CIS parents? Is it really difficult to be accepted by CIS?

TeddyBear2006

Good acdemic results usually come with academic pressure. I know a 12-year old kid in GSIS studying through 1:00 am and it seems a bit too much.

Pressure of course can be coming from the parent but if your kid is consistently below class average purely because the class is full of genius (not very right example, should be full of examination taking machine), your purpose of getting up your daughter's confidence will be totally defected.

School of excellent academic result is not suitable school for everyone. The issue is how do you know your kid is part of the "genius" when s/he is 3-4 years old. Parents of course can train their kids to "pretend" to be genius but at the end of the day, it is another pressure exerted to the kid.

gst725 寫道:
Thank you very much for your advice ALIP! My daughter has gone through the interview with CIS this morning and she seemed happy.

All I want my daughter to be in her school life is to study happily without loads of pressure. She is lack of confidence. So I hope she can study in a school which can help her to build up her confidence too. I don't mind if she does not speak Mandarin well while she is still very young. Actually, language of instruction is not my first concern.

But one thing made me not feeling very comfortable today when I was in CIS. The candidates' parents all seem unfriendly and showoff. I also noticed that some of them have tried to dress themselves like super star. Very childish!

Do you think Australian Int'l School, HKIS, CNDIS, and SIS are as good as GSIS and CIS academically? I heard that students in HKIS use drug quite often!  

ettawong

gst725,

I was there, in CIS yesterday too!

my girl said she had fun with the teachers, and was asked to draw a picture.  She said the teachers didn't use any book with her.  After the classroom session, I saw the children doing some outdoor games, maybe to test their physical agility.  

Frankly speaking, the parents I saw in the assessment were the types that I expected.  I don't think they are overly dressed or showing off.   Actually, I saw no parent communicating with each other, thus, can't tell whether they are friendly or not.    The other time when I had the CIS school visit, the parents were dressed much more formally, and I saw large diamond rings too (at least 5 carats!!)

What we found uncomfortable with, is the teacher who assessed the children.  Our experience with other international school teachers were more welcoming.  The staff were willing to talk, proactively, to the caucasian parents, but seemed quite cool to the asians.  

mattsmum

TeddyBear2006 寫道:
Pressure of course can be coming from the parent but if your kid is consistently below class average purely because the class is full of genius (not very right example, should be full of examination taking machine), your purpose of getting up your daughter's confidence will be totally defected.

School of excellent academic result is not suitable school for everyone.

i like your statement.

gst725

Hi ettawong,

Good to know someone here has been to yesterday's assessment.

The reason why I quoted they were unfriendly because I have tried to smile or even say hello to some of them with no response. Someone walked across the row where people were sitting there. He should at least say 'excuse me' before or after he walking through, right? But they wouldn't even look at you. Maybe I dressed like new migrant, haha.

Didn't you notice that someone was wearing Gucci jacket, pant and shose with a big big diamond ring and gold Rolex? Maybe that is their normal dress.

However, I didn't aware that the staff were cold to Asian before you said so. Yes, they were! I lived in overseas for a few years, I know what a second class citizen would be.

Which other IS you have applied and have a better feeling?

TeddyBear2006

ettawong 寫道:
gst725,

What we found uncomfortable with, is the teacher who assessed the children.  Our experience with other international school teachers were more welcoming.  The staff were willing to talk, proactively, to the caucasian parents, but seemed quite cool to the asians.  

Totally agree. My kid cried during intervew and we knew that he was not doing very well. However, my kid still try to say goodbye to the teacher who interviewed him when we left but the teacher were so aloof....It is lucky that he did not get in.

To be honest, this can happen in virtually any schools as individual teacher has her own passion on kids. It is a matter of luck whether you can come across a good teacher interviewing your kid and would like to take their kids as his/her students. However, it is just sad if the teacher treat your kid not so nice when s/he has already known that it will not be accepted. In this sense, I feel that my application fees of HK$1500 is totally wasted.

ettawong

TeddyBear2006 寫道:
In this sense, I feel that my application fees of HK$1500 is totally wasted.

