December 10, 2019
William's hard earned advice for new students
Hello. In this blog, I'm gonna do a brief review of my three years' study life in a Japanese local school. I will talk about my feelings, experiences and give you guys some recommendations. Hope that this will be a help for students who are looking forward to study abroad in Seiritsu, a nice private school in Tokyo.
To begin with, I would like to tell you my preparation and my first year's life in Japan. Before I came to Seiritsu, I used to study in an international high school in Shanghai. This school has a pre-program for it's students, therefore I started study there from my summer holiday in 2016. The period was from July to October, then I decided to go to Japan, so I quit. Immediately, I started to study Japanese in an all day classes for 4 months until February 2017. I achieved a N3 level of JLPT at that time, but it wasn't actually enough for studying in a high level class in high school. I couldn't understand what the teacher was saying in the class; it's hard for me to read the textbooks; and I couldn't communicate with my classmates fluently. It took my about 6 months to get used of speaking and listening in Japanese.
In grade 11, I joined a high level class which studies science such as mathematics, physics and chemistry because I thought studying science would be easier than studying liberal arts. My physics class was too hard so I couldn't comprehend the basics of physics in grade 11. Also, I wasn't able to do good work in chemistry because of my language problem. By the last months in 2018, I found that the true major that I'd like to study in college is management and commerce. It was too hard for me to study in a high level liberal arts' class in which you also have to study ancient Japanese and Japanese History and to take a normal liberal arts test, so I went down to the low level class that uses the admissions office test (AO) for getting into university. This is a kind of exam that tests the extra potential of students like foreign language abilities, leaderships and the desire to study. I joined the student union and became the Vice President, and now that I can speak Chinese, Japanese and English, I was considered competitive for taking the AO test.
After I joined the special class for AO test in grade 12, I stoped struggling in the sciences. I studied Japanese, Politics and Economics in class, as my language level had improved, it became easy to get a good score. I can sometimes better scores than Japanese students in a Japanese tests. Life is still busy, I had to go to extra class almost every day to qualify for the necessary documents for the AO test. I prepared 5 months for Keio University, but I still failed. The main reason probably is that my GPA was too low since I didn't get good scores in grade 11. I failed the test of ICU, because I couldn't write a good enough Japanese essay. I failed the Rikkyo University's test for GLAP program because of no reason I could understand, but everyone in Seiritsu this year who applied to Rikkyo University has failed, so it is understandable.
When life gives you some difficulty, you have keep going and fight back. Finally, I passed the AO test of Tokyo Metropolitan University, which is a nice public school that I didn't expect that I could go to. Then I passed the exam of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. Of course I will choose the former.
In conclusion, students who choose to study abroad in a Japanese high school from grade 10, should be very conscious of which kind of university test they should take. After making the decision, they have to check which kind of class and cram school they should take. Also, be sure to always check the admission pages of every university that you intend to go to.
为跟上课程，从高一开始来成立学园学习建议JLPT N2 100分以上。否则高一在学习与交流方面会过的比较痛苦。GMARCH与其以上的大学由于政策改变近年来不好考。最好保留高中学籍以参加留学生考试
（For study, students should probably get 100 points in N2 of JLPT test in order to get a comfortable experience for studying at a school like Seiritsu and living in Japan. Chinese students should also keep their school roll in China in order to obtain the opportunity to take the foreign students test.)