sarah nguyen

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.

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On Wednesday I got a call from Sandy Chase to confirm that I received the following email:

Dear Candidates,

The Congress-Bundestag interviews will be taking place on Saturday March 1st, at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, 2440 West El Camino Real, Suite 300 | Mountain View , California 94040. Attached are directions.

** If you are an AM candidate, please arrive at 8.30 a.m. Interviews will begin promptly at 9 a.m. and end between 12 and 12.30 p.m.

** If you are a PM candidate, please arrive at 1 p.m. Interviews will begin promptly at 1.30 p.m. and end between 4.30 and 5 p.m.

The committee has reviewed your CB applications and we are looking forward to meeting you in person. The committee’s scholarship recommendations will go to the regional office on Monday, March 3. They will then notify all scholarship winners within a week. If you or your parents have any questions about the program, please feel free to e-mail me or call me.

Below is the list noting who is an AM or PM interview:

Name AM or PM

Samuel Vxxxx AM
Joe Axxxx AM
Sarah Nguyen AM
Salim Txxxxxxx AM
Kira Sxxxxxxx AM
Bianca Txxxx AM
Eugene Kxxxxxx PM
Jonathan Pxxxxxxxx PM
Michaela Sxxxxx PM
Gavin Sxxxxxxxx PM
Sophia Mxxxxxx PM
Connie Ix PM

Regards,

Sandy Chase CB Committee Chairman
ASSE International Exchange Student Area Rep

At the end of the call, she said “I’m really glad someone from Lynbrook is applying because…” and I mentioned that my cousin Jennifer knew her daughter, which is kind of weird, but cool.

So from this e-mail it looks like I’ll know by March 10!

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Here are my lovely photo pages that I made for the CBYX application. I used Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0, which has a neat option to make a photo collage and formats everything for you. I highly recommend it if anyone has a similar project. =D

Page 1

Page 2

PDF Format Copy

1) Yes, my room IS that neat.

2) Everyone at Lynbrook is Asian. =(

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On Thursday I got a lovely letter in the mail (not e-mail). Here it is, word for word:

February 6, 2008

Congratulations on becoming a CBYX semi-finalist. The next phase in selection is the mandatory interview. A committee of teachers, ASSE representatives, and community members will conduct the individual and group interviews in your state. You must attend this interview meeting to be considered for the CBYX scholarship.

Due to the size of some states, you may have to travel some distance to the interview location. For this reason, we schedule the interviews on a Saturday. Please find following more detailed information regarding your interview:

Committee Name: Mountain View, CA

Chairperson: Sandy Chase
(408) xxx-xxxx
xxxxx@sbcglobal.net

Date: Saturday - March 1st, 2008

Time: The Chairperson will contact you regarding your arrival time.

Location: Silicon Valley Community Foundation
2440 West El Camino Real, Suite 300
Mountain View, California 94040

We encourage your parent(s) and/or guardian(s) to accompany you, as facilitators will be on hand to answer questions they may have about the program while you are being interviewed. If you will not be able to make it to the interview, please call and let the Chairperson know.

If you have any other questions, you may contact me via phone or email. Good luck!

Best regards,

Nancy Foster
CBYX Program Director
(949) xxx-xxxx
Nancy
xxxxx@asse.com

Luckily for me, it’s only about 20 minutes away from my house. Woe to anyone who has to go further - ASSE is in charge of all NorCal. Anyway, it should be fun/interesting to meet some other kids going for this. Guess I have to hurry up and finish the second part of the app now. =T

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This afternoon I received confirmation of my application from CBYX via email. I suspect that there are several representatives, so I can only see the addresses of seven other applicants, whom I’m *very* tempted to get in touch with.

Other than that, the email contains all the usual pleasantries, notes that an interview should be scheduled soon, and ends with an unpleasant zinger: more application materials to fill out. The lazy part of me says just go Rotary (already accepted), the Asian part says MUST GO ON. These include:

• ASSE final application: 4 pages to fill out asking mostly for information I already gave in the original application. I also will need to attach another passport-sized photo to this - I can’t seem to find a copy of the other one I took; hope this doesn’t mean I have to spend another $8 at Walgreens.
• Certificate of Health: to be filled out by your doctor.
• School Recommendation: This one baffles me. I already sent in two teacher recommendations, for one thing. But this one is specifically for your principal/guidance counselor, and I have no idea how these people would know how to rate things like “behavior in school,” “outgoing personality,” or “humility” from 1 to 4. Subsequently, the following criteria to be judged is rather questionable and strange, though some of you may think otherwise..?
  • Poise
  • Grooming/Appearance
  • Articulation
• Legal Stuff: Follow the rules and don’t sue us later.
• Copy of School Transcript: meh.
• Photo Collage: two standard 8.5”x11” papers filled with beautiful photos! Should be fun.

In summary, this all seems very last minute and unorganized, but that’s what you get with bureaucratic discretion (AP Gov!), it seems.

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