most schools accept TOEFL
ESL vs conditional admission for Chinese students
In China websites promote ESL and conditional admission for highly selected colleges. Is that true? So that means a student that doesn’t have english proficiency level can gain US college admissions. Misleading. Partially true that a handful of ivy selected college do that conditional admissions for international students who did not meet the min language req. however, that’s not equal to zero english or a student with a toefl of 90 for instance. Some of the schools of the conditional admission policy would require a student with toefl 95 to take additional english classes and use that as condition for college acceptance. On the other hand, students did not need the language prof req and accepted as lang prof req will face tremendous challenges. Will affect curriculum selection, design, grades, and grad school admisson competition. Question is: is it wise to go to highly selective colleges until conditional admission? My answer: depends. If the student is highly motivated, has an academic plan, possess learning skills, time management, all that is needed is more time to catch up to suceed in college. But in reality, the majority of chinese students are not prepared to take on the challenge. The reason that a lot of chinese students fail to take the challenges for example many are dealing with transition issues and learn to cope with different education system, different academic req, different campus setting all at the same time, their focus is not on taking the academic challenges as well as other important participation such as social network. It is true that not only the students but parents both fell proud simply because they are attending brand name university. Question is: students may get in the same diploma from different school but def have different experiences – definitely more importatn behind the diploma – transcript. Directly related to how they’re going to use the diploma, what they’re going to try to accomplish after college. How to use the diploma is more important than getting the diploma itself, in my opinion. For those not so selective colleges, conditional admissions is used to attract int. students with special program.s special programs are designed with different resources from college pov. Students ultimatly limited themselves in many different ways. More like a brand name product exported to china with a same brand name. same situtation applied to (more like a lexus car in china –difference is chinese lexus is different, different components and designs – not the same as lexus in america). Some colleges call conditional adm “pathway”. Whatever name is used, bottom line is students must consider what type of experience they’re expecting from a particular college under conditional admissions.
People taking different classes – different experience – all behind same diploma.
Pay money for just taking English classes – your transcript isn’t the same because you can’t get as many experiences. When people look for job people, they look at the transcript.
ESL is a program typically offered and provided by a third party language organization or the university itself. ESL has different levels and may count for university credits as part of undergrad total credits. It is not a standarized program – varies from school to school. Once the students have satisfyed the esl program and successfully completed the program, then the student is allowed to take undergrad classes working towards undergrad diploma/degree. Some of the esl programs are off campus. And administrated by companies like ETS.
Whether conditional admission student or ESL student, as a student you have many options. Most important option is transcript. However if admisions documentation is handled by chinese agencies and you do not have those copies, you may need to submit another set of documentations to qualify for admissions. The challenge of transferring to another school is that the majority of the studnets do not have the original documentations and those doc may not be the same or real, authentic documentations that the students can produce later on for transfer. Most of the chinese students do not understand that an application is a contract between student and school that has to guarantee the authentity of doc. Otherwise it’s a fraud with consequences. The school may dismiss students, financial aid may be taken away, visa status may be in jeopardy. Ivy counselors network believe that the chinese students must consider apply direct (program we offer) to avoid the authentity of the documentation and position themselves and put themselves in the best position for transfer.
A lot of students from china end up with esl conditional admissions don’t understand they don’t need to go to the college they were accepted even if they finish esl there. They’re in a position to transfer. Don’t know how to transfer – don’t know they can. A lot of ESL and conditional students actually are academically talented and willing to take up more challenges and end up at the wrong school because the majority of the esl and conditional admissions school are not highly selective – not the right schools for those students. Those students don’t know they don’t have to stay there for undergrad.
