CamExpress was established in both Shanghai and London in 2009, specialising in application consultation for students aiming to study at the best British universities. We offer various services including English language courses tailored to non-native speakers, self-developed academic programmes preparing students for college study and a customised application strategy to suit the needs of each individual student. For the past decade, we have provided Chinese high-school students with application mentoring and consulting services through our core programme – the Oxbridge project.
As the oldest and therefore most mature Oxbridge project in China, CamExpress has helped more than 170 students obtain admission into Oxford and Cambridge. This experience has enabled us to accumulate a rich knowledge of the existing international curriculum systems used in China and to development our training courses and academic programmes to meet the required criteria for a successful Oxbridge application.
Our mission:
Are you the candidate that the universities are looking for?
“All Admissions Tutors are looking for are the students who they believe have the most academic ability and potential, are best suited to the course applied for, and who will benefit from the learning environment we have to offer at Cambridge.”
- Ensure that students are familiar with the UK higher education system (including the range of courses available), and customise each student’s application strategy according to their strengths and interests
- Help students to develop their own academic interests, and build a solid academic foundation, both in terms of knowledge and skills
- Prepare students for Oxbridge admissions tests and interviews
- Guide students through the writing and editing of their personal statement
- Improve the overall level of students’ communication and thinking skills, focusing on their ability to analyse and respond to unexpected situations or questions
- Elevate the students’ comprehensive competencies and maximise the probability of a successful application to G5 universities
Our Oxbridge programme:
Subject groups:
- Mathematics & Computer Science
- Engineering, Physics & Materials Science
- Biology & Chemistry (including Biomedical Sciences, Biochemistry and Medicine)
- Economics & Land Economy
- Humanities & Social Sciences (including HSPS, Education and Psychology)
Phase I: subject consulting and preliminary academic preparation
“Admissions decisions at the University of Cambridge are based solely on academic criteria – your ability and your potential.”
Key terms: subject consulting, academic training, extracurricular academic engagement, identification of relevant experiences for PS writing, subject exam preparation
- Help students become familiar with the unique points of each university and subject, identify a suitable subject choice based on the students’ experience, personality, and interests, and construct a systematic study plan accordingly
- Deploy our courses in the same format as Oxbridge (both lectures and supervisions), helping students to adapt to the style of teaching, and stimulating their interest in their subject
- Ensure that students are confident with their AS courses, and that they master the subject further to meet the academic standards for Oxbridge entry
- Provide resources for extracurricular academic engagement, including appropriate reading materials, project ideas, and assistance with personal statement writing
Phase II: summer camp/VIP online classes
Understand how universities select candidates:
“contributes to our assessment of applicants’ academic potential and suitability for the course chosen – whether they have the potential to study it to a very high level, engage with new ideas and think conceptually, and how they’ll respond to the teaching methods used at Cambridge”
“gives applicants the opportunity to expand on the written elements of their application and show us how they think about their subject; and to demonstrate their interest in and commitment to their subject, and their ability to think critically and independently”
Key terms: written exam training; interview training; personal statement writing and editing; mock interviews
- Identify UCAS choices and give guidance on the UCAS application process
- Provide intensive training tailored towards admissions exams and interviews, making sure students understand their format, logic and purpose of the design of the questions.
- Guide students through the writing and editing of their Personal Statement; identify relevant knowledge and skills from the students’ personal experience; demonstrate the competencies that universities are looking for when reading a PS; conduct 4-5 rounds of PS editing to ensure a high level of quality throughout.
- Detailed analysis of interview technique and skills, including identification of the common mistakes made by Chinese students, to help students to understand the nature of the interview and the style of questioning to expect.
Phase III: final stage and interview
The main focus of interviews is to explore your academic potential, motivation and suitability for your chosen course. Questions are designed to assess your:
– problem-solving abilities
– assimilation of new ideas and information
– intellectual flexibility and analytical reasoning
It’s important for you to remember that interviewers won’t be trying to ‘catch you out’, but will be challenging you to think for yourself and show how you can apply your existing knowledge and skills laterally to unfamiliar problems. Interviews help selectors to gauge how you would respond to the teaching methods used at Cambridge. Interviews are similar in many ways to supervisions.
Key terms: subject knowledge refreshing, training based on past papers, training of interview mindset, interview group
- Adjustment of the application strategy after the release of the AS exam results.
- Refreshment of the subject knowledge in preparation for the subject exam.
- Organisation and arrangement of the interview trip to the U.K.
Phase IV: continuous academic training tailored towards the conditional offer.
Our advantages:
- We have worked as the designated partner of multiple top A-Level schools in China for several years.
- We have a strong alumni network, including connections in Oxford, Cambridge, and other G5 universities.
- We have extensive experience creating self-developed academic courses, programmes, and resources that can meet the needs of each individual student from a range of different perspectives.
- We have a unique counselor system which enables tracking of the students’ full-period performance and allows us to adjust application plans and strategies accordingly.
- We offer various courses in multiple formats to help students to learn effectively.
- We are highly selective during the recruitment of teachers and tutors to match with the customized needs of the students.
Admission results:
- Each year we work with the largest number of Oxford/Cambridge applicants in China.
- We have an outstanding admission rate of over 95% to G5 universities.
- Over 80% of our students receive an invitation to interview at Oxford/Cambridge.
- In both 2016 and 2017, our students received over 20 offers from Oxbridge covering more than ten different subjects.
- Our students also received more than 15 offers from LSE.