Is it good at ISF

bobbycheung

spantan 發表於 12-4-18 20:50
//Even then, judging a school by just one year's result is hardly reliable and it's especially so w ...

No, that's not what I meant.  I was just saying one can't really judge whether a school is good or bad by merely looking at one year's result.   One year's result (and especially the first year) is not indicative of what is to come in the next or following years.  This principle doesn't only apply to ISF.  It applies to all new schools (such as Harrow HK).   

Yes, ISF is expensive.  But so are the other international schools which are not that much cheaper either.  ESF is a special case as it gets government subsidy.

I can imagine why a smart kid from a rich family would like to go ISF.  Perhaps the parents want the kid to learn better Chinese, perhaps the kid is happy there, perhaps they don't mind about the lack of track record because they think LSE, King's College, St Andrew etc. are more than good enough.......  In fact, you could pose this same question to the parents who send their kids to Harrow HK and indeed to parents of all new schools.

I don't know how long it will take to develop a well-proven education system with build up good track records.  But that's not what I am getting at.  What I really want to see is a few years' results which will hopefully give us a better idea as to which universities ISF students are likely to go.  

By the way, you said "there are also many other local schools or local IS that can produce students to Oxbridge and Ivy League."  Can you give me the names and figures of these schools eg the number or percentage of students going to Oxbridge and Ivy League each year?   I am really interested to know.   You told us that in your view,  LSE and Kings College are only marginally acceptable but even then it would still depend on the degree programs the students are doing.  Hence, I can only assume that only Oxbridge, Ivy League and the like will meet your expectation.  May I then ask you 3 questions:-
1. If ISF is not good enough, which school(s) have you got in mind that will give kids a better chance of going to Oxbridge, Ivy League and the like?
2. What is the chance of getting into such school(s)?
3. What is the percentage of students in such school(s) going to Oxbridge, Ivy League and the like each year?

My advice to your friend is that if he is not happy with ISF, his kid should leave assuming he could find a better place elsewhere.  But then I always remind myself that schools and teachers are not magicians.  They can't turn every single student into a star pupil.  To a large extent, it depends on the student's own abilities as well as the effort he puts in.

Birkin

"... schools and teachers are not magicians. They can't turn every single student into a star pupil. To a large extent, it depends on the student's own abilities as well as the effort he puts in".

Well said, bobbycheung :)

kfy

Dear Spantan

Thanks for your comment. Your judgement is sensible.

Well, as I am also working in education related field. I always think that there is no perfect school for all kids or families but only the most suitable one. Same as there is no perfect teaching method or lesson plan for all teachers but only the one that fit the teacher's character, philosophy and style.

If the parents or the students find that the school cannot meet their expectation, it's most sensible to look for a more suitable one. Similar to students may switch from Maryknoll to DGS, this is really a matter of choice.

For my own choice, I send my daughter to ISF NOT because I want her to go to Oxbridge (I have friends who send kids to international schools also do not have such aim...). I never believe that if I send her to local school she will only attend HKU or if I am willing to pay the extra money for private school she will attend Oxbridge. There are simply far too many factors.

Why go to ISF? I want to let her have a free and happy learning environment, plus good enough Chinese and not too bad English. Furthermore, it's close to my home.

Just wish to share you my personal story. I was always a "distinction" student since primary and got academic scholarship and award up to my Master degree. My reflections are (1) So what? (2) Happiness probably can come from wisdom but not from intelligence/academic achievement/career achievement (3) Passion, curiosity and self-discipline are the major factors for success in any aspect.

Maybe because of my personal background, I do not have too high expectation on any school. And I am not worried much about my daughter's academic development. I know whether she is "on track". Instead, I would focus my effort to help her develop passion, curiosity and self-discipline.

I believe ISF will never be a perfect school. I cannot ask for problem free but try to learn with my daughter how to tackle any problem. If one day there is a better one more suitable to my daughter, I may switch too. Changing school is not problematic at all if there are reasons.

PS1. The university offer list sent to parents did not include the degree program details hence I cannot comment about it.
PS2. There is no public exam result available because they are just taking the 1st IBDP exam this year. I wish them good luck and all the bests. NOT because it's important to school reputation BUT because it's important to the students themselves.
PS3. I am an ISF parent and I am not rich.

Birkin

I echo kfy's comments.  I did very well academically myself and for Spantan's information, I went to Oxford to read law.  I don’t have any expectations for my kids to go to any particular universities and I certainly wouldn’t tell them that LSE, King’s College and St. Andrew’s, etc. are “only marginally acceptable” universities.  There is a whole lot more in life than exam results.  Doing well academically only means just that.  It certainly doesn't mean that they are better people or superior to others and most certainly doesn't entitle them to look down on other people/schools that do not do as well academically.

Good/famous schools attract good students but they cannot create good students.  No schools or parents can do that.

P.S.        The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge went to St. Andrew’s.  If it is good enough for the future King and Queen of England, who is to say that it is not good enough for commoners like us? :D

bobbycheung

Birkin 發表於 12-4-19 11:00
I echo kfy's comments.  I did very well academically myself and for Spantan's information, I went to ...

