March 24th, 2008
On Tuesday the 18th, I received the official acceptance letter from ASSE. I think mine came a little late because they wrote a ’1′ instead of a ’4′ for my address (I got this fixed). The letter’s about three pages long. Summary of the more interesting parts:
- They’ll need to approve your final application before you’re officially accepted. My mom made me clarify this with Sandy Chase, my rep, and Sandy told me that she already received the list of those who had problems with their final application and I wasn’t on it, so I’m golden.
- The final application will be sent to Germany where it’ll be shown to prospective host families (eek!). After we know my host family, I’ll get a placement form/other docs that I’ll need to apply for my residence permit.
- ASSE will be sending a series of information letters at certain intervals to guide everyone through the process leading to departure. International flight details will be sent in May – I’ll know exactly what day I leave then o.o
- I’m responsible for the flight to Wash, D.C., but ASSE can help with the flight arrangements (student discount, perhaps?)
- Scholarship covers:
- Program cost
- Pre-Departure Orientation in Washington, D.C.
- Round-trip international airfare
- Three week Language & Cultural Enrichment (LCE) Program at the beginning of the exchange (We might have different host families during these three weeks than for the rest of the year)
- Seminars in Weimar (mid-year) and Berlin (end of year)
- Basic Health Insurance (what does basic mean?)
- The D.C. orientation starts sometime during the first week of August. Less than five months away!
- There might be extra trips available for a fee – I’m thinking places like Paris or Vienna. It could be compared to a trip to SoCal from San Jose. My mom says she’ll probably pay for me to go on a few of these if they’re reasonably priced, so I’m definitely looking forward to that. :D
March 1st, 2008
Today was the final part of my CBYX application, the interview!
There was free food, along with brochures, German cookbooks & yearbooks, world maps and German versions of Douglas Adams book for us to look at. They also had applications from students looking to study here for next year in case any of us wanted to host. There were two current German exchange students and three past CBYX recipients there, one from Germany and two from the US. The two from the US had just gotten married, which was pretty cool (they met on a bus to Paris – how romantic!). There were five interviewers – Sandy Chase, a host mom, two of the former CBYX recipients, and a man that I don’t remember any details about.
At 9 AM we all introduced ourselves and Sandy Chase went over the program really quickly. We get to spend 4 days in Washington, D.C. at the beginning of the program and we all meet there at the end of the program as well. In Germany, we’ll get to take trips to Berlin as well as Weimar.
After that was the group interview, which was in a separate boardroom. There were four others there, and we were given a hypothetical situation to work out and make a presentation on in 20 minutes, while the interviewers watched. I did fine except I accidentally said I was a sophomore for our intro. Oops?
Then came individual interviews. Another girl, Bianca, went before me, and then I went in! I got the seat at the end of the longg boardroom table which was kind of scary, but cool. I think I did really well because I made the interviewers laugh and have a good time (maybe I was too laid back – oh well). But, I kept repeating myself a lot because many of the questions were really similar. My interview was a little bit shorter than Bianca’s.
That’s it! I got everyone’s contact info (seems like a great group of people) and my dad attempted to speak German to one of the exchange students, which was cool. Sandy Chase said about 25 people applied from Northern California, and we should get contacted in about a week about our status. Wooh.