It’s the middle of the night here in Paskivka, a tiny village in Poltava region where the number of goats exceeds the actual human population, but I am far from falling asleep. I am trying to come up with a reasonable answer to the “Why are you applying to our school” question to simultaneously show my commitment and still seem cool about it. It seems impossible to explain in under 100 words why I have been dreaming about the acceptance letter for the past two years. My desk is covered with SAT study guides, essay drafts labeled “trash” and cheesy inspirational quotes that supposedly should motivate me to tackle the deadlines. My friends believe I joined some kind of a cult, my parents think I’m going crazy, and unfed goats have just declared the silent treatment.
I am applying to prestigious U.S. boarding schools through the Ukraine Global Scholars program.
Ukraine Global Scholars (UGS), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Cambridge, Mass., is aimed at assisting talented Ukrainian high-school students in getting full scholarships to the top boarding schools and colleges in the United States. The program was founded by Ukrainian Ivy League alumni inspired by a surge of patriotic pride during the Maidan Revolution in 2014.
Each year, UGS founders and mentors select 20 to 25 finalists from all over Ukraine and guide them through the admission process into schools and colleges overseas. In just four years, the Ukraine Global Scholars program has helped 47 Ukrainian students to get admitted into prestigious institutions in the United States and raised $14 million in scholarship aid.
Last September, after two years of rejections, wait lists and, finally, acceptance letters, I began my junior year at St. Mark’s School, a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts. The only other Ukrainian student ever accepted to St. Mark’s, who also happens to be a UGS mentor, graduated from the school 10 years ago. Meanwhile, Tonia Zakorchemna from Ternopil became the first Ukrainian student in the history of the Fryeburg Academy, one of the oldest private schools in Maine. Both of us got full scholarships that cover all the tuition and boarding expenses. Neither of us would have done it without the guidance and constant support of UGS mentors.
All UGS finalists have to go through the intense preparation program that includes online TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and SAT prep courses and a 10-day boot camp, where mentors and alumni of the program lecture newcomers on the nuances of the admission process. We are all ambitious, patriotic, persistent and somewhat masochistic, but the range of students’ passions and academic achievements varies greatly from mad scientists to professional singers, from the winners of the International Math Olympiad to aspiring writers. A large percentage of UGS finalists come from small towns and villages the size of Paskivka, although some of the accepted students are from large cities such as Kyiv or Kharkiv.
Yevheniia Dubrova
Dedication and eagerness to use the world’s best education to contribute to the development of Ukraine are the key factors in being selected as a Ukraine Global Scholars finalist. According to the president of the initiative, Julia Lemesh, the main purpose of the program is to “bring up new leaders who will use their knowledge and experience acquired at the world’s best school and colleges to make Ukraine a better place.” UGS finalists sign a contract with the program that requires them to work in Ukraine for at least five years after receiving their undergraduate diploma in the U.S.
However, the contract itself is not what makes us consider coming back. Each of the finalists has his or her own reasons to return to their homeland. Before moving to Paskivka in 2014, I saw how people in my hometown of Makiyivka, Donetsk Oblast, were being brainwashed by Russian propaganda. Now I have the opportunity to study journalism and media at St. Mark’s School, where Ben Bradlee, an editor of The Washington Post who oversaw the publication of the Pentagon Papers, first fell in love with writing, and use my skills to tell true stories to Ukrainians.
Daniil Ozernyi from Kamyanske, who is now pursuing his interests in pedagogy and linguistics at Northfield Mount Hermon, hopes to implement his knowledge to bring positive change to the system of education in Ukraine. Iryna Khovryak, a computer science student at Haverford College, aspires to contribute to the Ukrainian IT sector.
In addition to providing guidance on every step of the application process, the UGS program covers all the testing expenses, finds families in the United States willing to host Ukrainian students over the school breaks, and assists finalists with getting internships in top Ukrainian companies. For example, last summer several UGS alumni interned at Kyivstar, KyivPost, Darwin’s Grove, Senstone and Kyiv School of Economics. This year, the list of Ukrainian companies eager to provide internships for UGS finalists is even broader.
Ms. Lemesh notes, “By helping students find internships, we strengthen their professional network in Ukraine, which makes it easier for them to come back and find job opportunities here.”
2019 is an especially important year for the program. Considering the high acceptance rate of UGS students to U.S. schools and colleges – in 2017, 100 percent of UGS finalists were admitted to prestigious institutions, all expenses covered – and the growing popularity of the initiative among Ukrainian youth, it was decided to expand the number of future finalists from 25 to 50.
The new admission round has now been launched, and recent news about the successes of UGS 2018 finalists only add to the list of reasons for applying. Five students won over $1 million total in grants that cover all tuition expenses at several top boarding schools in the United States. For example, Nicol Moshenka from Dnipro will study at Phillips Academy Andover, a school that has educated two former American presidents and three Nobel Prize laureates, while Yehor Tverdokhlibov from Kharkiv will join the group of the other four UGS finalists admitted to Taft School in Connecticut.
Although some colleges have yet to release their admissions decisions this year, we already know that Vlad Ivanchuk (originally from Lutsk, Westminster School ’19) will continue his education at Harvard, Nadiia Dubchak (originally from Kyiv, The Lawrenceville School ’19) will begin her freshman year at Columbia University, and Masha Smyk (originally from Kyiv, The Hill School ’19) will study at MIT.
As the program expands, UGS expenses also are growing. In order to cover test fees for all 50 UGS 2019 finalists, organize the online preparatory school and the boot camp in Lviv Oblast, UGS needs $150,000. Anyone can make a donation to the program, host UGS finalists during the school breaks or help the program grow in other ways. Further details can be accessed on the official website, www.ukraineglobalscholars.org, as well as social media pages; or you can contact Julia Lemesh, UGS president, at [email protected].
Yevheniia Dubrova, a Ukraine Global Scholars finalist in 2016, will graduate from St. Mark’s School in 2020.