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Davis Scholarship for United World College

Thought this might be of interest to sophomores and juniors!

Davis Scholarship for United World College

Each year, 50 Americans (US citizens and permanent residents) receive the Davis Scholarship to attend a UWC, which is a full scholarship covering tuition, room, and board.

The United World Colleges (UWCs) are two-year international high schools in 15 countries. The application deadline is October 15, 2016. The application is quite straight-forward, and there is no application fee. In addition to being a sophomore or junior, applicants must be either 16 or 17 on September 1, 2017, to apply for the scholarship this year.

United World College locations:

UWC-Adriatic (Duino, Italy)

UWC-Atlantic College (Wales, UK)

UWC Changshu China (Changshu, China)

UWC-Costa Rica (San Jose, Costa Rica)

UWC-Pearson (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)

UWC-Dilijan (Dilijan, Armenia)

UWC-Li Po Chun (Hong Kong)

UWC-Maastricht (Maastricht, The Netherlands)

UWC-Mahindra College (near Pune, India)

UWC-Mostar (Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina)

UWC-Red Cross Nordic (Flekke, Norway)

UWC Robert Bosch College (Freiburg, Germany)

UWC-Southeast Asia (Singapore)

UWC-Thailand (Phuket, Thailand)

UWC-Waterford Kamhlaba (UWC of Southern Africa in Mbabane, Swaziland)

- Little Miss Sunshine

Hi I have a question for Dr Dude: What was your experience like when you interned at Imex Research and MyWebRoom? Could you tell me how to apply? What was your freelancing internship like? How did you apply? It would be helpful to get some more information. Thanks!

Hey! I apologize it’s taken me so long to get back to ya, I’ve been really busy with work and school.

But hmm... I’ll just separate my answer into two blocks, one for Imex and the other for MyWebRoom.

For Imex Research, this was the summer after junior year. At the time, i was the president of the Web Dev club and the CEO of Imex Research reached out to our club asking if any one of us would be interested for an internship there. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t the most exciting internship there but the guy taught me a lot about the intersection of technology and business (he loved to just talk a lot).

For MyWebRoom, this internship proved to be much more fruitful for me. I applied by cold emailing these companies - I literally found a bunch of companies online and I emailed all of them. MyWebRoom decided to accept me for an unpaid internship after I spoke with their head of engineering. I learned a lot from that experience and my work was mainly as a QA; their engineering team had been really small and it was my job to essentially refactor and rewrite a huge chunk of their testing suite.

Freelancing was something that kind of just happened - I began by developing a website for one club and then more clubs just started asking. I guess word started spreading and eventually I began developing sites for nearby businesses as well. It was a really good experience - it taught me a lot about standing up for myself and how to deal with people on a professional level. You have no one backing you up and it’s up to you to make sure you don’t get screwed over.

My advice for you: If you haven’t already, just start learning technologies and build stuff. A lot of the times (even with some of my internships today), the projects you build go way further than the words you put on a resume or what you tell a recruiter. Build projects and build relationships - don’t focus too much on hyping yourself up on a resume or on your website or wherever. I say relationships because I was also able to get internships because I’ve had friends who vouched for me in front of their boss. Your actions will speak for themselves and your relationships will go a long way.

Hope this helps! If you need more help, just hit me up here: [email protected]. I’ll be able to respond faster!

-Dr. Dude

Hi I have a question for Yolo Swag Princess: Can you give me some more details about the programs you attended during the summer and how you wrote for the Stanford Daily?

I did a biomedical summer program at UPenn the summer before my junior year. It was one of those pre-college programs where admission is basically based on whether you can pay for it. I didn’t really get much out of this program, and I generally don’t recommend these types of pre-college programs. They’re like cotton candy: fluffy, outwardly “attractive,” but don’t have much useful learning material.

The summer before my senior year I interned at SIMR in the bioengineering department. I wrote my essays, got teacher recommendations, and applied in early spring. This program was free and much more worthwhile, and the people I met were brilliant. We had daily lectures from faculty members leading pretty cool, cutting-edge research on genome sequencing, tissue engineering, prosthetics made with biomaterials, things like that. It was very easy to feel constantly inspired.

Since I was already going to be at Stanford that summer and I’ve always been interested in journalism/writing/publishing, I contacted an MV alumni who worked for the Stanford Daily during the school year to see if I could be part of the summer staff. There was an application with an essay, I believe, but I think it was less about filtering applicants and more about finding people who were genuinely interested in news-writing. Actually, a number of El Estoque kids do this program over the summer.

I’m glad that you’re looking for opportunities to learn more over the summer, and I also want to mention that your search should be less about finding shiny nameplates and more about discovering what you want to do with your life. You’ve probably heard a variation of this at some point, but it’s with good reason. If you do it right, you’ll be that much ahead of your peers in college, which I think is the more important and influential segment of your life.

Hope this helps!

- YSP

Is a 4.0 from MV less meaningful than it would be at other schools based on the sheer number of people that also get 4.0s? Sorry to ask about something super annoying and pretty meaningless but I'm just confused since one of my friends said that it was bad to go to MV because high GPAs are considered average and low GPAs are considered dismal. I suppose what I am really asking is how severe is inflation at MV? Thanks so much! :) :)

Hi! To objectively answer your question: you can take a look at Monta Vista’s student profile, you’ll notice the decile ranking of students and their GPAs. I hate to be numerically discriminating because it certainly doesn’t make an applicant, and I’m sure you can do the math yourself.

I haven’t thought of Monta Vista as a grade-inflated school, and I think it’s pretty hard to maintain a pristine academic record there for four years, particularly if you decide to bulk up on AP’s. Also, college admissions officers will take into account the rigor of your school by examining your school profile. I wouldn’t really be surprised if some colleges know Monta Vista or other local high schools by name (at my college, there’s an upward of 8-15 students a year from each of the “big” high schools in the Bay Area).

