Is it easy to become accepted into Waseda SILS as a Japanese who’s proficient in English?

I actually have 2 questions:
1. I just submitted my applications to SILS, and since then, a redditor (who is a high school teacher at a private school) said that SILS used be a lot harder to get into but after the pandemic, more people were accepted, even students who would have never had a chance of getting into SILS. This was new information to me and I want to ask if it’s true or not.
2. I feel that there’s a distinct difference between English speakers (帰国者/foreign students) and the average Japanese kid going though (いっぱん入試) where the former thinks getting into SILS is easy/not too difficult, and the latter thinking that it’s really difficult and only the smartest/most capable manage to get in. So do I have like some kind of advantage here that most other students in Japan don’t have or is this all BS?
(All but 1 applicants got into SILS last year in my school though they were all pretty smart (the person who was rejected was pretty terrible in terms of English, though he got into Sophia somehow, I don’t know how the hell he pulled that one off))
I have Eiken level1, TOEFL IBT of 112 (best score of 115 )

4 comments
  1. often private universities with different entrance exam procedures keep them pretty separate — like sports/music applicants and domestic escalator students and domestic open applicants and English based or overseas applicants etc will be judged against other applicants in their own categories but not necessary across other categories.

  2. its not just the english

    for uni generally your transcripts, letter of recommendation, interviews and essays, score results also play a part

  3. Didn’t we tell you yesterday that SILS wasn’t the school to apply to for what you wanted to study? Waseda has an actually respected school of finance for that. SILS is a liberal arts college.

  4. It depends on which exam you’re taking. 一般入試 consists of English and Japanese exams from what I remember. As a Kikoku you’re going to struggle with the Japanese exams unless you’ve extensively studied for it. English should be no problem. It balances out and it’ll be as difficult for you as it is for normal Japanese students, unless your Japanese is at a high level.

    If you’re applying through the 帰国子女入試 I have no idea how the process works there. It’s probably similar to applying to an American college except the requirements are lower. 帰国子女入試 is considered much easier than 一般入試 so that’s why you hear of kikokus and foreign students saying its easy to get in.

    If you want to work in finance in Japan, your Japanese needs to be perfect. There’s not much room for people whose strengths are their English skills and a global background. Your major doesn’t matter much if you’re going through the shinsotsu hiring system.

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