[aaus-list] USA/USA Program, our 08-09 scholarships, ZNO Results, etc.

[Bohdan Oryshkevich]

Dear Friends: 

 

We are
providing you with the final results for the USA/USA Program 2008-2009 application
season.  We can also provide you with our annual report if you send me an e-mail. 

 

We
welcome any questions. 

 

We had
five scholarship winners this year. 

 

We had
seventeen students from all regions of Ukraine attend the USA/USA Seminar 2008.  They were selected from one hundred thirty six
complete applications.  All these students
underwent paper TOEFL and math testing.  The
latter was a GRE general math exam translated into Ukrainian.  Two students dropped out after the seminar.  Two additional students, though talented, could
not perform well enough on supplemental testing in math.  We advised them to work on their math and re-apply
this year.  So, we had thirteen students applying
from the 2008 seminar to colleges and prep schools.  We had seven additional students applying from
previous seminars going back to 2005.  All
but one of these seven students applied for a second time. 

 

This
year, we have five students accepted with full financial aid packages for the entire
duration of their education in America or Switzerland : 

 

Olena
Anoshchenko, Kharkiv (USA/USA Seminar 2005) Lewis
and Clark (OR), previous winner to LB Pearson United World College of the Pacific
(BC), a prep school for two years.  The Davis
Endowment of the United World Colleges provided part of her scholarship to Lewis
and Clark. 

 

Roman
Yevstihnyeyev, Poltava (USA/USA Seminar 2008) Choate
(CT), two years 

 

Anton
Bastov, Chernihiv, (USA/USA Seminar 2008) Leysin
American (CH), two years

 

Denys
Bastov, Chernihiv, (USA/USA Seminar 2008) Leysin
American (CH), two years

 

Volodymyr
Silchenko, Simferopol, (USA/USA Seminar 2007)
Woodberry Academy (VA) three years 

 

The
total amount of scholarship money these students will benefit from over the course
of their education is nearly $550,000 over two, three or four years.  Unless specified all the funds come from the college
or prep school.  The four prep school students
this year will most probably go on to earn full four year college scholarships in
their senior year. 

Unfortunately,
Nataliya Ovchar, Zaporizhzhia (USA/USA Seminar 2006) was put on the waiting list
to Harvard, Penn, and Hamilton Colleges. 
She did not get in.  She had the highest
SATs of any of the students this year. 

 

Our
prep school students are outstanding this year. 
Roman is a two-time national gold medal champion in the all-Ukrainian high
school economics Olympiad.  Anton is a gold
and silver medal champion in the all-Ukrainian high school English language Olympiad.  Both are Presidential Scholars in Ukraine .  

 

Although,
Roman, Anton, and Denys are entering prep schools in the West, they graduated from
high school in Ukraine this year.  They took
the University Entrance Exams of Ukraine (ZNO: www.testportal.gov.ua/)
and have just received their scores.  This
is only the second year that the ZNO are a nearly universal requirement in
Ukraine.  They are an objective test more
like the ACT in America than the SAT. 

 

These
exams test Ukrainian (required) and one or more other subjects (math, physics, chemistry,
geography, English, German, French, Spanish, Ukrainian history, and law).  Each exams counts for 200 points.  Roman, scored 399.5 (out of 400 on two exams),
Anton 396, and Denys 396.5. Only 69 students in Ukraine scored a perfect 400 points
on two exams this year.  Roman was not far
behind.  Some of our non-scholarship winners
excelled on this objective testing with one student, Anastasiya Gorodetska of Marhanets
(USA/USA Seminar 2008) scoring 596 in her top three exams.   She scored 199.5 in Ukrainian history, 199 in
the Ukrainian language, and 197.5 in English. 
Only four students in all of Ukraine scored 600 on their top three exams
this year.  ZNO testing is a major advance
in Ukrainian education.  One can sense the
difference already. 

 

Several
of our USA/USA Seminar 2008 alumni are young enough and still eligible to apply
again to both prep schools and colleges. 
We will be supporting some of them again. 

 

Our
program is small and most comparable to the Teak Fellowship (www.teakfellowship.org)
which helps fifteen to twenty five students per year in New York City apply to colleges,
and the Ron Brown Scholar Program (www.ronbrown.org) which this
year selected a dozen students.  These programs
run on budgets many times larger than our own. 

 

We are
already selecting the students for this year. 
We have 109 registrations so far for our 10 places this year.  This could be our most selective year ever. 

 

Thank
you for your attention. 

 

Bohdan
A. Oryshkevich, MD, MPH 

Founder,
USA/USA Program 

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