Top Liberal Arts Colleges Visit DHSZ

On Friday April 25th, Swarthmore College, Davidson College, and Bowdoin College visited us and gave a presentation for students. These are three high ranking American liberal arts colleges with Swarthmore being ranked #3 (US News Best National Liberal Arts Colleges), Bowdoin #5, and Davidson #14.

Before meeting a group of our students, the admissions officers from these three colleges spoke with DHSZ counsellors. Some key takeaways from this were:

• The importance of InitialView (InitialView) or Vericant (Verified Video Interviews | Vericant) interviews in the admissions process. These are third party interview services that provide a video interview and writing sample to the universities a student is applying to. Swarthmore, Davidson, and Bowdoin highly encourage the submission of one of these and consider them to be a vital part of the admissions process.
• The importance of demonstrated interest. In the case of non early decision applicants, demonstrated interest can be looked at heavily for applicants. The colleges are looking to get a better sense of the likelihood of an accepted student attending. Demonstrated interest can be shown in a variety of different ways, such as attending a webinar, opening and reading through emails sent by a college, emailing professors or admissions officers, or other methods of engagement. Many of the smaller private colleges track all communications with students and add it to the applicant’s file.
• They are looking for students who will be active contributors to campus. In general, liberal arts colleges have 1,000 – 2,000 students with small class sizes. Every member of the school is expected to engage with classmates and teachers. When viewing high school applicants, they want to see students who are participating in high school life through things like consistent CCA participation, community service, school leadership, and other areas. This can be evaluated from a student’s activity list, essays, and recommendation letters.

Please keep in mind for the above that this is specific to liberal arts college and smaller private American universities. Much of the above will not apply to larger private of public American universities.

DHSZ University Visits 2024-2025

In addition to the above, we have hosted many other universities this year. Some of these are highlighted below. The total number – including the university fair we hosted in October – is around 200.

• City University of Hong Kong
• University of Melbourne
• Australia National University
• Boston University
• University of California
• Tulane University
• University of the Arts London
• Maryland Institute College of Art