Stevenacademy
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ACADEMY STUDENT TESTIMONIAL
합격수기 section
Jayoung Lee
Nationality: Korea, Graduated from: Gwacheon Foreign Language High School, Period studying overseas: a year and half during middle school
Grade: 3rd Level (According to Korean GPA), TOEFL: 115, AP: Psychology (5), TEPS score: 909
Extracurricular activities: MUN, public relations in the essay club, translating service
ETC: 14 awards in school’s English competitions, 대외상 성대경시 은상, IET 은상
Regarding test scores: Don’t be satisfied with the results and always aim for a higher score.
Conversation during the Interview: State an historical example related to the Chicken game.
Accepted to: Sogang University school of communications, Chung-Ang University study of social services
I studied at a foreign language high school in Korea and tried my best to apply to English linguistic specialist admission type, but I had relatively low scores in an official English tests and did not receive many awards. Therefore, I decided to be more strategical in planning and selecting activities that are related to my major. Although TOEFL score of 115 is quite high, but aiming higher score (minimum 117) is important because many students receive higher scores these days. I recommend you to aim higher score and work hard. Although some people say that universities don't really care about SAT and AP, the scores from official exams is very important when you are competing with other candidates with similar academic qualifications. In my case, I studied AP Psychology and Economics, and with the help of Steven Academy's AP lectures which is focused on learning concepts and problem solving with constant feedbacks, I was able to pass both AP exams. Especially for AP Psychology, I got a full score.
For me, I was strong in writing essays rather than the interview, so I aimed for Sogang and Chung-Ang University which mainly focus on students' essays. I registered Steven Academy’s essay class led by Steven. Since high school students usually have similar writing style and skills, Steven taught me various techniques that students normally do not use. I learned to add my explanation after quoting an important sentence or phrase inside the context. I was worried because it was an unusual method that I have never learned before in any other essay academies. However, as a result, I think this method of writing a catchy sentence structure largely influenced my admission results.
When studying essays, I considered the particular style of writing each school prefers. For example, Sogang University prefers succinct and clear writing style, so I kept from writing awkward or complicated sentences so that readers can understand clearly and differentiated myself with detailed examples (i.e. specific book title, specific theory). Sogang University selects triple of the entrance quota in the primary stage of admission process and accepts students based on their cover letter, official English proficiency test results, foreign language ability, and GPA in the final stage of admission. Because foreign language ability is quite important in this university, I believe that it would be more advantageous to send test scores related to your second foreign language regardless of scores. In addition, the professors focus on cover letter very carefully. In my cover letter, I constantly stressed the qualities that Sogang communication department prefers by relating those qualities to my experiences and qualifications in order to demonstrate my passion toward Sogang.
After going through intense college entrance preparations in 2013, I was accepted to both Sogang University school of communications and Chung-Ang University study of social services. I want to thank Steven Academy for teaching me distinct essay skills, and I hope good luck to students who are reading this.