Well, I sort of already suck at this whole blogging thing. Today, I'm going to explain how I came to be in the program, and what I had to do in order to have a fighting chance.
So, during the first trimester of this school year we had our midterm parent/teacher conferences. I had straight A's, but we still went just to chat with my teachers and make sure I was doing as best as I could (which I was). The last person we visited was my German teacher. You see, every other year, the German program does a student exchange with a school in Lahr, Germany called Clara-Schumann-Gymnasium, and my mother wanted more information on the exchange that is to take place next school year. Instead, Megowan (Deutsch Lehrer) told us that he thought I could be a good candidate for something called the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange Scholarship (CBYX). He gave me the website on which to apply and told me that I should go for it. I went home thinking, "Ah, what the heck?" So I checked out the website, got myself registered, and asked to be sent the application. Initially, I had to apply through an American organization called ASSE which partnered with the CBYX and sent students not only to Germany, but all over the world.
A few days later, I recieved a thick manilla envelope in the mail. Inside was the application that I spent the next couple months putting together to the best of my ability. First thing to do was fill out the ASSE form which asked me normal things like my name, birthday, parents names, siblings names, hobbies, and medications among a slew of other things. That part was fairly easy to fill out, and included a "How Did You Find Out About Us" section and of course, the dreaded "Why Should We Pick You?" section. After that, the next order of business was to get myself a physical examination, make sure I was in okay health, and order a school transcript. The transcript was ready the next day, and the physical was easy once we finally got in to see my doctor. We had a lot of issues scheduling around each other's conflicts, and it was not until mid December, just a couple of weeks before the deadline that I finally was able to go in to see her. That part checked out fine though, and I passed.
After this, I had to get two letters of recomendation written by two teachers. I chose Megowan, and another teacher who taught Health and Ethics classes, Schmieding. I never read their letters, but I have a feeling they were both very good.
Next, it was time to get creative.
Part of the application process was to create a photo collage of yourself, family, friends, and activities for your potential host family. This proved to be more difficult than expected, and required several tries to get perfect. A two-paged photospread, at the standard paper size of 8 1/2 by 11 inches had to be used. I could not use plain old printer paper and glue, and the photos that I had picked were too big to all fit onto two pieces of paper at their beginning sizes. One thing I love about my mother is her ability to make anything work, and she had a brilliant idea for this predicament. Costo.com. And yes, it deserves bold, italics and underlining. Simply because Costco in itself is amazing, and Costco.com is straight from heaven. They have an online photo center where one can make anything from a photo blanket, to a print on a canvas, to exactly what I needed, a photo collage. I uploaded the pictures I wanted, chose a nice white background with small borders around each picture, and a slightly smaller 8 1/2 by 10 inch paper size. Then, I simply sat back, and let Costco.com do it's thing of amazingness, and take a load of pressure off the back of my mind.
Next was to write up my host family intro letter and SIX essays. Those took the most amount of time, and I have the least to say about them. If I can figure out how to post them up some other way than a post I will so you can all read them.
After all of that, I was finally ready to send it all in. After several printing malfunctions of my essays and letters, it came to be the night before everything was due and we FINALLY got everything printed right. We put in a big manilla envelope and sent it express and overnighted it. My entire family was worried it would not be looked at because it was late. We recieved an email the next day stating that the deadline had been extended by several weeks.
Later, I was contacted by a Mr. John Nieder, who explained much of the program to me, and seemed to slightly interview me while giving me advice on what to do if I got the scholarship. About a week or so later, I discovered I was a semi-finalist and had to head to Kelso, Washington for two interviews. First, it was me against a panel of ASSE representatives. They asked me a lot of questions with answers that I really had to think about before answering. After that, it was a group interview. There were about six others who had been interviewed before me, and we all went in together and had to do a little problem solving. They had us come up with a list of things we would tell to German students coming to the US about teenagers in the United States especially within schools. We came up with a big list, and chose one boy to present to the board. The board liked it, and we were allowed to go home.
More waiting, and I soon discovered that I was an alternate and if one of the fifty finalist dropped out, I would be asked to go in their place. My family believed that I had been chosen as an alternate because I had been taking low dose anti-depressants at the time and ASSE/CBYX did not quite like that. I was taken off of them soon after, and upon a fax by my doctor, ASSE called me and told me that someone had dropped out, and I was to be a finalist if I chose to accept. I did accept. I was a finalist.
I began recieving letters, and am scheduled to leave little Canby for Washington, D.C. on July 30, 2011 for a short initiation type thing, and on August 3, 2011 I will leave Washington, D.C. for Germany, where I will be staying with the Rudnick family in Kamp-Lintfort. I will post on them later.
Germany, here I come.
