On the 4th of April, we arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland to start a housesit. On the 5th of April, early in the morning, our hosts went to the airport. A couple hours later, we drove to the airport. The reason is that I had applied to the Davidson Academy in Reno, Nevada when we were in Australia. Finally, when we were in Doha, they replied and told us that I needed to come for an interview in Reno. So we arranged tickets to Reno and back for my Mom and I. We flew WOW Air through Reykjavik (because it was so cheap) where we had a 5 hour layover and paid $17 for a small pizza that didn't even fill us up (that was not an exaggeration.)
When we arrived in San Francisco, late at night, we got our rental car and drove over an hour to Vacaville where we stayed in a motel. That way, we would be out of the San Francisco traffic in the morning. Then we drove to Reno, through the Sierra Nevada mountains (through the Donner Pass.) The next day, I did my day of interviews and testing (if you want to hear about this, it comes at the end of the blog post, so let me just finish this paragraph.) A day later, it was time to go back to San Francisco. Unfortunately, we had to pass back through the mountains were we had to buy chains for our car or we wouldn't be allowed through. So we spent $90 on them. At the end, we got someone to help us take off the chains. He got one off but the other was too tight. Finally, we found someone else who got the other off and we gave them to him (with nothing else to do with them.) We stopped at the Jelly Belly Factory on our way back. That time, our flight connected through Reykjavik again with an overnight layover. So we stayed in a hotel and slept without doing anything there. And we went back to Edinburgh the next day.
Now that I have finished the actual journey, I will talk about the day of testing and interviews. I was the only one who didn't come to the optional testing the day before (that you can do if you're worried about not finishing in time) because I was so jetlagged. So I arrived there and we started on our Reading and Science tests. They were multiple choice (except for a small portion of the Science test) and very easy. But right after I finished the Reading (before the Science test), we started something else (which was fine because we weren't expected to finish both of them by then.) We then read and discussed a short story. Then we wrote a rough draft of an essay about it (during that we did our interviews). Then we finished it, had a little bit more time to finish our Reading and Science tests, and then went to lunch. After that, we did a Math test (which was different based on what math class you had last taken, mine was Trigonometry although I have recently finished Calculus), and somewhere in the middle we stopped to do our final drafts of the essay after the teachers gave lots of advice. At the end, we finished our Math and Science tests. I was last because I had spent an hour on one trigonometric proof which even in the end I never finished.
As for the interviews, it was mostly just someone asking questions and me answering them.
Well, recently they responded and said that I got in. This is one of the very few programs where I can learn at my own pace (I only found two that were particularly good and didn't get into one of them.) Currently I am in Ireland and after here we will go back to Florida for over a week so I can take AP exams. After that we go to Bogotá, Colombia and we aren't sure where we will go from there. But by the end of August (actually the start of August because of Syarra's school) we will be in Reno.
When we arrived in San Francisco, late at night, we got our rental car and drove over an hour to Vacaville where we stayed in a motel. That way, we would be out of the San Francisco traffic in the morning. Then we drove to Reno, through the Sierra Nevada mountains (through the Donner Pass.) The next day, I did my day of interviews and testing (if you want to hear about this, it comes at the end of the blog post, so let me just finish this paragraph.) A day later, it was time to go back to San Francisco. Unfortunately, we had to pass back through the mountains were we had to buy chains for our car or we wouldn't be allowed through. So we spent $90 on them. At the end, we got someone to help us take off the chains. He got one off but the other was too tight. Finally, we found someone else who got the other off and we gave them to him (with nothing else to do with them.) We stopped at the Jelly Belly Factory on our way back. That time, our flight connected through Reykjavik again with an overnight layover. So we stayed in a hotel and slept without doing anything there. And we went back to Edinburgh the next day.
Now that I have finished the actual journey, I will talk about the day of testing and interviews. I was the only one who didn't come to the optional testing the day before (that you can do if you're worried about not finishing in time) because I was so jetlagged. So I arrived there and we started on our Reading and Science tests. They were multiple choice (except for a small portion of the Science test) and very easy. But right after I finished the Reading (before the Science test), we started something else (which was fine because we weren't expected to finish both of them by then.) We then read and discussed a short story. Then we wrote a rough draft of an essay about it (during that we did our interviews). Then we finished it, had a little bit more time to finish our Reading and Science tests, and then went to lunch. After that, we did a Math test (which was different based on what math class you had last taken, mine was Trigonometry although I have recently finished Calculus), and somewhere in the middle we stopped to do our final drafts of the essay after the teachers gave lots of advice. At the end, we finished our Math and Science tests. I was last because I had spent an hour on one trigonometric proof which even in the end I never finished.
As for the interviews, it was mostly just someone asking questions and me answering them.
Well, recently they responded and said that I got in. This is one of the very few programs where I can learn at my own pace (I only found two that were particularly good and didn't get into one of them.) Currently I am in Ireland and after here we will go back to Florida for over a week so I can take AP exams. After that we go to Bogotá, Colombia and we aren't sure where we will go from there. But by the end of August (actually the start of August because of Syarra's school) we will be in Reno.
Congratulations!
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