a trip to United States and visit some
schools. A College application is another example where you want to avoid
online shopping. Visit the campus, talk to local people and stop by some
classes. You will find this is the best way to conduct research other than
judging from third-party rankings.
Lastly, follow your
heart. It sounds cheesy but it is also very true. So, if you like the school,
apply to it. If you get waitlisted but still believe you are qualified, appeal
it. For myself, I followed my heart and got into both my university as well as the
commerce school from off their waitlists.
Do you have any short or long term plans about your
career and future?
Do well in my first
job and then get accepted into a good MBA program. After that, we will see.
Anything else you would like to add?
I believe my university has a unique environment that
nurtures well-rounded people who are both smart and nice. Active alumni
participation has added value to extend this tradition. Therefore, I encourage
current and prospective students to stay in touch with alumni. At the same
time, we alumni should stay connected to each other and treat graduation as a
starting point of a new era rather than an ending point.
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It’s hard to know where to begin to highlight all the great
things Jack has said here. But I will start with a thought experiment. How
would you react if you were not accepted at your top choice school but were placed
instead on a waiting list? Some would just give up. Many would send in a letter
expressing interest and some would reach out in some other ways, but Jack went
far beyond the typical student when demonstrating interest, He gathered
information, support, and used these to contact the school in ways that few
ever do.
His approach in this situation taught him that putting in
time to talk with mentors and fellow students is an education in itself. If
fact some of the things he learned are not taught in classes but are nearly
essential for those hoping to earn spaces at great places after graduation.
I would say that the things Jack did to get where he is are
now becoming a necessity for many students no matter how high their gpas or the
name of the school they attend. I would also say this is especially true of
international students and even more true for those who are applying from China
or, if they have enrolled in US schools from China. Given the huge population
of China, there are far too many exceptional students now applying to elite
schools in the US But the data shows it’s far harder for them to get accepted
than for those in the US (for more on this topic go here).
Jack attended one of the best schools in China. They host
some of the best secondary schools in the world on their campus for exchanges
(Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, Raffles in Singapore and Daewon Foreign Language High School in Korea to name just 3).
But even that isn’t always enough to stand out. And for
those seeking spots at elite schools this may well be true with you too.
Sometimes it takes more of an effort than just doing exceptionally well by the
numbers. Many decisions in admission and with internships and jobs go far
beyond numbers. Jack knew this and developed his leadership and networking
skills so that he stood out. Had he not
done this he would not be where he is now. For those who want to learn to
succeed not just getting into a school, but in life, then reading over Jack’s
advice would be a great way to prepare for the challenges ahead.
I want to thank Jack for sharing such great advice for
others. It is no surprise he would do so. It’s the kind of person he is. I am
lucky I have had a chance to get to know him and look forward to hearing about
his continued success.
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