Sebastian Fang, DSAS Grade 12 student

When hearing that Sebastian received the offer from Imperial College London, his teachers and classmates were happy for him but not completely surprised. He is obsessed with Math, has received an interview invitation from University of Oxford, received offers from the University of Hong Kong, McGill University, the University of Warwick, the University of Manchester, University of Toronto, University of Waterloo and many other famous universities.

Sebastian's Offers

在狄邦文理找到终生理想

Sebastian is a founding student of DSAS. He transferred to DSAS in the first semester of Grade 10 after the Secondary School Entrance Examination. He felt uncomfortable when he experienced his first math classes taught in English but was not discouraged, with his perseverance and dedication, Sebastian soon showed his true colors in mathematics.

If determination is the fuel for Sebastian's rapid progress, our high-quality teachers and great community at DSAS are the boosters. Mr. Sam Jones has been a math teacher at DSAS for three years. He sets high standards for his students and is very strict. Whether the writing format of homework or the sum-up of mathematical materials. Mr. Sam Jones has his own clear and unambiguous requirements and is very detailed oriented. This felt unfamiliar to some students and even complained at first, soon forming good study habits and reaping the benefits. Sam's students admire his rigorous approach. Although they once complained about Mr. Jones, students love him and they even made lovely stickers for him as a gift.

In DSAS, we apply stratified teaching according to students' learning situation. Some of the outstanding students in mathematics chose fast Track in G11, they will complete two years of A-Level math courses in one year. Sebastian is one of them and he is currently learning advanced mathematics which is also taught by Mr. Jones.

At first Sebastian set hid goal to become a math major student at the University of Waterloo, Canada. When Kayla Chen, his university guidance counselor told him that the University of Waterloo required at least three A's in the A-Level programme, he was determined to try his best and achieve that goal. "He was very motivated, especially after he made progress in his English, his grades improved a lot in Grade 11," said Kayla.

The pandemic did not affect Sebastian’s enthusiasm to learn, on the contrary, he is very disciplined and efficient. He not only taught himself but he entered several math competitions during the outbreak; Cambridge University mathematics STEP test (due to the outbreak the test was cancelled), also he read many professional books to study cardinal, which is more difficult than the difficulty of mathematics which was learned by the same grade students. Sorry, I don’t understand what this means. It is worth mentioning that during the epidemic period, Sebastian wrote a paper on Robust Control of Markov Decision, which was included in the 2020 International Conference on Picture Processing, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence in October 2020, and recently was included by the 2nd International Conference on Computing and Data Science, Stanford, USA, January 2021.

From the inception of the school the mathematics teaching and research group not only provides multi-level and multi-dimensional teaching, but also actively introduces a variety of mathematics competitions. DSAS is the test site of AMC USA, Waterloo Math Competition, North Carolina Math Competition and many other international Math competitions.

Sebastian took an active part in almost all the math competitions and also achieved excellent results. He won the first place in the CEMC competition of the University of Waterloo, won the super gold award in the Kangaroo Mathematics Competition in 2020, won the first place in the high school team math competition, ranked Top100 in the individual and top 20% in the team math competition in the US Regional Mathematics League in 2020...At the same time, Sebastian has been awarded Mathematician of the Month and Mathematics Merit Award for many times in the Mathematics Department.

It is worth mentioning that Mr. Halls, the principal of King's College School, Wimbledon and Mr. Gross, the head of overseas development of KCS are very involved in the university application of founding students of DSAS. As there are a large number of students from KCS received offers from top universities every year. Mr. Halls reviewed the application essay for all the Oxford and Cambridge applicants personally. During the National Day, he discussed details of the application with applicants through video chat, including the major selection, college selection and he shared a lot of interview experience with the students.

Online Tutorial from teachers in KCS

Sebastian interviewed with University of Cambridge in December, 2020

不止是“学霸”

Although Sebastian an outstanding academic, especially in mathematics, he is not robotic in his school life, he is the captain of school volleyball team. He has been actively participating in volleyball matches and training since G10. Games are often held after school or on weekends—— sports is a way for Sebastian to release pressure from his studies. As well as volleyball, he can often be seen in school basketball games. He was awarded the Sports Merit Award for his active participation in sports and was praised for his outstanding performance at the 2018-19 School Year Sports Awards Ceremony.

DSAS has always emphasized community service. Our goal is not only to cultivate first-class academic students, but also to encourage them to give back to society. Therefore, since the founding of DSAS, we have emphasized the sense of community service and has provided many opportunities for students to participate in community service activities. From the second week after entering the school, Sebastian participated in the Huishan wall painting charity activity organized by the school. After that, he also volunteered in a series of activities such as the charity bazaar in school library and Coastal City, Awesome Math Summer School, and the school Open Day. Because of his great attitude and sense of responsibility he has been praised by all the teachers who led the team.

Sebastian was a volunteer of Huishan Wall Painting Charity Activity

"My classmate and I opened a computer CCA to help lower-grade kids understand what a computer is and how to do basic programming." In order to enable the lower grade students to have a better learning experience, Sebastian and his partners planned and simulated the experience when participating the CCA in advance, they designed a simple game to assist teaching. At the same time, Sebastian also did researches on advanced mathematics-related projects.

It is because of his love and dedication in mathematics, and chase for his dream, Sebastian finally got the offer from his ideal school. We are sure he will go further on the road to success.