The opinion of the student regarding admission to the Berlin Brandenburg International school

Visit of school for the purpose of entry

Tanya has been studying at an American school in Salzburg for 2 years now. For the last two years of her study, her parents decided to transfer her to a school that has an IB program to provide Tanya with the best prospects for admission to universities.

Previously, according to the results of her academic performance over the 2 years of study in Salzburg and recommendations from teachers, Tanya has been invited for the entrance examinations and interview at two schools in Germany and one school in Austria.

All school visits were organized in April, school by school, to minimize missed classes at his school. As a result of the tests, Tanya was accepted by two schools out of three and she chose the school Amadeus Vienna. I asked her to tell me about her impressions of visiting the school took tests to understand what influenced her choice.

How does the admission at BBIS

The school is located in the suburbs of Berlin. From the centre of Berlin we went by subway, then by two more buses.

We watched the school by ourselves, as the staff was busy. Restrained architecture, large room, but dark. A separate building is a multi-purpose sports hall.

A large student residence, but uncomfortable. The corridor resembles a hospital, all the doors are locked. But there is a lounge with a kitchen where students can cook if they want and a canteen where there's always food: toast, fruit, milk, tea and etc.

The school is a special attitude to the Russian language. Not that they are hostile, but they say that when the school opened, it was filled by the Russians. The new leadership decided to balance the national mix and, despite the fact that the school was very popular on the Russian market, - has a very strict quota on the admission of Russian-speaking students. At the same time, the school has many international students, right from around the world.

When we arrived, a family from Brazil arrived almost at the same time. They were immediately surrounded by attention, they began to show them everything, the director took the parents for lunch. We were told to wait, and it was very unpleasant.

Then I was invited for an interview. Despite the fact that my timesheet was sent to school, before my invitation for an interview, the first thing they told me after looking at my documents was why you come here with such a performance, you still will not enter. Of course, after such a welcome, I did not want to go to this school at all.

Then they sent me to do the test. I didn't expect to be given 5 tests at once! It was very difficult and very little time. For a test in geography is given 40 minutes, there were a lot of questions that I was not taught at the previous school in Salzburg. The math test was an hour and a half, I think that did a lot. For a German test is given only 50 minutes – it was very little! And a general test for Sciences (chemistry, physics and biology). As I study in the American school, we only have 1 science per year. Last year was biology, I wrote what I remembered. This year chemistry – I think did well, but we have not yet taught physics, all my knowledge is from the Ukrainian school 2 years ago, but the tasks were much harder. And the last test of English literature is 2 hours. They gave me a fragment of the text, then I had to write a work on it.

Probably the school is strong in Sciences, but the attitude towards me left a very bad impression, so I didn't want to study at this school anymore.

Of course, there are many interesting things at school. Service classes during the program IB – students go to Berlin and work with immigrants. In summer they go to Romania to build houses in the village and also work in a kindergarten of the same school. here are a lot of activities: I liked tennis and dancing. According to the creative project – they paint or play musical instruments. Huge area, lots of buildings, there is a theater, a strong music school – every year the school organises a concert.

In General, after visiting the school I had an ambiguous impression. On the one hand, it seems that it's a very strong and interesting school. On the other hand, the way I was welcomed left a great residue that I do not fit into this school, either because I am Russian-speaking, or simply I do not suit them.