While around 126,000 Taiwanese high-school students will join the competitive Joint College Entr-ance Examination today to vie for spots at Taiwan's universities, the 200 graduating students from Taipei American School (台北美國學校, TAS) have long had their futures planned -- 99 percent of them will attend universities in the US.
In this school whose student body is split 20:80 between Westerners and pupils with ethnic Chinese roots but foreign citizenship, going to the US for college education is a natural choice.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
"TAS provides an American college preparatory curriculum ... It is just like an American factory, located in Taiwan, manufacturing products especially for colleges in the US," said Geoffrey Lee, an 11th-grade student at TAS, and an "ABC," or American-born Chinese.
Taiwanese universities are singularly unpopular destinations for TAS graduates.
In the class of 1999, only 2 went to a Taiwanese college. In that of last year, there were only four.
The reason is simple: Taiwanese parents send their children to the school to sharpen their English-language skills to pave the way for entrance to an American college.
As the US remains a dominant power in the world, and most Taiwanese are very receptive to its culture, Taiwanese parents have long been keen to send their children to study in the US. And if they want to keep their children close to them while receiving an American education, TAS -- the largest and oldest of Taiwan's nine American schools with 2,100 students and 52 years of history -- will be their top choice.
Founded in 1949 by missionaries and expatriate business leaders, TAS has reflected the evolution of the US-Taiwan relationship. During the period from 1954 to 1978, while the US retained a military presence in Taiwan, the vast majority of the school's students were children of military personnel.
process of evolution
Since the withdrawal of US forces in 1979, the school has evolved into a college preparatory school with a strong academic program and international reputation. Beginning in the late 1980s, the school served increasing numbers of returning expatriate Chinese from over 40 countries.
But nowadays, an overwhelming majority of students are of Taiwanese ethnicity with foreign citizenship. Parents of the school's students are members of diplomatic and trade missions or are academics, engineers, doctors, politicians, and proprietors of family businesses.
The school's alumni have excelled worldwide in many fields. There are countless distinguished alumni in Taiwan, including Nita Ing (殷琪), president of the Taiwan High-speed Railway Co (台灣高鐵), Taiwan actress and director Sylvia Chang (張艾嘉), movie star Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) and Linda Arrigo, democracy activist and former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh's (施明德) ex-wife.
Access to the school is the exclusive preserve of a privileged few. It costs around NT$500,000 a year to attend the upper school. Annual tuition in a public Taiwanese senior high school is NT$20,000.
Being wealthy is not the only criterion; the school also requires students to hold foreign citizenship.
Students include children from prominent families in academia, business, politics and the arts. One of this year's high-profile graduates is Stanley Tzeng (
"Students form a separate community there, and do not find it easy to mingle with locals because they speak different languages, and behave and think like Americans," said a student who graduated from TAS last year.
"Given that most students are from affluent and distinguished families, students tend to be somewhat egocentric and overbearing. They can also be materialistic, constantly competing over material belongings," said the student, citing the annual senior prom as an example.
Senior prom is traditionally one of the highlights of high school for American students. At TAS it is held for juniors and seniors prior to commencement and is part of graduation festivities.
"Students first have to find a date. Nobody would go without a date. Then they worry about their appearance -- the hairdo, the gowns, the tuxedos. Even the car you drive to the prom is an issue. There is a lot of peer pressure."
Learning in an environment so detached from the outside leads some students to develop identity crises. Their confusion sometimes leads to delinquent behavior and tension with the local community.
an alien culture
"People call us `third culture kids.' The culture here is not totally American, nor is it entirely Taiwanese. It is a unique TAS culture -- students form a different culture from the community in which we live," said John Wu, a student who graduated this summer and is going to the University of Southern California.
"We have to adjust ? People can be hostile to us because we are not traditionally minded."
Clashes between the locals and the school's students have occurred due to a lack of mutual understanding and the students' occasional boisterousness.
Two years ago, 20 TAS students were involved in a fistfight with the borough chief of Tienmu, where the school is located, when the students were warned not to vandalize walls inside a Tienmu park. In a bid to show the power of their connections, the students threatened to seek assistance from the American Institute in Taiwan.
But some of the students said that they consider being part of an "in-between culture" to be advantageous, saying that it gives them opportunities to see and experience more of the world than they otherwise would and that they benefit from exposure to the traditions of both East and West.
Asked what they considered to be the school's particular strengths, students and parents all cited the school's high-quality programs and teaching staff.
The school is said to be ranked the third-best international American college preparatory high school in the world. Parents said that it provides courses that foster a love of learning, and cultivates analytical abilities and creativity. Students are encouraged to ask questions and their individual opinions are respected. Projects and oral presentation take the place of the multiple written tests that are prevalent in ordinary Taiwanese high schools.
"When my son went to the local schools, he hated going to school. But his attitude changed completely after he was transferred to TAS. There must be something about TAS that made that change for my son," said Daisy Hung (洪蘭), the wife of Minister Tzeng.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
‘COMMITTED TO DETERRENCE’: Washington would stand by its allies, but it can only help as much as countries help themselves, Raymond Greene said The US is committed to deterrence in the first island chain, but it should not bear the burden alone, as “freedom is not free,” American Institute in Taiwan Director Raymond Greene said in a speech at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research’s “Strengthening Resilience: Defense as the Engine of Development” seminar in Taipei yesterday. In the speech, titled “Investing Together and a Secure and Prosperous Future,” Greene highlighted the contributions of US President Donald Trump’s administration to Taiwan’s defense efforts, including the establishment of supply chains for drones and autonomous systems, offers of security assistance and the expansion of
RSS