From the Career and University Guidance office

The Year 13 students have started the exciting process of applying to university while the Year 12 are currently gathering information about their areas of interest and about the universities they are considering applying to next year. To help them with the process, a few steps/events have been or will be taking place in the next few weeks.

-BridgeU: as mentioned before, Year 13 and Year 12 students have now access to BridgeU, a platform integrated to Managebac that allows students to access a list of university matches according to a number of criteria they can enter on a profile builder. In the next 24 hours, parents will also be given access to the platform so they should be receiving an email from BridgeU (BridgeU is using the parents’ email address on Managebac). Once you have signed in, parents will be able to access BridgeU through their Managebac login details: https://app.bridge-u.com/users/sign_in. Year 11 students will be introduced to BridgeU on Wednesday next week. Here is a video on how to use BridgeU to support your child.

-Some Year 13, Year 12 and a couple of Year 11 students attended a small university fair at LICS last week. The fair was mainly attended by universities from the UK but there was a variety of choices. With the new rule allowing international students to stay in the UK for two years (compared to 4 months before) after graduating from British universities, the UK might become more attractive to some of our students: see a recent article from the Guardian.

-the Council of International Schools (CIS) University and College Africa Tour: hosted at ISL last year, the fair will take place at AISL this year on the 9th October. Year 13, Year 12 and Year 11 have been sent the following link to register for the fair. Please note they will not be allowed to enter if they are not registered prior to the fair. ISL will be providing transport for the students who have registered and we will leave school at 12.30 on that day to be back around 15.00. Unfortunately some of the Year 11 students will be on their Biology field trip in Treetops during that week. Their parents are welcome to attend instead, provided they can make their own way to AISL. The link also displays the list of American, Canadian, and European universities and colleges attending and it is regularly updated.

-the career and university guidance display board: students and parents are invited to read the information about applying to university in various countries from the university guidance display board just outside the admin block.

-PaCAS takes place during period 4 on Wednesdays and this is a dedicated slot for the Career Guidance Counselor and the CAS coordinator to meet with all the Year 12 students or all the Year 13 students. However it is highly recommended that the Year 13 students work on their university application outside that period as well. They have been made aware of a number of deadlines (by email, on the display board and face to face) regarding their application depending on the course and the country they are applying for.

-taking the SAT: ISL is a centre for SAT, a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the US. This semester, Year 13 and Year 12 students can sit the SATs on the following dates: 5-6th October, 2nd November, 7th-8th December. Students do not register through the school but through the CollegeBoard website:  https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat-subject-tests/register