Tony Shen: From Anhui to Canada’s Top Universities – A Story of Success at Franklin School Vancouver

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Student Profile: Tony Shen is from Wuwei, Anhui, PRC, and after completing junior high school in Anhui in June 2019, he successfully enrolled in Franklin School through Franklin Guangzhou Office.
School Attended: Franklin School, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Entry Level: Grade 10
Enrollment date: September 2019
Universities Admitted:
·        University of Toronto St. George’s Campus (with scholarship)
·        University of Toronto Scarborough Campus (with scholarship included)
·        McGill University (with scholarship)
·        University of British Columbia Vancouver Campus (with scholarship)
·        McMaster University (with scholarship)
·        Simon Fraser University (Campus scholarship)
·        University of Victoria (with scholarship)


Tony’s Story of Success


In 2019, at the age of 18, Tony was in the third year in the junior division of a middle school in Tianjin, and originally he thought that he would take the local high school entrance examination and enter a local high school like his classmates. However, his Hukou (household registration) is in Anhui Province, and according to relevant regulations, he must return to the place of his household registration to take the entrance examination. In order to avoid impact from the regulation, he and his parents decided to choose another path – to study abroad.
 
It was by such an opportunity that Tony’s parents learned about Franklin through a friend’s introduction. Conveniently located in downtown Vancouver, a flourishing city with pleasant scenery, Franklin School holds the BC Secondary School License and delivers the BC Secondary School Program. With excellent teaching standards and hard-working teachers, the school sends as many as 90% of its graduates to Canada’s top ten universities. With such understanding, Tony decided to study at Franklin School and to begin his new life of studying in Vancouver, BC.

Recalling his first time in Canada, he laughs and says: “In terms of life, I am a relatively casual person, so changing the environment is not a big problem for me. However, at the beginning, I will encounter some difficulties, mainly language problems, and the English ability reserve I studied in China before was not enough to support my study in Canada, so focusing on tutoring English is an important preparation.

In order to help new students solve language problems quickly, Franklin arranged corresponding English courses for each student, using students’ spare time to study and help them lay a solid language foundation. Coupled with the all-British living environment, students can have a significant improvement in language skills in a short period of time.

Tony said: “At the beginning, the language environment made me uncomfortable, the teacher spoke a little faster or used more local expressions, I could not understand, including the knowledge learned in class is communicated in English, and it will be difficult to understand some academic words.” Later, through continuous communication with the teacher, language classes to learn, plus reading more books, I slowly found that I could fully understand the class, and I got used to this language environment.


After three years at Franklin School, Tony had a deep affection for the school. He believes that the biggest advantage of Franklin School is that the school has small class sizes, teachers can pay attention to each student’s knowledge mastery, and flexibly adjust the course schedule and plan accordingly, and can also help them get higher scores for each student’s different situations.

In addition to sitting in the classroom, the Franklin School often organizes students to go out and practice. Tony said one of his favorite things about Franklin School is that the school occasionally schedules Field Trip Visiting Days. “Every day of the visit, the teachers would take us out to visit different attractions, take us to know the country of Canada, and get to know it from a different perspective, which gave me a lot of different experiences. Also, the view of Vancouver is really amazing, we can enjoy the view and feel the beauty of the city while we are learning, which is a very new and unforgettable experience for me. Tony said with a smile.

In the eyes of teachers and classmates, Tony has always been a down-to-earth, intelligent, diligent and studious person, often taking the initiative to ask teachers questions in his spare time, and will also help students in the class who have a hard time studying. In every class quiz, his grades always came out on top. He also participated in the 2019-2022 Canadian Mathematics Competition, finishing in the top 10 and 25!

Looking back on these three years of high school, Tony not only gained a wealth of knowledge, but also met unforgettable mentors and friends. “Every teacher at Franklin has been very good, but my greatest gratitude is to our physics teacher, Professor Stephen, who has been taking care of me from the time I first came to Vancouver until I am about to graduate,” he said. He is a very funny and very patient person, when I first came to school I was not very comfortable with English, he always deliberately slowed down when communicating with me and explained it to me slowly. When I encounter problems in my studies or life, he is always very willing to explain to me and find ways to help me solve them.

“I consider myself a pretty lucky person because my parents, teachers, classmates, including Homestay in Vancouver, are all good.” My parents were very supportive of every decision I made, the teachers were very helpful with my studies, HomeStay took good care of me in terms of life, and my classmates were very friendly. I was lucky enough to meet Franklin, met them, and thank them for teaching me a lot and making me less detours. ”

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