Amy Xu, DSAS Grade 12 student

"In general there are no bad experiences. For all experience has value in the quest for wisdom." Amy Xu posted this on her Wechat Moments on the night she received the Offer from Boston University. The girl with a warm smile on her face is going to embark on a new learning journey in her ideal university -- Boston University with her expectations for the future. She will spend the next four years studying psychology, which interests her the most.

Amy’s development and growth was very evident in her three years at DSAS.

Host DSAS Young Musician

Monologue from a Spiritual Explorer

Amy had been interested in psychology ever since she was a child. "My classmates would come to chat with me if they were unhappy, and they would find that they felt better after the chat and got some inspiration for the problems that troubled them.” Realising that she might have unique abilities Amy began reading books on psychology. Building on what she learnt from the books each of her "chats" became more professional and more in-depth. This made her feel the charm of psychology, which led to her decision to continue to explore it in the future.

Inspired by her psychology teacher, Amy and her partner founded the psychology workshop. "When I worked as an assistant to the school's psychology teacher I listened and took notes while doing psychological counselling, this helped me learn some of the communication skills. After that, the psychology teacher assigned Amy a "task" - to be a conflict mediator in the school. After two training sessions, Amy learnt how to resolve conflict between students. As a result of her success in this area her teacher suggested she set up a psychology workshop to support students who are interested in psychology and share practical and interesting psychological knowledge.

During the epidemic, Amy and her partner Ann Shen started an online public account as they are not able to have offline discussions. "During that time I not only improved my writing skills but also the ability to analyze problems and master typesetting. I enjoyed editing articles with Ann, and I'm glad to use what I've learned to help my friends through the Internet.” Recalling this experience now Amy still feels joyful.

During the summer vacation Amy independently completed a real life research paper——an essay on the perception of Emoji in different age groups.” I learnt most of it for the first time. For example, how to use excel, and how to link the content of a questionnaire with practical psychological knowledge." All these ‘first’ experiences formed Amy’s unique and fulfilling experience in psychology.

“Well-Rounded”girl

“Growing up in a loving family Amy has become a positive, independent girl who yearns for the pursuit of beautiful things. Parental love offers a range of benefits for students. During Amy’s growth her mother and I tried to participate in every activity. We kept in touch with her teachers, students and other parents. We figured out the uniqueness of our kids through the time we spent with each other. We love her unconditionally, we trust her and give her the opportunity to experience life, explore her interests and advantages.” Amy's father said. Actually, his parenting concept coincidences with the educational philosophy of DSAS: we pay full attention to the individual differences of each student, and truly cultivating their core qualities based on personal growth experience.

Amy has shown great talent in music, dance and sports since she was a child. She has not only won many awards in recital contest but has also become a relatively mature young actress as she has participated in many events. Under the influence of her mother she practiced folk dance for 11 years. Unfortunately, an ankle surgery when she was in Grade 8 limited her dancing career. However, these have laid a solid foundation for her stage performance.

Amy’s parents had conflicts on her academic development path; Amy’s mom wished that her daughter would enter an arts school and get professional training as early as possible, whereas her father wanted her to receive international education which cultivated comprehensive learning and cognitive ability, and lay a more solid foundation for her to explore the unknown. After discussion Amy’s dad persuaded her mom and they chose the international education option.

After transferring to DSAS Amy participated in the Performing Art CCA and starred in two dramas. She was the main actress in the second drama she starred——Little Shop of horrors. "For me, drama is an opportunity to experience another life in a very short period of time. I always immersed myself in it and enjoy it." Amy said.

DSAS show "The Guys&Dolls"

Amy loved sports since she was very young. DSAS helped to open up new areas of sport for her. She did not play volleyball before she came to DSAS. Shortly after practice she participated in the first competition. Amy believes that every game she played helped her gain experience. In her second year in the school volleyball team Amy became the captain of the team and has led the team to victory over the past two years. In addition to volleyball she engaged in a variety of sports：basketball, football, swimming, skiing and skating.

A solo performance at ICC Flag-raising Ceremony

"Fancy" Boston

Amy joined a summer school in Boston when she was in Junior High which left a deep impression on her. "We visited universities around Boston. It was a coincidence that I was walking along Charles River and Boston university sits just beside the river. I was deeply attracted to the university's library. Before making her application, Amy did extensive research on the features of a number of universities, she chose Boston University as her ED school without hesitation.

Amy found the application process stressful. "Because the application essay has six topics you can write whatever you want, brain storming is especially important.” Amy told us. Before writing the main essay Amy had deep discussions with her University Guidance Counselor.

Amy has a close relationship with Carol Fu, her university guidance counselor. With eight years of experience in university counselling, Carol Fu is familiar with the application process for universities in the United States. Many of her students have been successfully admitted to Boston University.

In the end she wrote a story about her and her grandmother which also became a summary of their 17 years living together. Speaking of the reasons for the choice of topic, Amy said: "Grandma brought me up and she is my favourite person in the world. My relationship with my grandma was supportive, trusting and filled with love and respect. When I was a child I was afraid to separate from my grandmother, and always I felt sad when we were apart. But as I grow older parting took on a whole new meaning in my understanding. Parting is not a negative scenario for me, but a yearning for goodbye in the future. A lot of times we just immerse ourselves in grief and don't see the growth behind it. Loneliness after parting is the time to organize yourself and prepare for the life you yearn for. It's a big change in my mind and it makes me look more positively at things in my life. ”

As Amy’s father hopes: "Amy has received the offer and is about to start her university life. We hope that she can complete the rest of her high school studies successfully, set clear learning objectives, get to think about her future career direction, maintain a healthy body, read more books, further improve the time management ability, prepare for the university admission seriously and become an efficient person. We are confident that she will be able to continue to follow her heart, treat others with enthusiasm, and become a true "spiritual explorer."