Hi everyone (if anyone) reading this
blog! A little about is my name is Hailey, I am 16 years old, and I
live in Hampton, Virginia, USA! I am writing this blog to hopefully
document my junior year abroad to Germany through Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program (CBYX). I turned in my
application January 2nd and waited almost a month for
semi-finalist notification. Just yesterday at 3:56pm I learned that I
'm a semi-finalist! I was so excited because I had spent the whole
day trying to kill time. I kept refreshing my email to see if it had
came yet and then boom it was there! I started freaking out because
what if I didn't make it? What if I did? So I clicked on my Facebook
tab and messaged my friend Diana and told her my email was here and I
was so excited and nervous my spelling was awful haha! I then went
back to my email and opened the email from Julia Littlefield and my
eyes wanted to wander to see if I was accepted while my brain didn't
want to find out and just wanted to read the email. I read that I was
accepted then told everyone on the CBYX CIEE Hopefuls Facebook page
where everyone else was also posting their good news!
Here is what the email said
Dear
Hailey,
Thank
you for applying to the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program,
which provides 50 scholarships for students from the Southeast United
States. The outstanding merit of each and every applicant made our
review extremely competitive.
We
were impressed with your application and after careful review, we
would like to offer you an in-person interview. We are interested in
learning more about you and your desire to participate in the CBYX
Program.
This
year, our selection events will take place in Atlanta, GA and
Richmond, VA:
Atlanta:
March 1st– March 2nd, 2014
Richmond:
March 15th– March 16th, 2014
This
year’s interviews will be overnight selection events and CIEE will
cover room and board at a hotel for all semi-finalists. Both Atlanta
and Richmond events will begin mid-day Saturday and end mid-day
Sunday. We strongly encourage you to attend the selection event
closest to your home. If you need to book a flight, please do so as
soon as possible and send us your flight details. Final details
regarding these events will be sent to you by February 14th.
Prior
to making our final selection, we will hold a webinar for all
semi-finalists’ parents to provide more information about CIEE and
the CBYX Program.
Please
respond to Julia Littlefield via email by Thursday,
February 6th with
your interview location of choice. If you require travel assistance,
please include this in your confirmation. If you do not wish to
continue to the next round of selection, please respond by February
6th as
well.
Congratulations
on your advancement to the next round, and we look forward to meeting
you in person!
All
the best,
CIEE
CBYX Selection Committee
So after I updated Instagram, Twitter,
and Facebook of my acceptance (I felt like I needed to spread the joy
of my good news! Haha!) I went back to finish reading the email which
stated the two interview locations but something new this year with
CIEE is that the interviews are overnight, so all of us semi's are
going to stay in the same hotel! I think this will be fun! So I will
be attending the Richmond interview since that is the closest to my
home! I really want to keep a blog to document my hopefully year in
Germany and help any future CBYXer's or anyone wanting to go to
Germany! I just hope making a blog doesn't jinx my chance of becoming
a finalist because yes I do get superstitious about things like that!
My next update will come when my
interview is approaching!
If anyone needs to contact me you can
email me hakoger1998@gmail.com!