Same here.   It was my husband who wanted to give CIS a try.     I just do this so that my husband would have nothing to blame about the children education.  

And also the parents' questionnaire that we had to fill in.  After going through the Qs, my husband was rather turned off too.   It is like indicating what type of parents we need to be in order to be part of the CIS family.   Maybe I am thinking too much ahead.
I will really have a second thought even if they accept my child.

cellcellu

gst725, TeddyBear2006 and ettawong,

I have to say I am with you 100%.
The attitude of the teachers and staff were so.....well, they simply made you feel like 2nd class citizen.  My husband and I were so shocked when we are asked to leave the school campus immediately just because my daughter cried in the interview, we paid $1500 application fee same as other parents too and expected to be treated the same.

Also, school outings to skiing in France or Switzerland were too much for us, anyway.

$1500 gave us an extraordinary exprience!

ettawong

Hi gst725,

If you find parents wearing brand names is showing off, you may have to adjust your expectation at CIS.  Every morning, a lot of students arrived at school with their maids & drivers.  The whole Braemar Hill Road was fill up with 7-seat vans driven not by parents, but family drivers.  A few has body guards too.   I heard from the parents that taking school bus is the minority.   Afterall, a lot of the richest family in HK put their children here.

I had a better feeling with GSIS though.

gst725

BODYGUARDS !!  

ALIP

Hi gst725,

Sorry to hear that you didn't have a good experience at CIS. Frankly speaking, show off parents are everywhere, not unique to int'l schools only. It's just the way some people are in a comspolitan city like HK. I was concerned about CIS being an "elite" school too cause me and my husband are very average income earners as well. Given the time the kids spend at school, it would be difficult to expect the kids to not be affected by each other. I finally came to the conclusion that because CIS has a reputation to be a good school, I should not deprive my child from a good education just because there are a lot of rich people in that school. I also figured that I should not deprive my child from exposure that I never had and should not assume they will all be bad. Well, this is just my personal view.

Regarding Aust Int'l, they have a "1st come 1st serve policy" so you need to be on the list a.s.a.p. - strong focus on sports. HKIS runs American curriculum which means a graduate may not be accepted by unis in other places, CNDIS' academic performance has been on the decline in recent years, SIS - if you're okay with Singapore culture since 80% teachers are Singaporean and the curriculum is more "spoon feeding" compared to other int'l schools. I think at the end of the day, every school has outstanding students and not so outstanding students. The key thing is finding a school that you think you child will like and therefore enjoy her learning experience.[quote]
gst725 寫道:
Thank you very much for your advice ALIP! My daughter has gone through the interview with CIS this morning and she seemed happy.

All I want my daughter to be in her school life is to study happily without loads of pressure. She is lack of confidence. So I hope she can study in a school which can help her to build up her confidence too. I don't mind if she does not speak Mandarin well while she is still very young. Actually, language of instruction is not my first concern.

But one thing made me not feeling very comfortable today when I was in CIS. The candidates' parents all seem unfriendly and showoff. I also noticed that some of them have tried to dress themselves like super star. Very childish!

Do you think Australian Int'l School, HKIS, CNDIS, and SIS are as good as GSIS and CIS academically? I heard that students in HKIS use drug quite often!  

ALIP

Hi 03baby,

SIS is a good deal for a bilingual education. My hesitation with SIS is that it runs the Singapore curriculum and 80% of the teachers are Singaporeans. No offence, but the Singaporean movie "I Not Stupid" made quite an impression on me.

CIS runs the IB middle years programme which I like. It's int'l in its thinking an vision - a programme designed by the United Nation.

03baby 寫道:
ALIP, how do you compare esf cis to sis?

gst725

Hi ALIP,

Thanks very much for your opinion. I do agree people would have their own ways to present (or package) themselves in this very competitive society. That's why I said that might be their normal dressing. However, cultivation is important too. Being polite is just a sample to every parent's child.

