#GraduateStory | Insights from the Class of 2026

Among the more than 80 students in BAID's Class of 2026 who applied to universities overseas, preliminary figures as of April 3 show a total of 587 offers of admission from 146 universities across 12 countries and regions.

Among students applying to U.S. national universities and liberal arts colleges, 48.9% were admitted to a U.S. News Top 30 institution, based on the 2026 U.S. News rankings and counting each student only once regardless of the number of offers received. The result continues BAID's strong record of admissions to leading U.S. universities over recent years.

For the United Kingdom, as of April 3, 48.8% of applicants had received an offer from a G5 university, while 100% had received an offer from a Russell Group university. Students received offers from institutions including the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and University College London.

A total of 29 students applied to universities in Hong Kong SAR China. Seven students received eight offers from Hong Kong SAR China's three leading universities — The University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and The Chinese University of Hong Kong — representing 24% of applicants.

Students applying to universities in other countries also received offers from leading institutions in their respective destinations. Those applying in the arts were admitted to highly ranked specialist institutions and received substantial scholarships.

The Class of 2026 is Beijing Academy's seventh graduating class and the third graduating cohort since the AP courses began admitting students externally. Their growth has been deeply rooted in the qualities that have long defined the school: strong individualized research opportunities, close relationships between students and teachers, sustained collaboration between families and the school, and a faculty whose commitment to education has only deepened over time.

Looking back, the development of Beijing Academy's AP courses from their earliest stages has been a demanding journey. Over the past nine years, faculty and staff have continued to pursue high standards in international education, develop the program with clear structures, bring together high-quality educational resources from around the world, and support students in growing creatively. Beijing Academy has long been known for close family-school partnerships, strong student-teacher relationships, and an environment in which students are given room to explore without artificial ceilings. The school's teaching philosophy of "Trust, Discover, Support, Guide," together with the care teachers devote to every student, has created a close-knit and energetic community. Since the first graduating class in 2020, BAID has consistently seen a high volume of offers, strong admissions outcomes at leading universities, and outstanding individual student achievements. Each graduating class has included students admitted to an Ivy League university or a U.S. News Top 10 university. This year also brought notable gains across several areas, including admissions to U.S. Top 10 and Top 20 institutions, the G5 admission rate in the United Kingdom, and the proportion of students receiving offers from Hong Kong SAR China's top three universities, continuing the story of international education at Beijing Academy.

Reflections and Advice

Ryan Li

Admitted to: Carleton College

Major: Environmental Science & Chemistry

Application Season: Dos

Stay calm and focused when preparing for standardized tests. Have confidence in yourself, trust your own choices, and do not let other people's opinions sway you too easily.

Application Season: Don'ts

Do not neglect your regular coursework because of college applications. Your Grade 12 GPA still matters.

If you could do high school over again, what would you keep doing?

I would have more confidence in myself from Grade 10 and believe that I was capable of taking AP Physics. I would also continue pursuing the activities I genuinely wanted to do.

If you could do high school over again, what would you change?

I would prepare properly for the SAT, finish standardized testing earlier, and make better use of the opportunities and resources provided by the school.

Amanda Zhu

Admitted to: University of California, Irvine

Major: Social Policy and Public Service

Application Season: Don'ts

Universities evaluate applicants across many dimensions, including grades, standardized test scores, activities, and awards. But your academic record remains one of the most important concrete parts of the application. Do not let extracurricular activities take up so much time that your regular academic performance begins to suffer.

Application Season: Dos

Evaluation criteria vary significantly across regions and universities. I would recommend deciding on your general application direction as early as possible and working with your college counselor to develop an application strategy suited to your own situation.

If you could do high school over again, what would you change?

If I could start over, I would begin planning standardized testing and extracurricular activities systematically from the moment I entered Grade 10. The busiest period of high school is really the year and a half from Grade 11 through the first semester of Grade 12. Because I did not plan my activities well enough in Grade 10, I accumulated too few meaningful experiences that year. By Grade 11 and Grade 12, I had to maintain my GPA, prepare intensively for standardized tests, and somehow find large amounts of additional time and energy to make up for activities I had not done earlier. It was exhausting both physically and mentally.