Well, you and I might be commoners, but you can't really speak for others :)    Just kidding!   Seriously, I guess everybody is entitled to have his own expectation.  It is just that one has to assess whether such an expectation is realistic and reasonable.   If it is spantan and his friend's expectation that ISF should have students going to Oxbridge and Ivy League (as spantan said even LSE is only maginally acceptable), then let us look at their expectation closely.  The fact is that schools like CIS, LPC and GSIS each has around 10% of its students going to Oxbridge and Ivy League each year.  For the remaining 90% of students, they go to the same universities as those listed out by kfy eg LSE, Kings College, St. Andrews, UBC, SCAD, HKU/CU/HKUST, etc   Now, is it reasonable to expect a new school (such as ISF) beating or emulating the results of well-established schools (such as CIS or LPC etc. which have been running IB for many years) in its first year?   I don't think so.  You may then ask "what about the other schools?"  If you go to the websites of CDNIS and FIS etc, you will see that most of their students also go to the same universities as those in ISF's offer list.  Yes, ISF's school fee is expensive.  If you compare it with other schools, I think ISF students each pay HK$20,000 to HK$30,000 more per year than the students of other less expensive schools.  Is it realistic to expect this HK$20,000 to HK$30,000 per student would boost ISF's results substantially?   I don't think so.  Why?   The goodwill of those well-established schools enable them to attact students who are the cream of the crop and this advantage give them an enormous head start.   Is it impossible to beat them then?  No, but it will take time and definitely not in the first year.  Will ISF be able to do it eventually?  I don't know and only time will tell.

tingtingting

I had a look of LPCUWC's, CIS's and DBS's latest results just now.  Of the 160 LPCUWC students who chose to continue their studies in the UK, 5 went to Oxbridge.  That's a strong 3.125%.  Using the same percentage, ISF will have to wait 2 more years to have a graduating class big enough to produce one single student who will go to Oxbridge, assuming that the ISF students are to be as good as the LPCUWC's ones.  As for CIS, 1 out of 31 of the CIS's UK-goers went to Oxford (http://www.cis.edu.hk/cisnews.asp?lang=e&;detailpage=1&docid=104).  The rest went to some marginally acceptable or unacceptable universities.  DBS's first IB cohort has yet secured their first offer from Oxbridge (http://www.dbs.edu.hk/).  Seriously, if parents are aiming at more than marginally acceptable universities, send your kids to the likes of Choate Rosemary, Phillip Academy Andover, Carnegie Vanguard, Westminster, Wycombe Abbey, Tonbridge, Sevenoaks, etc.  Don't waste time in Hong Kong.

There are good universities and good programmes other than Oxbridge/Ivy League and business/medicine/law.  The world is a much bigger and interesting place than some parents tend to think it is.  One ISF's student has secured an unconditional offer from California College of Art.  Some parents who only know Oxbridge/Ivy League and have no idea what CCoA stands for may roll their eyes when their hear CCoA.  They may think it is just another offer from a lousy college in the States.  If only they could know better.  CCoA is one of the very top design colleges and extremely difficult to get in (by comparison, Yale and Harvard are easy).  This is the first unconditional offer to a HK student since quite some years ago.  And, what's wrong with Edinburgh University?  Its literature, history and veterinary studies programmes are among the best.  One ISF student is one her way to secure a scholarship to study Latin and Greek in France.  Aren't these more interesting and exciting than business and law?  

tingtingting

spantan 發表於 12-4-19 13:09
回復 tingtingting 的帖子

I am sorry that you have used a very wrong analysis which are totally misl ...

Take all your time (but it doesn't have to be another book).

HKTHK

In the interest of full disclosure, let me state a couple of facts first before I respond:

- I am a parent and my kids are at ISF.  You can say that I come with a certain bias but I am not necessarily wedded to the school.  You will have to judge for yourself but you have been forewarned- [the other facts deleted since spantan is gone and no need to respond directly to him]

In my opinion, ISF is a work in progress.  It is expensive like any other comparable international schools in town.  It is new and won’t have a good college placement record for years.  It is also not for every parents as it is more laid back than local schools.  As a school, I do believe it is heading in the right direction.

Have read this forum from time to time but this is my first time posting.  While I treasure some of the posts here, I find Spantan’s response here odd and at times downright irresponsible.  Many of his comments strike me as snide attacks colored by personal biases and naivete.  Here are my thoughts:

You may know your friend very well but hearsay is hearsay.  You are obviously entitled to your opinion but form them on facts and not what you heard from your friend.  Attacking a school based on hearsay is downright irresponsible.

Comparing your personal standards for colleges to placement for a whole school is comparing apples to oranges.  Even Andover, arguably the best private school in the US, only places 26% of its students to Ivy Leagues (http://www.andover.edu/About/New ... 0Matriculation.aspx).  Expecting a whole school to place at your standard is unrealistic if not laughable.

“In general, for such rich parents, if they want to find university placement for their kids, I don't think there is any difficulties and therefore the around 60 offers you mentioned means nothing important.“  Are you implying that rich parents can just buy their way into good universities?  Undoubtedly there is some truth to that at the billionaire level but for all parents at ISF?  Seriously?