You have a very clear concept of each IS in HK. I bet you have done a lot of research. Thanks again for your comments. I have recently applied to RCHK and ISC. Do you have any comments on them? RCIS can only put us on the waiting list but they requested me to write a letter to put them as our first preference coz we had submitted an application to ESF (Clearwater Bay School). We are actually on the waiting list of Clearwater Bay too. I am not sure what to do now!

I thought Yew Chung was good. Friends of mine told me that their Secondary section is bad and their teachers and students are with very low morale... Do you know about this?

I don't know why I would always receive negative signals about the international schools. Someone told me today the FIS is a greedy school who just want to make money...

The most normal one seems ESF wor. But this one is too late for me now.

gogocat

Dear All,

I did apply CIS for my daughter this year becoz one of my good friend has children studying there. Her children could speak very good english and putonghau. In fact, this is one of the reason I applied this school. Yet, I have learnt from many people here that CIS is one of the elite school in Hong Kong and has good academic results. Apart from the university placement, may I know why you guys know the academic results of CIS is good?

cheers

gogocat

03baby

ALIP, thanks for sharing.

aloymom

gogocat

CIS has posted the results of IB MYP and DP in the school webpage. Please check!

2006 IB DP Results
Results for 2006 IB MYP

aloymom

ALIP

Hi gst725,

Manners and respect for others are indeed the very basic attributes each person should have. A pity that you happened to bump into some parents that gave you such a bad impression. Through our communication in this past week, I was quite fascinated that quite a few of us are trying to help our kids avoid the "rich" kids. Are the rich all not likable people or are we just uncomfortable because we don't really know what rich people are like? I don't have the answer, I'm just curious why we feel this way, including myself.

Anyway, I've been to Renaissance College and I like it. Other than being a new school with no track records and students from a wide range of local and int'l schools, I was impressed with the principal, the teachers and the campus. I went through all the teachers' CVs on their website and they are good. If it wasn't the limited focus on Mandarin, I would consider sending my daughter there.

Renaissance is part of the ESF family so they're competing for students therefore they require that letter from you. I'm not sure what ESF's "waiting list" policy is. If you can be on both, put yourself on both, if not, then you need to check with them how far down the waiting list is your daughter's name, the likelihood of when they think vacancies would come up, is your daughter required to do any assessment when there is vacancy etc...

ISC - do you mean Island School or Int'l School Foundation (ISF)?

I did look into Yew Chung but decided I didn't like it cause it's a local turn int'l school which seems to have maintained the "pressure" of local schools. Besides, they charge 12 mths school fees which I think is ridiculous.

FIS, I did have a look at their website and liked it a lot. Main hesitations, focus on Mandarin not strong and don't think my child or I can relate to the French culture.

ESF seems normal cause they run many schools and majority of the kids in there are local from ordinary HK families.

By the way, SCMP online has a school guide which is quite helpful. Good luck!

ALIP

Does anyone have kids in CIS already? Any input on the school culture and is it an "elite" school as rumoured?

gst725

Dear ALIP,

Thanks very much for your reply. I feel really warm to have a few parents support here in BK although we do not know each other. I have even received a parent's PM yesterday to give me some very good suggestions for my daughter. Thank you very much for sharing.

From my own observation, many of the very rich families are friendly and low profile. Bodyguard is not for showing off but it maybe really necessary for them. Only the sudden rich (暴發户) or middle rich families are inch and show-off. They would usually afraid others do not know that they have money and even pretended to be very rich.

The waiting list status of the ESF (Clearway Bay School)  and RC are about the same. They want me to choose which one is my first choice. I put RC already. I hope I didn't choose wrong. A friend told me that there are many students from middle east at Clearwater Bay School and their habits are very strange...

The deadline of HKIS is was on 1st of March but they still asked me to apply. I think I will try it too. I heard the atmosphere there is not really good. Drugs are common. I am not sure about their students performance. Do you have any ideas about this school? I know they are using US curriculum. Somebody said Nicolas Tse and Edison Chan also graduated there. If they are the referees of HKIS, um...