Ruolin Zhao

Admitted to: Boston University

Major: Sociology

A Few Suggestions on College Essays

1. Learn as much as possible about the universities you are applying to and what they value. This can be extremely helpful when writing essays. You can interview alumni, search for information across different platforms, read relevant books, or look at older students' "Why School" essays. Bringing together information from different sources can often lead to fresher ideas and more engaging essays.
2. Avoid writing in generalities. Your essays should reveal what is distinctive about you and what has contributed to the person you are today, including how your past activities and experiences have influenced your growth. If you run into problems with an essay, speak with your college counselor whenever necessary. It can also be helpful to exchange thoughts with classmates; other people's perspectives can sometimes lead to unexpected insights.
3. For ED, I would encourage you to be ambitious. Many universities have higher admission rates in ED than in RD, so make thoughtful use of that opportunity. ED is most appropriate for a school you would be completely happy to attend. At the same time, I would strongly advise against using ED on a school that is far beyond what is realistic for your profile purely in the hope of getting lucky, because that can waste an important opportunity.For EA, I would recommend using it primarily for schools that provide you with a reliable foundation. EA results often come out relatively early, and having an offer in hand can ease a great deal of anxiety during application season and give you greater confidence as you approach more challenging applications.
4. Time is the scarcest resource in Grade 12. You have to manage the GPA pressure created by demanding courses such as AP classes while also handling essays and activities. At this stage, every hour becomes valuable. Think carefully about your future plans and be realistic about your own capacity. If you hope to graduate from university early, for example, you may need to take more AP courses during an already intense Grade 12 year. I hope everyone can manage their time well and be properly prepared for every exam.

Finally, I wish everyone the best with your applications and hope you receive good news early.

Stellar He

Admitted to: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Major: Physics

If you could do high school over again, what would you keep doing?

If I had the opportunity to start again, I would still participate in academic competitions. For me, their value was never limited to the final result. More importantly, they placed me in a relatively intense environment where I gradually learned how to handle pressure and how to remain focused and patient even when I had been thinking about a problem for a long time without finding a clear path forward. That is an experience ordinary coursework rarely provides.

Competitions also gave me a fuller understanding of physics. The Physics Bowl, for example, places greater emphasis than regular classes on breadth of knowledge and connections across different areas. It gradually helped me develop a more systematic way of understanding physics instead of viewing it as a collection of isolated concepts. During preparation, I kept trying different approaches and working through problems, and I discovered that questions that initially looked extremely complicated could often be broken down and understood through clearer reasoning. There is something inherently satisfying about finally understanding why something works, and that process made me even more certain that I wanted to continue studying physics.

If you could do high school over again, what would you change?

I would devote more time to activities and long-term projects while making more deliberate choices about my courses. At the time, I once believed that taking a large number of courses was inherently important, so I tended to add more AP classes and even tried self-studying subjects such as Macroeconomics. Looking back, that was not necessarily the most effective use of my time. Sustained activities or research projects that you can keep developing over a long period are more likely to produce genuinely valuable experiences.

Fortunately, later in high school I had the opportunity to join a research program and experience more systematic project-based courses. That experience made me understand much more clearly how important depth can be. If I could start again, I would think earlier about how each course relates to my academic interests and concentrate my time on a smaller number of pursuits with greater continuity, allowing my effort to build into something closely connected with what I hope to study.

Arthur Jiang

Admitted to: Reed College

Major: Undecided

Application Season: Dos

Explore widely. Learn about different kinds of universities, and during the application process, pay attention to schools outside the one or two categories you already know. Do not focus exclusively on large public universities. Gradually explore private research universities and liberal arts colleges, and even consider applying across multiple countries. This gives you more options while also exposing you to very different types of campus environments.

When I first began researching universities in Grade 10, my understanding was still quite superficial. For example, I knew that large public universities had lots of students, big lecture courses, seminars, and so on. Later, I participated in BAID's exchange program with Glen Rock High School in the United States and visited several American universities. We saw public institutions, private universities such as the University of Pennsylvania, and liberal arts colleges including Barnard College, Swarthmore College, and Haverford College. The experience broadened my perspective considerably. Those visits were what first drew me to the academic environment and campus culture of liberal arts colleges, and after returning to China I began researching them extensively.

The most useful method I found when researching schools was to go directly to the "Mission and Values" or "About Us" section of the university website and begin with its values. What kind of students does the institution hope to educate? What kind of student fits the school? What is its historical background? Much of what you need to know is there. Then I look at academics: does the university offer programs that suit me? How broad are the academic choices? Does it encourage interdisciplinary exploration or deeper specialization? Because I am personally interested in pursuing graduate study in the United States, I pay particular attention to the academic atmosphere, research opportunities, and the proportion of graduates who go on to PhD programs, which can often indicate how strongly a school encourages academic pursuits. Finally, I look at student-life websites such as Niche, where students post reviews and ratings. Those can help you identify potential concerns and also understand the everyday atmosphere on campus.

