Congratulations to Andy Tian, our Grade 12 student from Pegasus

Received the offer from Santa Clara University!

(# 53 in the national university ranking by 2021USNews)

One more admission to the prestigious university in the 2021 application season!

Santa Clara University is a famous non-profit private Catholic school in the United States. It has been located in the heart of Silicon Valley in California for 167 years. At present, there are 5499 undergraduates and 3130 master's degree students in the university. Founded in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest university in the state of California and has a high academic reputation in the western United States. It is ranked No. 51 on the list of the nation's top universities in 2019 by Forbes (including comprehensive universities and colleges of liberal arts and sciences) and ranked 53rd on the list of American national universities. College graduates from Santa Clara University are ranked 13th in the Pay Scale 2018 College Salary Survey.

In December 2018, Santa Clara university for the first time by the Carnegie level of institutions of higher education is divided into the doctoral level University and in September 2019 was ranked 54 on the list of the national universities by US News and became the dark horse, better than Purdue university, the university of Washington (Seattle) and the University of Maryland Park.

Hello everyone, I am Andy Tian, a Grade 12 student at Pegasus. I have been studying at Pegasus  for four years since Grade 9.

Here's how I prepare during the application season.

First, on the application strategy and planning, I have always maintained close communication with my parents and the school, which has organized several lectures on application. I did not miss any one, which was very helpful for my application, especially through the school's founder's lecture, we learned that in addition to the GPA and standardized test, the key is that we need to keep high frequency communication with the school and the counselor in extra-curricular activities and documents. Through the brainstorming and exploring the highlights in the extracurricular activities and the characteristics of the universities I want to apply to so as to conform to the values of the school on the documents to the greatest degree.

In addition, the documents and the application can be done in a hurry. My counselor has been controlling the rhythm of my application, ED, EA, RD in an orderly way, especially on the eve of the application, it can’t be done in a hurry. For example, 10 days earlier than the deadline when all my ED documents are completed, the counselor asked me to modify the main topic and content of the documents after her comprehensive assessment of the stressed points of the universities I want to apply to, which means that all the documents I need to change all my documents accordingly, I once hesitated whether to change, but I finally chose to believe in my counselor's advice, which turned out to be the right choice.

Therefore, respect the suggestions of the teachers, the counselor and the parents are very important for choosing the school. We can't follow the way done by the majority. Suitable for yourself is the best choice. Especially in the choice of ED universities, the repeatedly consideration with the counselor is necessary so as to correctly evaluate yourself. ED application advantages are thus fully displayed. This is the result of a strategy to win.

As for standardized test results, only a comprehensive understanding of the needs of the school you apply to can you adjust their state in a timely manner. Due to the special circumstances of this year, universities in the United States also implemented flexible application policies, coupled with testing difficulties caused by the pandemic, despite a preparation of the whole summer, but ultimately I did not take the SAT test. In addition, through the lecture given by our school counselor, we learned that due to the influence of the epidemic, many universities accept TOEFL scores as well as the Duolingo score. My TOEFL test results repeatedly failed to meet the target.I changed the direction. Three days before the ED deadline, I passed the Duolingo test, which was used for my application. n short: Know yourself and know your enemies and you can win a hundred battles.

Finally, let's talk about the adjustment of mentality. Preparations in the busy application season must be a huge challenge for every Grade 12 student. It is inevitable that we will have anxiety and tension. At this time, I will relieve the pressure of study in many ways, such as going to the gym, playing bowling, going to play basketball with my classmates and sometimes having dinner with others so that I can temporarily forget about the application and relax myself.

Joining these clubs has helped me a lot. One is that it can relax me physically and mentally. When I devote myself to it, I can quickly adjust my tension caused by long time of study. At the same time, through the experience of participating in community activities, we can adapt to the university faster and better. No one should always blindly study at college. You always have to play with classmates, such as playing basketball. I believe it is a good way to communicate with friends. As we all know, basketball is a very popular sport in the United States. Many people make friends through playing basketball. The first friends I made at Pegasus were through playing basketball.

The experience in basketball team and the role of being a team leader is an important content on the activity list for my college application because the school can not only consider your grades when you apply to American universities, extracurricular activities are also the key indicators of your school. If the school only considers the grades, I may not get this offer. Because I did take the SAT test and my GPA also can’t reach the level of students with excellent grades, so I need to  make up the relatively lower grades through the extracurricular activities. I took part in a lot of extra-curricular activities and had a lot to write about, both in and out of school, such as speeches, club activities and volunteer experiences, which accounted for a large part of my documents.

First of all, in terms of study, be sure to finish the assignments in time and never be lazy. My experience in the first two years at school makes me deeply realize the importance of assignments.

As for activities, it is recommended that you take part in at least one. If you're relying on your GPA for nothing but your college application, chances are that you're not going to get the admissions officer's preference. The number of excellent students who compete with you is really large. For example, my brother and sister were both accepted to the top universities. Their experiences told me that it is impossible to be like that only relying on grades. As far as I know, the performance of many students coming from other regions is brilliant. It is hard to imagine that if we haven't some activities to be impressed at the university, the application will be very difficult. My average GPA was 0.5 lower than the required GPA of the college I applied to, but I also got offer, which reflects the importance of the activities.

The biggest change Pegasus bring me is to let me have a kind of brand-new conception of the class because I was in elementary school and junior high school with a big class, sitting at the desk all day, making notes and writing assignments in front of the blackboard, which let me have a kind of burden. After coming to Pegasus, the class becomes very interesting and even after a long holiday I feel uncomfortable and want to go back to school with classmates, which I can't imagine before.

In addition, the school always insists on English Only policy, so I develop a habit at a very early age. Personal experiences tell me that it is really very helpful for learning English, because you can often can see students who speak broken English later speak English very fluently, which should be attributed to the frequent practice, so I hope the school can stick to English Only policy and also hope that we can speak more .