@20hsa, thanks for your insight and congratulations on progressing to the next round, hope you win the scholarship this year, I will certainly be rooting for you! My daughter is not as disappointed as I thought she’d be; she really wants to go, but is more excited about going for an entire year, which is more doable after 11th grade, once she gets all the SAT’s and important AP’s out of the way. Is it ok to msg you privately for some additional advice? Thanks in advance
My D is applying to the CBYX program, which is due in 2 days. Her teachers don’t have their recommendation letters in yet. Does anyone know if these letters have to be sent in by the deadline, or whether they can be sent in after, and if so, how much later? Thanks!
Has anyone else not received their interview info yet? I’m getting nervous waiting for it lol
I promise, they do get to everyone by January 20th. I have not heard of an instance where a semifinalist was not interviewed.
They held an interview event in NYC over the weekend where S19 was interviewed on Saturday. He indicated it was a one on one interview lasting about 25 minutes with a volunteer. From his feedback, it seemed very relaxed, with both asking questions of each other regarding study abroad and language experiences. He told me the place was packed with those being interviewed, so looks like things are in motion. Good luck everyone with your interviews!
I’m a semi-finalist for china next summer too! Hope we both make it
I’m a chinese summer finalist. Can you tell me anything about the program ? Housing? Do we go to school every day? Field trips throughout china, etc…
I live in New York and am a semi finalist for china but haven’t been contacted yet
Would appreciate any information you could provide about the finalist interviews (both questions you were asked and the experience). Also, did you apply for the following year just in case you were not selected the first time around? Thanks!
I wasn’t contacted to schedule my interview until a week before the deadline last year, so don’t worry if you haven’t been contacted yet. The best thing you can do to prepare for your interview is to have a really clear idea of why you want to receive the NSLI-Y scholarship, and have a couple anecdotes prepared because they’ll definitely be asking you situational questions.
I applied for the Arabic summer program and went through the interview a couple weeks ago! Now I have wait until March/ April for the results (gahh).
The interview was super chill! Some questions I remember were “What was a time you had to use your sense of humor to cope with a difficult situation?” “Tell me about a time you were in conflict with an authority figure” and “What is your dream host family”.
If you want to see more questions
The interviews are very informal and my interviewer was super nice about giving me time to settle in and think about each question.
Whoops I can’t seem to send the link, but there are a lot of sample questions online
I also applied for Arabic summer and had my interview this past Sunday. I strongly suggest making sure you are confident in yourself and that you have solid responses to the questions. I was SUPER stressed about mine, but once I met my interviewer, she was really nice and I felt very comfortable throughout the whole discussion. Just stay positive and talk with the other exchange students at the interview event, if your interview is at one, because they were very helpful and encouraging.
Best of luck everyone!
@typiCAmom sorry I’m new to college confidential and just saw this- of course! I just have to figure out how to pm…
Hey! How is everyone holding up? This wait seems practically unbearable…
Just had my interview (China Summer) and I’m already stressing about the decision 
I had my interview last weekend. I think it went well! My interviewers were two sweet old ladies and I felt very confident in my answers. But, alas, so begins the waiting game once more. D: I think I’m literally going to go insane by the end of March.
I just had my interview and I can’t wait for March/April… It’s just too long of a wait!
Summer programs are not meant for many activities – just not much time; you will have to study language 6 or 7 hours a day and maybe have one planned activity. There are a lot more activities during Academic Year Program though, i.e., planned group trips and host family trips etc.
@20hsha I know! But only one more month left until the finalist results should start rolling out–
hey guys… I know so many of us are anxious about notifications being sent out and stuff so I dug around in old forums to try to find out around when each country’s notifications are sent out! this is about what I found:
Russian Summer, Hindi summer, and Persian summer - earliest notification. late february or first week of march. in the past few years the notifications have come out either feb 27-28 or march 1
Turkish Summer - early March. around March 10 (not a lot to report since the program was suspended last year, but this is based on 2016 applications
Arabic Summer and Chinese Summer - late March starting around March 24 and March 25. these are the bigger programs so they spend more time on them since there are more scholarships to give out and more applicants.
Korean Summer - usually the latest… around march 31st or April 1st. pretty sure this is their biggest program.
this is probably not exact but it’s cool to have an idea about around when notifications may arrive. I know that last year I was rejected after making it to the semis and I got my notification on April 1st (but by then I kind of pieced it together). also, I’m a SF for Turkish summer - is anyone else in this group one as well?? I’m struggling to findpeople to relate to lol.
Are there any FB groups for NSLIY applicants this year? I’m having a lot of trouble finding one online/people to talk to about this in general… if someone has one and could forward the link that would be awesome.