If you could do high school over again, what would you keep doing?

I would keep an open mind. In Grade 10, I spent much of my time doing practice questions, preparing for the TOEFL, and trying to protect my GPA. Later, I began asking myself: What kind of place do I want to go to in the future? What kind of person do I want to become? From then on, I started reading more actively and approaching unfamiliar things with greater openness. I became willing to try almost anything.

I used to make architectural models, but later, influenced by a close friend, I experimented with model painting as well. I found it fascinating, and it added something new to my life outside class. It was through this continuing process of exploration that I gradually came to understand myself. Even if I could start over, I would still choose to explore.

Sunny Liu

Admitted to: University of California, Berkeley

Major: Genetics & Plant Biology

Application Season: Dos

1. Ask teachers for recommendation letters early: Ideally, approach subject teachers who know you well and are relevant to your application direction before the summer begins.
2. Communicate proactively with your college counselor: One of your recommendation letters is written by your college counselor. Open and substantive conversations give your counselor more material and a clearer understanding of how to represent you.
3. Create a timeline and task list: Include college research, collecting possible essay material, drafting essays, revising essays, and other application tasks. The point is not to produce a perfect plan; it is to know what needs to be done and avoid overlooking something important. It is also a useful way to get started, because if you never begin, nothing will move forward.
4. After completing your activities list, begin with the UC essays: Starting in the summer, use the four UC Personal Insight Questions to revisit the activities and experiences you have accumulated. I found this very useful for developing essay material.
5. Distribute your essay workload realistically: Plan EA and RD based on the number of supplemental essays rather than simply the number of universities. Five universities together may require only one genuinely new supplemental essay, while a single university might ask for seven.
6. Use AI tools to reduce routine workload: AI can be useful for tasks such as language polishing and grammar checks. Make sure to check each university's official policy to determine whether it prohibits any form of AI use in application essays.
7. Seek help proactively: For college planning, essay revision, and other application work, seek reliable professional guidance and support from teachers. Good guidance can help you understand your own ideas and needs more clearly and provide practical suggestions.

Application Season: Don'ts

1. Do not procrastinate: Avoid leaving essays until the final few days before the official deadline. The same applies to other application tasks. Delaying them provides no real benefit.
2. Do not casually list courses as "in progress" or "planned": In systems such as UCAS, if you list a course and later do not take the examination, a conditional offer may include a required result for that subject, leaving you unable to meet the conditions of admission.
3. Do not apply to too many universities with heavy supplemental requirements: Make sure you have enough time and energy to develop each essay properly. Quality is more important than quantity.

If you could do high school over again, what would you keep doing?

I would continue doing the things I love and spending time with the people I care about. Whatever happens, being happy is the most important thing.

If you could do high school over again, what would you change?

I would be more socially active, meet like-minded friends earlier, and try to leave fewer regrets.

Kevin Wu

Admitted to: Georgia Institute of Technology

Major: Music Technology

Application Season: Dos

1. Choose a major based on what you genuinely love. This is essential, but passion should also be considered alongside your own strengths and practical realities, including program restrictions, feasibility, and possible future pathways. Ideally, your interests and real-world circumstances should support one another.
2. Plan standardized testing early. Combine exam preparation with the development of broader academic skills, distribute your time according to your own situation, and make steady progress so that you are not forced into a rushed schedule later.
3. Evaluate universities from multiple perspectives.
   • Academic strength: Look closely at the curriculum, faculty, academic resources, and facilities.
   • Living environment: Consider location, campus atmosphere, housing, dining, and everyday life.
   • Community culture: Explore student organizations, the support provided by the university, whether the student culture is more collaborative or competitive, and relationships between students and faculty.
   • Future development: Research opportunities, alumni networks, internships, career pathways, and the university's support for innovation and hands-on projects.

If you could do high school over again, what would you keep doing?

1. Study the subjects you truly enjoy. Do not worry too much about whether every subject is "directly relevant" to your intended major. You never know when or how different areas of knowledge may connect. Genuine interest can carry you further and make the journey more sustainable.
2. Aim high, stay grounded, and have the courage to push beyond your limits. Hold ambitious goals while objectively considering your own circumstances and the realities around you. Move toward your goals one step at a time, continue trying new things, and keep challenging yourself. Be someone willing to act and innovate.
3. Keep reading, and start as early as possible. Read broadly in both Chinese and English. Continuous reading strengthens language, reasoning, communication, and collaboration. Take Chinese Literature and English classes seriously; the discussions and ideas that emerge there may later become valuable material for essays or recommendation letters. Long-term reading without an immediate practical purpose can ultimately give you more than you expect.

