Originally Posted by
evergrn
Man, that would seem extremely hard on the kids. If you're aiming for Sophia or ICU, though, you wouldn't have to do juku, right? And isn't it true that vast majority of int'l school grads end up advancing to US/UK universities?
Incredibly hard on them. I pity them because that rigor precludes a normal childhood.
The vast majority of non-Japanese advance to US/UK schools yes. And within that the vast majority is to US schools. Sophia or ICU are likely not to need a Juku experience true, but why go to one of those if you are able to get into a better US school? The international schools here turn out some quite qualified candidates. Sophia and ICU are sort of "I cannot really imagine leaving Japan despite my having become largely international in HS" sort of places. But of the Japanese HS grads, there is a large percentage that go into the Japanese university system. The concept there is that if you intend to work in Japan going to a Japanese university makes the process of entering a company a billion times easier.