Top of the class: Hong Kong students get boost to Ivy League chances from former child prodigy, qualified for 25 top universities, now a businessman consultant
- Former child prodigy sets up business to help Hong Kong students navigate complex application process for top US universities
- The number of students from the city applying to Ivy League schools has skyrocketed over the past three years
A child prodigy who applied to 25 of the world’s top universities and was accepted into all of them is now helping students in Hong Kong navigate the complex application process.
New Zealand-born Jamie Beaton, 28, graduated from Harvard University in 2016 with a double-degree in applied mathematics-economics and applied maths.
When he was 20 he was also one of the youngest to be accepted to Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and in 2019 he graduated from Stanford with an MBA and MA in education.
“Having attended Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, I can say that these institutions truly possess the springboard to transform one’s life and the lives of their families for generations to come,” he said.
Today Beaton shares his knowledge through Crimson Education, a college admissions consulting firm he co-founded aged 17 with a vision to level the university admissions playing field.
“My grandfather turned down a scholarship to a top British high school because he couldn’t afford the cost of the uniform, and as a result worked for more than 50 years in a highly manual role,” said Beaton.
He said anxiety among parents about when is the right time to start preparing their child for top university applications is also common.
“There is an advantage to starting admissions preparation earlier,” Beaton told the Post, adding Crimson’s preparation programmes cater to students as young as 11.
“But this is counter-productive if the student is unwilling to engage or has not had a chance to develop interests that they are self-motivated to explore.”
He also advises against helicopter parenting, an overprotective and involved parenting style that he said stifles development.
Christopher Rim, founder and chief executive of admissions consulting firm, Command Education, said applications to Ivy League and top US colleges from Asia, particularly Hong Kong, have skyrocketed.
“During the Trump administration, parents from Asia preferred that their children went to a university in the UK due to the rise of Asian hate crimes in the US,” Rim told the Post.
During the pandemic, violence against the Asian American and Pacific Islanders community surged.
“But since the new administration, we’ve seen a huge shift of families from Asia seeking a college education from the US, and of course, preferably an Ivy League school,” said Rim.
One of the biggest misconceptions families from Asia have about the Ivy League college admissions process, said Rim, is that grades and test scores are the most important components.
“While high grades and scores will get a foot in the door at top US schools, extra-curriculars are vital,” he said.
“They’re not looking for 20 students with perfect grades who all play the violin, they want unique and interesting students who have not only discovered their passions but pursued and explored them.”
Rim said another misconception is that you can buy a spot at a top university.
In 2019, the US was rocked by a college admissions scandal code-named Operation Varsity Blues.
Thirty-three parents were accused of paying more than US$25 million between 2011 and 2018 to the scheme’s ringleader William Rick Singer who used part of the money to fraudulently inflate entrance exam test scores and bribe college officials. Universities implicated included Yale, Stanford and Georgetown.
