Yaya

I have been meant to write this post for a long time.

So here it is.

She got 40 for her IB. Got an A for her all her subjects which resulted in her achieving  perfect GPA. Her grade was equivalent to OP1 in Queensland. (Highest possible grade).

She had two days off during her IB exams and she decided to go for work . The only time I got really annoyed with her. I wasn’t so much worried about her studying, but going to write the exam tired after working 7 hours shift the night before was not something I was happy about. It wasn’t that she needed the money that desperately. Besides she could work all the days when she finished her exams. She was worried that if she didn’t take the shift her employer might not give her any more shift and plenty of people want her job.. She gets 22.60$/hour. (minimum wage for under 18 is 10$/hour). So she went to work !

Last week, she reached her target of earning 10,000$. Pretty impressive for a 17 year old.

As for Unis

In Australia, she applied to Uni of Melbourne and QLD as plan C. She got admission to both with Scholarship to Uni of Melbourne. She declined both.

In Canada, she applied to Uni of British Columbia and Toronto as Plan B. Got admission to both.

In US

She applied to UC of LA, SD and Berkley. Berkley results will only be out next week. She got admission to both UCLA and UCSD.

She applied to Uni of Chicago. Got the admission.

She applied to Boston Uni, Got the admission.

She is waiting to hear from Princeton and U.Penn and Stanford.

She refused to apply to Harvard because my friend is the alumni co-ordinator for Harvard in Brisbane and she didn’t want any sort of favouritism. She also didn’t apply to Yale because the course she wanted to do wasn’t ranked high in the Times list. She didn’t want to apply to the other Ivy Leagues because she only wanted to apply to 10 unis. (8 in US and 2 in Canada)

She did all the applications  by herself. I only saw one of her essay where she called Tony Abbot (former PM) a boffin. I suggested she tone it down and  I guess she didn’t want any more input from me 🙂

The only thing I did was to fill out the Financial aid application. The rest she did on her own.

She showed me the offer letter from UCLA which stated, Congrats, you have been chosen from 97000 applicants because of your excellent results (something to that effect), I

All this is her own achievements. She knew what she wanted and she worked to get it. My mother once told me, you must dream achievable dreams. I wanted to give my children the best education the world could offer. Was it an achievable dream?

Yes it was. For someone who studied in Malayalam medium and was nick named deaf and dumb and blind..it is really awesome to watch your kids aiming for the best and getting there..

I can’t describe the joy I feel..

 

 

20 thoughts on “Yaya

  1. Sarah,

    Your joy is well deserved; you’ve done a fantastic “job” ! Of course, Yaya certainly has too ! Congrats to her and here’s hoping more good news is on the way.

    BTW: For some reason ? marks show up in my comments where none should be. Please ignore them unless they apply. Thanks, Sarah.

    Paul

  2. congratulations to yaya! a big high 5 to her, and to you proud mama
    All the best to yaya, and wishes for her to achieve whatever she wants. Very happy for you

  3. Massive congratulations to Yaya!!!!

    I’m happy to hear that she got into really good schools. All those US schools are very very excellent. I am about 2 hrs from Harvard and Boston University and have a friend who actually is doing pre-med at BU. If she had applied to Yale and had chosen to go there, she would have been only 10-15 minutes from where I am living now. I would have liked to meet her if given the chance 🙂

    Am excited for her and can’t wait to hear where she plans to go. She’s so ambitious and I wish her all the best 🙂

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