On a more happy note, there are good reasons why I sent my kids to ISF and they are almost the same as kfy.  Every kid will know how to read, write and do math when they grow up.  But it is happiness, passion and curiosity to learn that makes them a complete person.  Out of my personal friends who sent their kids to ISF, over 80% of them went to an Ivy League themselves.  It will be great if our kids will have the chance to go to an Ivy League but that is not why we sent them to ISF, how we will judge the quality of the education or assess our children.  Life is about much more than sending your kids to a good college.  Stereotypical type A HK parent really need to take a chill pill and relax.

funnymommy

I find it astonishing that King's and LSE are seen by spantan as  'marginally acceptable'. If we are just talking about undergraduate studies, is Oxbridge really so much better then the rest of the Russell Group? I would think that the outcome of three years at university depends hugely on the individual, and the specific course  and more importantly, how much an individual makes of the opportunities open to them at university. No doubt Oxford is a great university. However, are Oxbridge graduates (or for that matter, Harvard, Yale and Princeton) that different from graduates of other  universities? Perhaps initially when one is job-hunting there is a slight advantage - but does that mean that Oxford is great and Kings/LSE is marginally acceptable ? No way. I feel sorry for any child whose parents give them the impression that only Oxbridge is good enough. That child will have a very misleading and narrow impression of the world.

bobbycheung

Let me help spantan out (by talking rubbish, as usual).  
1. Seeing something as "marginally acceptable" doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad thing.  My wife always say I am "marginally acceptable" even though I think I am great.
2. spantan thinks LSE and King's are "marginally acceptable" perhaps it is because her kid is really capable.  On second thought, it is better than me seeing the 2 universities as "marginally accessible" as my kids will clearly have great difficulty to get in.

bobbycheung

simpleway 發表於 12-4-19 15:08
  Once upon a time, there was a man whose son was very talented but flawed with .... issues. Fully  ...

Are you sure he is our dear old friend?  If it's him, I must congratulate him for his latest "incarnation" is quite successful until you blow his cover.  I must commend him especially on his change of sex.  

funnymommy

There will always be parents who judge the value of a school by solely the university placements of its graduating class. If thats the criteria, then no doubt the winning formula for a school is to only take in the most academically able students, push their students to undertake selective activities (i.e. only those that the admissions team of an university cares about) and push the students academically without regards to other values like lifelong learning or contribution to society. In order to inflate its grades, a school could weed out the bottom 20% and 'buy' in talent with scholarships. But is that what makes a 'good school?' I would think that a good school is one which gives more valued added to its students, whether academically, morally, ethnically and one which provides guidance, encouragement and discpline. I am learning from this forum that university placement is the SOLE end goal for some parents, but am also very happy to find many like-minded parents for whom univeristy placement is one of many relevant concerns.

Also I just wonder what spantan thinks Oxford or Cambridge will do for a student that LSE/King's wont do (other then the name and 'bragging rights').  I guess one could say the tutorial system and the network/connections.

On a more positive note, could HKTHK and other ISF parents give me some comments on ISF? We will apply next year for my son, who is currently 3 1/2 and is Eurasian. He speaks limited Mandarin. I am an IS graduate and have limited Chinese reading skill (almost no writing ability). Will this be a big problem? Whilst I value mandarin, I don't want to put my child in a place where he will always struggle and lag behind others. He is a confident and well adjusted child (now) and I worry that he will become self-conscious and withdrawn if we reverse his main school language from English to Mandarin. On the other hand, I am not able to speak Mandarin to him at home and so I depend on the school to provide this.  How heavy is the workload for the primary years in ISF?  Do you think ISF has the right balance between inquiry learning vs rote learning, academic vs play etc?

bobbycheung

Well, at least we know he is well.  That's a consolation of some sort.

tingtingting

bobbycheung 發表於 12-4-19 15:35
Well, at least we know he is well.  That's a consolation of some sort.

Good to know that he is well, but somehow sad to see that he is still obsessed with the same old bit.

HKTHK

simpleway/bobbycheung, can you share a bit more detail about him?  Or did I just wasted 20 mins for naught?

funnymommy>  in my kids classes, there are several Eurasians and also some families who doesn't understand Chinese at all.  It is obviously more hard work for them and I think some of them use tutors.  The kids are adjusting though and while not the best in Chinese (those would be the native Mandarin speakers), they all acquire fluency.  English is pretty widely used as well.  All of them converse in either English or Mandarin and which language is being used depends on who they are speaking with.  Having said this, my understanding is that in the recent round of interviews, there was a test on mandarin.  You will have to ask parents who have gone through that though.  My kids are still in the lower grade and I think it is a good balance between inquiry learning and rote learning.  Rough to break it down to % but for example, there was a project day a month or two ago whereby students spend several weeks working on their own projects which they then share with other students and visitors on an open day.  Let me know if you have more questions.

poonseelai

Hey relax, Spantan did not "judge the value of a school by solely the university placements of its graduating class"  He just mentioned his friends said the placements are not "impressive" (he did not say the placements are not good).  He did have a very very high expectation, and everyone can have his/her own view, right?