Kerry Liu, AIC Class of 2016, received offers from a few UK universities, like King’s College London, the University of Birmingham, Loughborough University, University of Bath, as well as US universities, like Indiana University Bloomington, Lawrence University, Ohio State University and Syracuse University.

Among them, Loughborough University, Lawrence University and Syracuse University offered her scholarships in different degree programs. Kerry accepted the four-year scholarship offer from Syracuse University, where she graduated with a double major: International Relations and History, in 2020. After that, Kerry received an offer from King’s College London for her graduate study in International Political Economy.

At AIC, during the 2-year IBDP study period, student select courses according to their own will and interests, which gave Kerry a clear direction and motivation to prepare studying abroad.

"I like History and Business, so I choose IBDP History and IBDP Business Management at Higher Level. Fortunately, when I started to learn them, I found these two IB courses were both challenging, yet fun. Their topics and syllabus content were all interesting and worth studying. So, I, naturally, decided to take these two as my main direction for university application when I stepped into DP2”, said Kerry.

Another important reason Kerry enjoyed studying at AIC was that the AIC faculty paid close attention to students' university application process and gave them a lot of support.

"My English university application was completed with the help of Bob. Although I was fully planning to study in the US, and I chose to go to an American university, the fact that I applied for and won many offers from British universities gave me more options and a sense of security and achievement."

Another thing about AIC that helped me get ready for college life is CAS. It’s basically the similar idea with student communities in college: you can either join some group that you are interested in, or even try to found your own CAS. I myself had a historical-event discussion CAS in my DP2 year, and I found it pretty interesting.

For Kerry, the biggest impact of accepting IB education at AIC was that she could see more possibilities and have more choices when making her personal development plan.

"Before entering the university, you have two years to study the subjects you choose at the IBDP level, which is enough for you to figure out whether the subjects interest you or otherwise; this will help you make decisions on whether you want to continue studying them at university or not."

"Fortunately, in my case, there weren’t many setbacks. My university courses selection and application went smoothly. After entering the university, I continued to choose courses that I was interested in, including "Cold War", which I learned in high school but didn’t get into in-dept research.

In Kerry's view, IB program may not be a kind of life-changing education, but it does have more positive and long-term impacts on personal development, encouraging her to keep learning throughout her life.