There are many decisions that have a significant impact on your career and University choice is high up on that list. For the past week, the (outgoing) years 11’s have been taking part in the SAT Boot Camp organized by the Senior School Careers office.

St Andrew’s School, Turi is among the top British Curriculum schools in the region and majority of the students who graduate from our sixth form college immediately go on to Universities all over the world and especially the UK. A good number join Universities in Canada and the US.

That is why we organise for the SATs boot camp every year for students who have completed their IGCSEs to enlighten the students on the application process (which differs from the UK) for North American Colleges and Universities.

The boot camp is part of the compulsory Life Skills programme that the students participate in to- like the name suggests, enhance their life skills. The life skills programme prepares them for a life of responsibility and they receive training on important aspects of responsibility like time management, money and budgeting, cooking amongst other skills they require to not just survive but thrive out in the world on their own. This training continues when they join the sixth form college whose structure is less like a high school and more like university.

Led by KENSAP founder Allan Davidson, the boot camp involves different activities like going through practice papers for the various subjects, guidance on essay and personal statement writing, advice on the University research process and one-on-one sessions with the trainers.

The trainers are a hand-picked lot from KENSAP’s 12 week camp attended by students from all over the country. Those present at Turi last week were already attending or waiting to join Ivy League Universities in the US- Duke, Princeton and MIT. The boot camp was attended by students who would like to pursue further education in North America and of course those who have not decided yet.

The road to Uni is a 5 year journey that begins on a subtle note in Yr 9 and ends with a good number of Turi students joining their first or second choice university. It doesn’t get better than that, well actually it does because some of students do so well that they are awarded scholarships based on merit as has been the case this year with 8 students who have been awarded full or partial merit scholarships.

Mrs Andwati, who runs the Careers office, summarizes the road to university at Turi below:

The application process for American Universities is more involving and certainly more extensive than the UK one; the selection criteria and assessment style differ as well. Therefore the SAT boot camps are a valuable
Whatever their choice, we are there to hold their hands through the process. We can’t wait to see where they this lot lands! More importantly we are eager to see how they will use the knowledge gained to serve humanity.