Celebrating our Learners

A first of its kind, this series "Celebrating our Learners" aims to applaude our learners - who they are, the hard work they've put in, their achievements and their dreams. This week's edition is on our Bilingual, Science & Year 13 learners. Please scroll down to read on!

Year 11 Bilingual Learners - IELTS Academic Exam

Huge congratulations to our Year 11 bilingual learners (names below) who recently completed their IELTS Academic exam. 93% of our learners achieved or exceeded the required language proficiency band score of 5.5. These results, along with their IGCSE scores, will enable them to move to the IB programme, or even to a Foundation Degree programme in some countries. Special mention to Shaoyuan Guo who received a perfect score in the reading component of the test, an amazing achievement. Well done!

Names of our Year 11 bilingual learners:

Peng Jingyuan

Muhammad Harsya

Meiqing Liang

Shaoyuan Guo

Jiayu Luo

Yong Wu

Win Sutthikulsombat

Emma Fan

Julia Negreskul

Viko Tanutama

Tata Rojjanatanaphan

Zetao Wang

Jiayin Lin

Selina Xue

Hyong Chan Lee

Beam Suwannajit

Science Superstars

Awarded for demonstrating the Nexus RECIPE for success in Science subjects

Applying to University… From A Learner’s Perspective

Meet Paloma Canos Cervera, a current Year 13 learner, who has recently secured a sports scholarship and committed to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States of America for Fall 2021.

Paloma: The USA offers students the possibility to pursue a university degree while at the same excel in their chosen sport and compete at a collegiate level. Many universities throughout the country hold some of the best facilities and resources in the world, scholarship or not, the USA gives the possibility to any wanting athlete to pursue his/her dreams. Athletic scholarships are hard to get, but not impossible in a way they are a reward for all of your hard effort throughout your life in pursuing your athletic goals. Scholarships depend a lot on the sport and at times there will be more female scholarships available compared to men in order to promote more women to participate.

What is the NCAA?

The NCAA is the organization that manages and regulates college sports.

What are the different divisions and conferences of sports in the USA?

NCAA Division 1, 2 and 3.

The Process:

The application process is long and there are different deadlines which need to be met.

The first step to get to the US through sports is to contact the coaches. Coaches can only be contacted at a specific time, doing it before is considered a fraud and is illegal. In order to contact coaches you will need to go look at the athletic section in your chosen destination and look at the roster where you will find all the coaches and their contact information. When contacting coaches make sure you address them formally in a letter through a personal email and include the following information:

- 1. Transcript/ SAT results/ GPA
  2. Recommendation letters
  3. Videos of performance
  4. Performance details: Competition results and participations/ Best performances scores when quantitatively measured

5. Details about yourself: Height and anything else that may be applicable to your sport

6. Why you want to be a part of their university

Make sure that the email is personalised to the university, show your excitement and be straight-forward.

Along with the email you should at many times fill in their questionnaire which you will find on their websites, these questionnaires are a database for the coaches to see who is interested and all their stats, if they like you they will contact your back.

Start communications as early as possible because that is when the coaches will have the most available spots in their teams. As an international student, this can be tricky as some athletes may be well known, but the rest of you will be unknown to the many coaches around the US. Therefore start early and in a way secure your spot by making a verbal commitment.

Coaches may take several days to respond - there are thousands of athletes trying to achieve scholarships in the US throughout the whole world, it's a hard game, but there are plenty of divisions for anyone to be able to play in the US.

If coaches do contact you, the key point is to maintain those relationships by having calls and frequents email updating them with your performances. Once you start talking to coaches you will start to understand which one you are more interested in and which coaches are most interested in you.

Verbal Commitments:

A verbal commitment is not an admission to the university, a verbal commitment is like a promise, you promise them that you will stay and be part of their university and not keep looking at other universities in the meantime and the university promises you that they will do all they can to get you admitted to the university. Having said this, you still need to keep studying and training.

National Letter of Intent

Signing day is a very exciting day, from this day onward you will officially be able to sign a sports contract with your university. The NLI known as the National Letter of Intent binds you to that university and from there you will not be able to go play for another team in a different university for that first year.

The biggest piece of advice I would give to other Nexus athletes hoping to get a sports scholarship in the US is that you have to put yourself out there, and look for the coaches and teams which you want to be a part of - this research and contacting should be carried out in early Year 12 when communications open and your workload is still is minimal. At the same time, don’t forget to study hard and keep training throughout your IB years, coaches want to see that you can handle both and be at your very best in both areas.

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