Until My Next Post, Happy Tidings. :)
Love From,
Anna
So, during the first trimester of this school year we had our midterm parent/teacher conferences. I had straight A's, but we still went just to chat with my teachers and make sure I was doing as best as I could (which I was). The last person we visited was my German teacher. You see, every other year, the German program does a student exchange with a school in Lahr, Germany called Clara-Schumann-Gymnasium, and my mother wanted more information on the exchange that is to take place next school year. Instead, Megowan (Deutsch Lehrer) told us that he thought I could be a good candidate for something called the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange Scholarship (CBYX). He gave me the website on which to apply and told me that I should go for it. I went home thinking, "Ah, what the heck?" So I checked out the website, got myself registered, and asked to be sent the application. Initially, I had to apply through an American organization called ASSE which partnered with the CBYX and sent students not only to Germany, but all over the world.
A few days later, I recieved a thick manilla envelope in the mail. Inside was the application that I spent the next couple months putting together to the best of my ability. First thing to do was fill out the ASSE form which asked me normal things like my name, birthday, parents names, siblings names, hobbies, and medications among a slew of other things. That part was fairly easy to fill out, and included a "How Did You Find Out About Us" section and of course, the dreaded "Why Should We Pick You?" section. After that, the next order of business was to get myself a physical examination, make sure I was in okay health, and order a school transcript. The transcript was ready the next day, and the physical was easy once we finally got in to see my doctor. We had a lot of issues scheduling around each other's conflicts, and it was not until mid December, just a couple of weeks before the deadline that I finally was able to go in to see her. That part checked out fine though, and I passed.
After this, I had to get two letters of recomendation written by two teachers. I chose Megowan, and another teacher who taught Health and Ethics classes, Schmieding. I never read their letters, but I have a feeling they were both very good.
Next, it was time to get creative.
Part of the application process was to create a photo collage of yourself, family, friends, and activities for your potential host family. This proved to be more difficult than expected, and required several tries to get perfect. A two-paged photospread, at the standard paper size of 8 1/2 by 11 inches had to be used. I could not use plain old printer paper and glue, and the photos that I had picked were too big to all fit onto two pieces of paper at their beginning sizes. One thing I love about my mother is her ability to make anything work, and she had a brilliant idea for this predicament. Costo.com. And yes, it deserves bold, italics and underlining. Simply because Costco in itself is amazing, and Costco.com is straight from heaven. They have an online photo center where one can make anything from a photo blanket, to a print on a canvas, to exactly what I needed, a photo collage. I uploaded the pictures I wanted, chose a nice white background with small borders around each picture, and a slightly smaller 8 1/2 by 10 inch paper size. Then, I simply sat back, and let Costco.com do it's thing of amazingness, and take a load of pressure off the back of my mind.
Next was to write up my host family intro letter and SIX essays. Those took the most amount of time, and I have the least to say about them. If I can figure out how to post them up some other way than a post I will so you can all read them.
After all of that, I was finally ready to send it all in. After several printing malfunctions of my essays and letters, it came to be the night before everything was due and we FINALLY got everything printed right. We put in a big manilla envelope and sent it express and overnighted it. My entire family was worried it would not be looked at because it was late. We recieved an email the next day stating that the deadline had been extended by several weeks.
Later, I was contacted by a Mr. John Nieder, who explained much of the program to me, and seemed to slightly interview me while giving me advice on what to do if I got the scholarship. About a week or so later, I discovered I was a semi-finalist and had to head to Kelso, Washington for two interviews. First, it was me against a panel of ASSE representatives. They asked me a lot of questions with answers that I really had to think about before answering. After that, it was a group interview. There were about six others who had been interviewed before me, and we all went in together and had to do a little problem solving. They had us come up with a list of things we would tell to German students coming to the US about teenagers in the United States especially within schools. We came up with a big list, and chose one boy to present to the board. The board liked it, and we were allowed to go home.
More waiting, and I soon discovered that I was an alternate and if one of the fifty finalist dropped out, I would be asked to go in their place. My family believed that I had been chosen as an alternate because I had been taking low dose anti-depressants at the time and ASSE/CBYX did not quite like that. I was taken off of them soon after, and upon a fax by my doctor, ASSE called me and told me that someone had dropped out, and I was to be a finalist if I chose to accept. I did accept. I was a finalist.
I began recieving letters, and am scheduled to leave little Canby for Washington, D.C. on July 30, 2011 for a short initiation type thing, and on August 3, 2011 I will leave Washington, D.C. for Germany, where I will be staying with the Rudnick family in Kamp-Lintfort. I will post on them later.
Germany, here I come.
Until My Next Post, Happy Tidings. :)
Love From,
Anna