What I am now thinking is to keep my daughter with her current kindergarten for K3 this September and apply to those less pressure but better atmosphere traditional schools if she cannot get accepted by the better IS now. May try IS again next year with higher form. 唉, 好煩!!

How many IS have you applied for your daughter. Do you mind to tell which ones?

ALIP 寫道:
Hi gst725,

Manners and respect for others are indeed the very basic attributes each person should have. A pity that you happened to bump into some parents that gave you such a bad impression. Through our communication in this past week, I was quite fascinated that quite a few of us are trying to help our kids avoid the "rich" kids. Are the rich all not likable people or are we just uncomfortable because we don't really know what rich people are like? I don't have the answer, I'm just curious why we feel this way, including myself.

Anyway, I've been to Renaissance College and I like it. Other than being a new school with no track records and students from a wide range of local and int'l schools, I was impressed with the principal, the teachers and the campus. I went through all the teachers' CVs on their website and they are good. If it wasn't the limited focus on Mandarin, I would consider sending my daughter there.

Renaissance is part of the ESF family so they're competing for students therefore they require that letter from you. I'm not sure what ESF's "waiting list" policy is. If you can be on both, put yourself on both, if not, then you need to check with them how far down the waiting list is your daughter's name, the likelihood of when they think vacancies would come up, is your daughter required to do any assessment when there is vacancy etc...

ISC - do you mean Island School or Int'l School Foundation (ISF)?

I did look into Yew Chung but decided I didn't like it cause it's a local turn int'l school which seems to have maintained the "pressure" of local schools. Besides, they charge 12 mths school fees which I think is ridiculous.

FIS, I did have a look at their website and liked it a lot. Main hesitations, focus on Mandarin not strong and don't think my child or I can relate to the French culture.

ESF seems normal cause they run many schools and majority of the kids in there are local from ordinary HK families.

By the way, SCMP online has a school guide which is quite helpful. Good luck!

Ruby1219

ALIP,

I'm a RCHK parent. Happy to hear your good comment and I agree with you about the 'weaknesses'. But,  why you think RC does not have enough emphasis in Chinese ? They offer 4 days Chinese per week, which is already much more than ESF and they aim to increase that to 5 days ultimately. In fact, Chinese emphasis is one of the selling points of RCHK !?

May I ask which school is your kid now studying in ?

Thanks
Ruby

ALIP 寫道:
Hi gst725,

Manners and respect for others are indeed the very basic attributes each person should have. A pity that you happened to bump into some parents that gave you such a bad impression. Through our communication in this past week, I was quite fascinated that quite a few of us are trying to help our kids avoid the "rich" kids. Are the rich all not likable people or are we just uncomfortable because we don't really know what rich people are like? I don't have the answer, I'm just curious why we feel this way, including myself.

Anyway, I've been to Renaissance College and I like it. Other than being a new school with no track records and students from a wide range of local and int'l schools, I was impressed with the principal, the teachers and the campus. I went through all the teachers' CVs on their website and they are good. If it wasn't the limited focus on Mandarin, I would consider sending my daughter there.

Renaissance is part of the ESF family so they're competing for students therefore they require that letter from you. I'm not sure what ESF's "waiting list" policy is. If you can be on both, put yourself on both, if not, then you need to check with them how far down the waiting list is your daughter's name, the likelihood of when they think vacancies would come up, is your daughter required to do any assessment when there is vacancy etc...

ISC - do you mean Island School or Int'l School Foundation (ISF)?

I did look into Yew Chung but decided I didn't like it cause it's a local turn int'l school which seems to have maintained the "pressure" of local schools. Besides, they charge 12 mths school fees which I think is ridiculous.

FIS, I did have a look at their website and liked it a lot. Main hesitations, focus on Mandarin not strong and don't think my child or I can relate to the French culture.

ESF seems normal cause they run many schools and majority of the kids in there are local from ordinary HK families.

By the way, SCMP online has a school guide which is quite helpful. Good luck!