Celia Xue, DSAS Grade 12 student

When you first see Celia Xue, you will be impressed by her rational aura, as if you can take anything in peace with yourself. When she received the offer from Northwestern University, she just said "yes", as if everything was in order.

When you get close to the DSAS student who holds the offer from the top 10 university in the United States, you will find that 'grind' or 'rational' are just her labels. Enthusiasm, self-disciplined, dedicated are her real core, and these are exactly the reason why she can get the offer from a top university.

Continuous Academic Progress

Three years ago, with her parents' support, Celia Xue left her hometown Chengdu and came to Wuxi to study at Nanwai King's College School. She became one of the founding students of the school. Compared with the traditional style and strict management of her previous school, she likes the free and relaxed atmosphere here in DSAS, this atmosphere is more than trust and tolerance of students instead of academic indulgence. On the contrary, it is precisely because of the rigorous academic system that teachers are more confident in helping children achieve academic breakthroughs in a way that is more appropriate to them.

Each teacher has rich teaching experience and has their characteristics," said Celia. Mr Jones, an advanced maths teacher who is known for his "high standards"; Ms Goodson, a wise and caring chemistry teacher; Mr Maddison, a witty teacher with 30 years of teaching experience, they are all typical examples of Nanwai King's pursuit of teaching excellence. Besides, students can contact Mr. Stefan directly for any problems they encounter in daily academic work. With the encouragement of her economics teacher, Celia participated in the FBLA Business Competition when she was in G11. She won the first place in the national FBLA advertising and second place in business.

Celia with Ms Goodson

After determining the biochemistry major, Celia went to Sichuan University in the summer of 2019 to study siRNA in the laboratory. She experienced personally and learned the workflow of the laboratory which strengthened her determination to have further study in biochemistry. In 2020, she published the essay "potential blocking strategy of SARS-CoV-2 invading human cells " in the journal "Systems Medicine".

It is worth mentioning that the super courses established by DSAS and Jiangnan University provide a broader platform for students. After the end of the application season in the first semester of G12, Celia set her sights on more difficult university research projects, she has a strong interest in Professor Yin Jian's glycobiology project and is eager to participate in it as soon as possible.

Love What I Love

Speaking of unaccommodated things when coming to DSAS, Celia said, because of the pressure she got acne in the first year in DSAS. It was in the process of treating acne that she began to realize the biochemical mechanisms behind it, and got interested in the field, which led to the idea of founding the Skincare Science Club.

Teenagers are quite interested in their appearance, so in daily life, anti-acne is one of the hot topics of conversation among students. When using varieties of products, based on her knowledge of biochemistry, Celia pays attention to product ingredients, she clearly knows that acne is a multi-cause skin disease, different situations require different efficacy of the product.

With the support and help of teachers, the Skincare Science Club showed up at the CCA Fair in the new semester, Celia and her partners demonstrated a variety of anti-acne products vividly, they also set a skincare knowledge quiz time, and prepared small gifts which attracted many students. Since then, through weekly activities, Celia and her partners have gained a deeper understanding of skin and body from a physiological perspective, as well as the effects of the different products from the biochemical perspective.

Celia wrote about this practice in the application essay and won the favor of the admissions officer at Northwestern University. Varities of co-curricular activities offered by the school have broadened students' horizons and eventually become the passion of many students. These activities have inspired students to contribute to their collective construction and laid a solid foundation for their career development in the future.

In G10 and G11, Celia joined the school Yearbook CCA, students engaged in collecting and editing news, typesetting and photoshop skills under the guidance of teachers. Due to the poor health of the guidance teacher, Celia and several other ICC students put themselves forward and undertook the yearbook editing mission. Although the annual yearbook is published at the end of the school year, they set a clear work schedule from the beginning of the school year. They have weekly meetings every Tuesday to keep track of progress and discuss new work content. They hope that the yearbook would be left as a gift from the founding school graduates to their alma mater.

Love From the Deep Heart

Like all the students affected by the epidemic, Celia applied both UK and US universities. However, Celia worried about the application——due to the very slow speed of writing an application essay, and the paperwork required by the dual application is very complex." Ms. Chen knows me very well, she is experienced and can see the shining points on my resume. When I was writing the main application essay, I discussed with Ms. Chen about my life experiences over the past ten years and I finally got the writing inspiration."

In Ms. Chen's eyes, Celia is a quiet girl with a "strong" heart, her characteristic is very suitable for doing academic and scientific research. Considering that her parents are living thousands of miles away, Ms. Chen pays special attention to her mental health especially during the application period, some offers have not been accepted for a long time, Ms. Chen also helped Celia relieve her pressure.

There is a batch of students come from other cities just like Celia in DSAS. Their parents are concerned about their studies and life here in Wuxi. While in DSAS, the relationship between teachers and students is very close, teachers are familiar with each student. Many students fall in love with one subject because of the teacher. There are two reasons why we have a warm and loving atmosphere. Firstly, the house boarding system originated from KCS, nearly 2/3 of the ICC students board at school which helps deepen the friendship; Apart from that, with the Pastoral Care, teachers care about the growth of students from the bottom of their hearts.

We are confident that Celia will open a broader path of exploration in the field he loves.