Hello!
My name is Stephanie and I am a student from Alberta, Canada. In October, I began the application process to UWC. In Canada, we all apply to Pearson College. The application consisted of a lot of paragraph/short answer questions, along with a few longer response questions. I probably read over my application a hundred times, and shared it with family members and some of my teachers for feedback. Then, in December I sent it off. I wouldn’t say I forgot about it, but in February I was reminded by an email. I had been offered an interview! I was also given a list of schools to rank. I ranked Adriatic first, Atlantic College second, UWC Costa Rica third and Pearson fourth. One of my dreams has been to learn another language, which is why I ranked Adriatic first. I am so excited for the opportunity not only to study Italian at school, but to be immersed in it by living in Duino. One of the other things that I thought was really neat about UWC Adriatic is it’s integrated into the town. There is not an isolated campus, the buildings are spread throughout Duino, which I thought was really charming.
When I was in the midst of applying to UWC, and during the middle of February when I anxiously awaited my interview, I read a ton of UWC student blogs. I found these super helpful and I loved reading them, so I figured I would start a blog to ‘pay it forward’ and hopefully help some students out who are thinking of applying to UWC themselves. During my application process, I was in touch with a current UWC student at Pearson, and she gave me lots of good advice which I will repeat here. Just be yourself! You are the one who is potentially going to UWC, so just let your personality shine through! I have read a lot of online forums where people chat about applying to UWC, and one of the most popular posts I saw was people asking what other extracurriculars and activities they should do. Don’t just do something because you think it will look good on an application, or you think the UWC selection committee is looking for it. Do something because you love it. The selection committee wants to see that you are genuine, and you can do this by finding causes you are passionate about and pursuing them.
The day before the interview I was super nervous. Surprisingly, when I woke up the morning of, I felt just excited. I arrived at my interview early, and had the chance to talk to some past UWC students. They asked me questions and really put me at ease, sort of warming me up to the interview. While I thought the interview itself would be really stressful, I just told myself that the more relaxed I was the more clearly I would be able to think up responses. I would not recommend trying to memorize a bunch of worded out answers for your interview, I would instead recommend that you just make a list of things that you have done that you might want to talk about. For example, I have played competitive basketball for the past five years. I also cycled in Argentina for a few weeks last summer with other youth. I thought about what I learned from these experiences, and how I grew as a person. This helped so much, because based on the question, I could quickly think up an experience I had and formulate an appropriate answer. The interviewers were really nice people and made me feel very comfortable and welcome. The group interview in the afternoon was really fun! We had to complete activities with the other youth applicants and the hour absolutely flew by. My favourite part was just chatting with the other applicants before the interview. Everyone was so nice and so interesting! I loved hearing about their hobbies, how they ranked the schools and their experiences.
The day after my interview I received a call from the committee. I was offered a spot at UWC Adriatic! I was super emotional and my parents were really happy. I am not sure if it has sunk in yet! I was excited to tell my friends at school, however I was also really sad because this would be my last year with them. I am looking forward to meeting lots of new people in Italy though!
I have not really received much other information from the school, so I am not sure what classes I am going to take or what service, creative and physical activities I am going to do, so we will wait and see. From my understanding I will be living in a residence room of 2, 3 or 4 students, and I am so excited for this! I am a vegetarian, however I have heard that UWC is very accommodating of this.
I guess that brings me to the end of my first post. I feel as though I will likely not be able to keep up regular posting, but I will hopefully update this blog as much as I can. If you have any questions for me I will do my best to answer them, just leave them as a comment on one of my posts!
-S
vitamin sea at uwc adriatic 