Arnold Zhang

Admitted to: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Major: Electrical Engineering

If you could do high school over again, what would you keep doing?

If I had the chance to go through high school again, I would still follow the same academic direction and choose engineering.

For me, deciding to study engineering felt very natural. Throughout high school, I continuously encountered and accumulated engineering-related knowledge, which gave me a growing understanding of the field. At the same time, my family environment allowed me to observe electrical engineering work relatively early. I found its emphasis on logic and problem-solving particularly appealing.

I also place great importance on continuity in academic development because it directly influences how deeply you can develop your abilities during undergraduate study and beyond. If I could start again, I would therefore keep doing one thing: thinking early about what I genuinely want to pursue and beginning to build toward it in advance.

If you could do high school over again, what would you change?

I would challenge myself more and take more of my interests to a deeper level.

Academically, I would pursue deeper understanding earlier. For example, I have long wanted to build a two-wheeled self-balancing robot and tried reading open-source code, but when I actually attempted the project, I realized that my foundations in computer science and lower-level logic were still insufficient. It made me understand that many engineering projects require much stronger preparation before you can truly execute them.

I would also deliberately broaden my foundational knowledge outside engineering, particularly in areas such as finance and law. These subjects influence more than what a person knows; they also affect how we understand rules, institutions, and decision-making in the real world.

Finally, I would improve my communication skills earlier, perhaps by joining an organization such as Toastmasters sooner. Public speaking is more than the ability to present yourself; it is also an important foundation for future communication and collaboration.

Jackson Niu

Admitted to: University of California, Santa Barbara

Major: Biology

Application Season: Dos

1. Plan the overall timeline early

Many people concentrate heavily on one part of the process and lose sight of the overall rhythm. GPA comes first. Your transcript is one of the most fundamental parts of an application because it reflects whether your academic performance has remained stable over several years. If you establish a strong academic routine from the beginning, you can avoid a great deal of pressure later.

Next come AP courses. Some students assume that more APs are always better, but taking too many can make your entire academic schedule unnecessarily intense. I think the most important considerations are the level of challenge and your own interests, rather than the sheer number of AP courses.

Finally, there are standardized tests. If possible, try to complete the TOEFL and SAT earlier. Finishing them in advance makes the rest of the application process much easier to manage. Looking back, one of the most common sources of difficulty is simply poor scheduling. If you can maintain your GPA, choose AP courses thoughtfully, and finish standardized testing early, much of the later pressure can be avoided.

2. Take a long-term approach to extracurricular activities

One thing I came to understand about activities is that they should reflect who you genuinely are. During application season, people can unconsciously feel pressure to make their experiences sound more "impressive," perhaps by seeking out projects with grand-sounding descriptions or suddenly accumulating major titles. I remember Ms. Li reminding me that application materials often make it quite obvious which experiences someone has pursued seriously over a long period and which were assembled at the last minute for college applications.

Rather than chasing projects that merely sound impressive, I would rather invest my time in things I genuinely do and am willing to continue doing. Even an activity that appears ordinary can be convincing if you have actually spent time on it and developed your own reflections and growth through the experience.

Many people worry that they do not have enough activities, so they constantly join new projects. Their résumés end up containing many experiences, but none lasts very long. I think it is better to spend time gradually developing one or two things you genuinely care about. Some activities may begin as very small experiments, but sustained commitment allows a great deal to accumulate over time.

Competitions are similar. At first, many students feel they must enter the most famous or difficult competitions because those seem to carry the greatest prestige. Over time, however, you realize that higher-level competitions can certainly be worthwhile when time and energy allow, but they should never come at the expense of regular coursework. Your transcript remains one of the fundamental parts of the application. If preparing for competitions completely disrupts your academics, the trade-off may not be worthwhile. Instead of spreading your time across many competitions, it can be better to prepare seriously and consistently in one or two areas.

Application Season: Don'ts

Do not leave standardized testing until Grade 12. I did not finish my standardized test scores until the first semester of Grade 12, so I was preparing for exams and handling application materials at the same time, which made the schedule extremely stressful. When Ms. Li and I later reviewed my application process, she emphasized that much of the pressure students experience does not come from the tests themselves, but from poor timing that compresses too many tasks into the same period. If standardized testing is completed earlier, the whole application season becomes much more manageable.