On the other hand, I’ve known students with less than perfect GPAs still end up at fantastic colleges and are doing really, really well. Your GPA isn’t the best indicator of your future success (especially beyond high school). And it’s okay! Hope I answered your question.

- YSP

Hello! As a lovely anon brought up, the end of the school year is long gone, and it's time to reveal my identity. I'm Jill Wu, otherwise known as Iced Green Tea! I'll still be answering any questions on here, but feel free to email me to at [email protected]. I'll also make a more detailed bio later, so look out for that! 🤗

#icedgreentea

I received my tentative schedule through the new electronic system and found that I have a free second period. Is there any way of requesting a free 1st or 7th period instead?

Try during Running of the Bulls. Sometimes you can get free period switches. Head there before the line builds up -- my senior year I was stuck with a free fourth (for the second year in the row) and I wasn’t able to change out.

Although free second isn’t too bad. Just imagine how late you can get up for school on Wednesdays. Glorious.

Good luck!

- YSP

damn I just wanna say I'm so impressed with this blog. I kinda wish I had found it before, it's prettyy comprehensive. Keep up the good work! (and as a side note, I'm President of CSF right now and it's doing really well. Ty to the older generation!)

Thanks! All of us running this blog have already graduated high school and (some of us) well into college, so some of this is a bit dated advice. Woo, CSF fam! Glad to see things are going great. Best of luck with everything! :)

- YSP

does monta vista give students a class rank?

Nope! MV does do decile rankings for unweighted GPA, and that’s about it.

- YSP

I was thinking about taking pre-calc over the summer and taking Calculus BC next year. Any thoughts on that? How "hard" was Calculus BC?

You’ll need to petition your guidance counselors on that, so you should probably email them to start the process. Taking Pre-Calc over the summer is fine - just make sure you still have a summer!

If you’re looking at “hard” as the grade people usually get, the teachers curve the class so about 50% of students get an A. In terms of mathematical difficulty, it’ll depend on your background, but if you come in with a very strong sense of algebra, trigonometry, and good number sense, you should be okay. Pre-Calc is strongly recommended :)

- Little Miss Sunshine

help, im freaking out. im so late on this summer program boat, i dont have any plans and its already the middle of june. what programs are available for me to join as a rising senior in highschool? anything from internships to jobs i'll consider. thank you!

Don’t freak out - it’s never too late! Have you considered reaching out to local community centers, volunteer centers, or stores to ask about applying for a job? Usually most job listings aren’t posted, so you need to be proactive in asking. If you want to do something more academic, a lot of labs do look for research assistants, so it’s worth a shot reaching out to local professors. Summer camps also look for assistants, so if you love kids, that might be a great thing to look into. And if there’s something that you’re really interested in, why not do your own thing? Not every summer needs to have structure :)

- Little Miss Sunshine

i know i'm going to get disparaged for this question, but what teachers have BS TA's where you dont have to show up half the time and they're super chill about everything? just tryna live my senior year and not have 7 full classes lmao :(

sorry buddy, you’ll need to figure this out for yourself ;) also, if you’re not trying to have 7 full classes and have a chill senior year, then don’t TA?

- Little Miss Sunshine

If you're auditioning/applying for a course (like yearbook or el estoque), can you put your 7th choice as your "class to drop if selected?" Thanks!

Yes, you can.

I want to take physics in 10th grade. Is this doable? How should i prepare for this?

Yes! I’m assuming you’re looking at AP Physics B. In terms of actual doability, you can just write it on your schedule, and you should be in. In terms of preparation, many students who take physics sophomore year are simultaneously enrolled in Pre-Calc or AP Calc as sophomores. Having a strong math background will be your greatest advantage. If you really want to get a head start learning physics and are self-motivated, you can look into the textbook that they use. When I was taking it, we used Giancoli, which is an amazing textbook and pretty clear to read.

- Little Miss Sunshine

What textbook is used for AP Physics C?

I believe it’s this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentals_of_Physics

- Little Miss Sunshine

how important would you say playing a sport is in terms of college admissions? (although I know that's not the only reason to play a sport) I'm pretty active and exercise regularly, but since I'm very involved in other extracurriculars, I don't have the time to commit to playing a school sport. any advice or experience? thank you!

I’m assuming you’re not trying to get recruited, otherwise a sport would be very helpful :P A sport is just like any other activity, and if you’re already involved in a lot of other extracurriculars, it makes sense that you won’t be able to dedicate entire afternoons to playing sports. A sport signals that you understand teamwork, may demonstrate leadership ability, and that you might be a great fit at some universities if they have competitive sports teams or value IMs highly.

- Little Miss Sunshine

Hi so I'm not usually one to obsess over grades, I've never not taken a class because I think I might do badly. However next year I am taking ap physics c. I was just wondering how many people actually get As in the class, as many people in my calc class are taking it and I have yet to hear of an instance in which the student didn't get either a B or a hella clutch A. Thank you!!

There’s really no quantifiable number! The tests are usually curved to 85% (at least when I took the class). If you work hard to understand the material, it’s not impossible to get an A at all, since there are also many tests. If you do badly in one, there are many more to redeem your grade.

- Little Miss Sunshine

My tutor told me that having only 3 ap classes weakens my chance of even getting to a uc. Is that true? Very worried. Thanks!

Colleges and universities do look at the number of AP classes you take relative to the number offered by your school, and in this case, Monta Vista does offer a lot. So I would say that taking fewer AP classes would make you stand out less academically than other students, but if you’re using that energy and time you’d invest in AP classes in another substantial way, then it would make sense to college admission officers who see that.

- Little Miss Sunshine

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