Читать книгу Accepted!. Secrets to Gaining Admission to the World's Top Universities онлайн

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Figure 2.1

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This is generally okay for a typical student. But you are not typical. You are trying to get into one of the world's best universities. By necessity, you have to beat the curve. One of the best ways to do this is to throw the concept of time and year levels out the window. An international diploma called the International Baccalaureate (IB)ssss1 is quite popular with students and illustrates this point well. For example, in most IB schools, you take a fairly random curriculum up until the last three years. In the better schools, in your third last year (Grade 10 in the US) you might take the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) and then in Year 11 and 12 (your junior and senior years), you sit the IB Diploma.

This means you don't actually get any formal qualifications until the last three years of high school, and you don't even get your final IB exam results until after high school finishes, and after you've applied to college. The truth is, most students can actually handle much of the content for subjects like the AP, or honors, far earlier than they are traditionally encouraged to take them.