YFU GeorgiaApplication Form for 2012-13 - Page 4

Additional Application Materials

Before YFU Georgia can personally interview you in order to determine whether you can be selected for the YFU exchange program for which you are applying, we need additional information and documentation. Please refer to the following checklist and make sure that you include all documents listed with the 4-page application form (4 pages including this page).

Four-page Application Form (fully filled out and with the required signatures)

Personal Statement of at least two pages in English or German describing at least the following:

  • the important factors of your personal development until now,
  • your expectations and reasons for wanting this YFU exchange,
  • your reasons for your country choice or choices,
  • your understanding of what it means to be willing to become a real part of your volunteer host family for the year and to fully accept and internalize your relationship with them,
  • the meaning that your YFU experience can and will have not only for your personal advancement, but also for you as a citizen of Georgia and Georgia's future as a democratic nation, based on its citizens assuming responsibility for the common good.

Authenticated (Certified) Year-End School Report Cards (grade sheets) for the school years 2009-10 and 2010-11, as well as for the first half of 2011-12.

Confidential School Evaluation by one of your teachers, preferably in English or German, but, if necessary, in Georgian; this evaluation should at least address the following:

  • your work habits and dependability regarding school work,
  • your social competence, such as your role in your class community and your interaction with your classmates, including such factors as considerateness, solidarity, leadership, being helpful and sensitive to the needs of others,
  • your willingness, readiness and ability to adjust to new and different circumstances and environments,
  • your ability to exercise self-discipline regarding your own behavior.

This Confidential School Evaluation can be submitted either by you in an envelope sealed by the school, or it can be submitted separately by your school to YFU Georgia. It should arrive no later than the deadline set below for the arrival of your application.

Statement of Permission to Apply by your Parents or Guardians, including the degree of their willingness and ability to contribute to the cost of the YFU program, as per the attached form.

YFU Georgia's Application and Selection Process

For two reasons, we have to conduct selection interviews with applicants before we can accept them.

First reason: YFU Georgia typically has far more applicants than can be accepted. Thus our selection committee, which consists of members of YFU Georgia and of YFU organizations in possible hosting countries, must become personally acquainted with all applicants who might be considered for selection as YFU exchange students. Obviously, selection chances are much higher if you do not need scholarship support. In such a case, the selection committee only needs to look at your qualifications - it is a simple question of "yes" or "no". If you need scholarship support, the selection committee, including representatives of non-Georgian donors of scholarship money, has a much harder task. Scholarship applications exceed the available scholarship amounts by between 10 to 1 to about 20 to 1. These selections are therefore much tougher.

Second reason: The YFU exchange experience occurs at a very special age. The age limits for participation are very narrowly defined. This is due to two facts: A YFU exchange student must be both still young enough and already old enough during the exchange experience. "Still young enough" means: An exchange student must be young enough to adjust completely to her or his new family and environment in her or his host country. As a YFU exchange student, you must still be young enough to fit closely and totally into family life different from what you are used to at home, and you must be able to integrate yourself completely into their life. "Already old enough" means: You must have the maturity, the sense of responsibility and the self-discipline to keep yourself under control throughout the year, and you must possess the willingness and ability to learn from your opportunity to be fully immersed in the way of life of a culture different from yours at home.

YFU has found that the best way of determining whether this description fits you is a group interview. Upon receipt of your full application, we will, if we consider you basically qualified, invite you to a selection group interview in Tbilisi. That means: you will have a conversation, primarily in English or German, with about four other candidates about various topics which we will suggest. This is not an examination; it is not a question of what you know or don't know; our selection committee just wants to get to know you and the other candidates a little bit beyond your written application. We have found that this form of group interview is the easiest and simplest way to accomplish that.

But this also means that we have to plan carefully and make sure that all candidates can be in Tbilisi on the same date.

All application documents (see above) must therefore be in our hands by

at the latest. Please send them to:Youth For Understanding Georgia

Mrs. Nino Sharashenidze

Tamarashvili Street No. 17 (Flat 47)

Tbilisi 0177