Calvin Wu

Admitted to: Imperial College London

Major: Design Engineering

Application Season: Dos

Organize your experiences as early as possible, and learn to identify the thread that genuinely connects them. I worked on engineering projects and robotics, participated in F1 in Schools, founded a baseball team, joined service activities, and performed in theater. On the surface, they seem scattered: some happened in laboratories, some on athletic fields, some onstage, and others in rural community programs. Looking back, however, I realized that they all involved a willingness to take initiative and try something unfamiliar.

When writing application materials, do more than state what you accomplished. Ask yourself why you began, what difficulties you encountered, and how you felt as the experience unfolded. That keeps the application from reading like a list of activities and allows it to reflect a genuine process of growth.

Application Season: Don'ts

One of the biggest mistakes during application season is packaging every experience purely as an "achievement." At first, I also wanted to emphasize the parts of my projects that sounded most impressive: team size, research topics, competition results, leadership titles. Later, I realized that if every paragraph becomes a summary of accomplishments, the writing can feel dry.

A baseball team is more than "founded a team." Behind it were the expectations of recruiting members and the confusion of learning how to practice together. A musical is more than "played the lead"; there were also awkward rehearsals where things went wrong again and again. An engineering project is more than "built a product"; sometimes there were moments when a model failed and everyone simply sat there in silence. Applications should contain achievements, but they should retain the human reality behind them as well.

If you could do high school over again, what would you keep doing?

If I could do high school again, I would still choose the things I was initially uncertain about. I would still build the baseball team, even if at the beginning no one knew how far it could go. I would still participate in robotics and F1 in Schools because repeated rounds of design, testing, and revision taught me patience. I would still step onto the stage and continue participating in service because those experiences allowed me to discover parts of myself beyond engineering and academics.

What I value most about my three years of high school at Beijing Academy is that the school kept pushing me beyond my comfort zone and encouraging me to explore and change through action. I often did not feel fully prepared. Yet within that uncertainty, I gradually became more willing to act and more confident in myself.

Emily Zhao

Admitted to: Parsons School of Design

Major: Fashion Design

If you could do high school over again, what would you keep doing?

If I could do high school again, I would continue using genuine experiences and genuine passion to tell my own story.

Looking back on application season, I went through several important turning points, especially while deciding on the central theme of my portfolio. At first, I was used to drawing inspiration from things I observed around me and experimented with several fairly common topics. Gradually, however, I realized that those subjects did not truly connect with something inside me, and the resulting work did not accurately express who I was. Once I understood that, I began approaching the portfolio as a way to tell my own story.

From then on, every part of my portfolio grew from real personal experiences and interests, including my reflections on animal protection and women's issues, as well as stories that had remained deeply embedded in my memory. Moving from personal experience toward broader social questions made the portfolio more genuine and gave it greater emotional resonance. The process taught me that every experience in life has significance. Good or bad, each one contributes, little by little, to the complete person we eventually become.

Jiaxu Shen

Admitted to: The University of Hong Kong

Major: Science A

Application Season: Dos

1. Plan your time carefully and make good use of small pockets of time. During Grade 12 application season, the number and variety of tasks increase significantly. Alongside standardized tests, GPA, and activities, you also have to research universities, write essays, and prepare materials for recommendation letters. Holidays and small blocks of free time during ordinary school days therefore become especially valuable. Spreading these tasks across different periods through sensible planning can prevent everything from piling up when major exams and application deadlines approach, and reduce the chance of regrets caused by insufficient preparation.
2. Manage your mindset and maintain healthy routines. Under multiple sources of pressure, you may underperform on an exam, begin procrastinating, or allow your sleep schedule to collapse, which only causes unfinished work to accumulate further. Maintaining an optimistic and balanced state of mind is therefore important. When difficulties arise, keep moving forward and respond through concrete action rather than allowing excessive worry to consume your energy. Moderate exercise can also reduce stress and help you maintain a more stable condition.

Application Season: Don'ts

1. Do not overload yourself; be realistic about your capacity. Application season is already demanding. If your existing workload is heavy — perhaps you have many essays to write or a tightly packed standardized testing schedule — avoid adding too many AP or advanced courses. Otherwise, it can become difficult to keep up, affecting both your mindset and your original plans.
2. Do not become too relaxed during the summer and neglect application preparation. Summer offers a valuable period for preparing because you have less pressure from regular coursework. Once Grade 12 begins, many university deadlines are already approaching quickly. Starting early helps you become familiar with the application process and move into Grade 12 with a much smoother transition.

This AI translation is provided for reference only. Please verify with original Chinese version.