Hey, is there anyone who’s hoping to apply for the 2016-2018 school session? If you have already applied in the past, please share your experience. It’d be most appreciated. Thanks!
Hey there, although I’m in 11th grade IB already I plan to apply to UWC. Do you know whether I’d have to repeat a year there if I get accepted? Also, which committee are you applying through?
Summary: (Accepted for class of 2017 at UWC-USA, applied through the USA committee)
-Written application: They asked for your grades and stuff of course; most everyone who made it to the last 75 had pretty solid grades, but not necessarily straight-As level. I personally have two Cs on my transcript; one of the others who got in has an F (though we were all very close to or above a 4.0 overall). Then there are several short essays (~150 words) and a few longer ones (up to 2000 words). As far as we (finalists) could tell the most important factor was the long essay, “Write about a local, national or global issue.” I and several others wrote about education, something we were all predictably passionate about.
The written application wasn’t incredibly difficult, but don’t blow it off either (I had a few teachers help me revise my essay, which improved it significantly).
-Phone/Skype interview: The difficulty of this one seems to vary widely. Some finalists I talked to had a friendly chat, but in my case we got into an argument about politics (which I was losing). It seems to differ based on who interviewed you, as everyone with my interviewer had a hard time. If it feels like it went badly, that doesn’t mean it actually did.
-On-site interview: This wasn’t so much about your merit as it was about evaluating whether you’ll be a good fit. It wasn’t as intense as anyone expected it to be, more like a sort of snapshot of the UWC experience where they evaluated your behavior (the admissions board was following us around making notes). We split into four groups and did four activities over the course of the day: a group discussion (in this case about guest workers), a thing about community service (what have you done in the past, discuss it, etc), a short hike (UWC-USA specializes in wilderness) and a challenge course.
-Group discussion: We read and discussed a National Geographic article about guest workers in Dubai. We split into small groups first, then joined together. My group argued that the overall concept is fine (after all, moving for opportunity is exactly what a lot of UWCers do), but the human-rights abuses are obviously not. Others argued that guest workers aren’t fine (brain drain, etc). I will note here that being a perfect debater isn’t necessarily what they’re looking for: one guy who made a very passionate-sounding argument (would’ve worked great in a political debate), is on the national debate team now, etc was actually not accepted.
-Community service thing: We discussed what community service we’ve done and talked about possible solutions to an issue we came up with (lack of voting among young adults). My record there isn’t all that impressive; my only real service has been running programming club for one semester.
-Hike: Just a hike, I suspect they were looking at how we tolerated it.
-Challenge course: First we did the thing where you have to cross the area with the squares that you bring along, but with a twist: 9 squares, 19 of us. We had to stack about two and a half people to a square. Then we had to get everyone though a web while using each gap once (which involved feeding people though the top ones headfirst).
One thing there that stuck out for me was one of the committee members commenting that I looked really happy on the challenge course.
Overall advice: You don’t have to be the perfect academic all-star. I’m not. I have good grades and scores, but I don’t do a ton of community service, I only do one club, etc. Just be yourself. They’re looking for people who are a good fit and have something to learn, not those who are just doing this as something for the resume. If you’re not going to gain anything from the experience, they won’t take you.
@nonana Yes. I was accepted at the end of my junior year (was class of 2016) and I’ll still be doing both years (UWC class of 2017).
Hello! I’m planning on applying for the 2016-2018 session for senior year and a gap year!! The UWC USA website said they would post the applications by July, but I dont see them up yet… are you planning to email admissions?
@invisiblebicycle Often they get posted late in the month. If memory serves, many people had similar worries last year, but no issues actually arose. Keep in mind that the deadline isn’t until October.
Really looking forward to applying! My only concern is placement of classes considering that I’ll have taken Math HL and French HL sophomore year (applying as a junior).
Anyway, @QuantumPython , where were you placed and how did the school placement pan out for the finalists?
I know I posted this on the other thread, but I’ll restate it here: applications are now live.
@gonfaloniere UWC-USA. I believe most people got their 1st-3rd choice (USA was second for me). I can’t be sure on that point but everyone seems pretty happy with their placement so it seems a reasonable guess. In addition to your preferences, they take into account where they think you’ll fit (that’s what the finalist bit is all about, are you a good fit?) and what each school wants from their students.
Hi everyone! I got accepted into MUWCI for the years 2015-2017 (through the Indian national committee). I totally understand what you’re feeling right now, and I just wanted to say that you’re welcome to ask me anything if you want to. As someone who has been in your position less than 8 months back, I know that all the help is useful. Good luck to you all! 
@xHopex Hey! I have about 3 weeks to craft my application, am in the ICSE board, and am blank right now. Please help me.
Hey @DustyMind have you applied?
Hi @dustymind I have almost finished up my application. Have you submitted already?
Also, did you choose 5A or 5B ?
the 15th UWC, which is the latest campus of UWC, has recently opened in Changshu, China, pretty exciting! they have their first year of students in September and are just about to start the new application year in October (I believe). will try to send an application to them online!
also the university counselor & admissions director of UWC USA for the past 11 years joined UWC China to help with the new school, so did many other experienced UWC teachers/faculty all over the world. good campus to go
Hey @jarvis410 and @satcoll I haven’t submitted my application form yet because… THEY AREN’T OUT! I’m applying through the Italian committee and they still haven’t posted anything. I’m so worried, gosh. Do you think the application is the same in every country? If so, I could look at the US website, just to have an idea 
@DustyMind It’s not the same process. I know that some in Asia have aptitude tests, for example, whereas in the States we just send in our ACT/SAT/PSAT scores and transcript and then write some essays.
@QuantumPython oh okay, thank you
how important are the SAT/PSAT/PLAN/ACT tests?
@Chago2479 I can’t say with certainty–we didn’t get a breakdown or anything–but most (all?) of the people who made it in had high scores across the board. If I had to take a guess I’d put the average ACT score around 28-32.
Hello, what did you take as an item of personal significance? How did you present it?