Ukrainian teenagers Tania and Andriy Torchylo will leave their native 300-resident village this fall to study in private schools in the United States. The siblings won $432,000 in the scholarships — an overwhelming amount for the family of a miner and a teacher, who earn about $500 per month in total.
Oksana Torchylo, the siblings’ mother, says that her children are hardly wunderkinds, and “the problem is that our kids often don’t believe in themselves, and that’s an after-effect of our schools.”
“Sometimes a school kills the last motivation, so if this example inspires other smart kids to apply for different programs, there will definitely be a success,” she told the Kyiv Post.
Tania and Andriy, 17 and 15 years old, are among 13 teenagers who won scholarships in 2017 due to the assistance of Ukraine Global Scholars program, a non-profit organization. Since 2015, it annually selects talented and ambitious Ukrainian teenagers to assist them with paperwork and preparation for English language tests SAT and TOEFL.
Teenagers will depart from Stara Lishnia, a village in Volynska Oblast some 500 kilometers west from Kyiv, to the U. S. Connecticut: Tania will study at the Gunnery school, while Andriy will go to Taft school.
Studying hard
Schools in Ukrainian villages do not often provide with good middle or junior education. Because of the small number of pupils, schoolchildren of different age may be combined into one grade and taught together.
Seeking the best education among the available options, after finishing the elementary school in Stara Lishnia, the siblings moved to a school in Novovolynsk, a city located within a 10-minute bus ride from their village.
While studying, Tania and Andriy participated in dozens of academic competitions: Andriy has won 61 awards in last eight years, and Tania 56 awards. Andriy focuses on physics and astronomy, even though his school doesn’t have an astronomy class. His sister prefers geography — in 2016, she ended up at a science competition in Japan, not winning, but “getting an amazing experience.”
In 2015, Tania also won a scholarship from Goethe Institute, which gave her an opportunity to study German at the East European University in Lutsk. For the next two years, two times a week after finishing the lessons at her school in Novovolynsk, she would take a two-hour bus ride to Lutsk for a German class. She would get back home by midnight.
Within the same program, Tania entered the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany, and could have started her classes there in September, as she graduated from school by then. However, in summer she found out that she was selected for Ukraine Global Scholars program, so she decided not to go neither to the Ruhr-University, nor to the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, which she also entered. She wanted to try to get into the U.S. school.
“My mother was worried about that because other graduates intended to continue education in Ukrainian universities, and I was the only one not to,” she said. Finally, she convinced her mother that she would not lose anything in case she fails.
But she didn’t fail. The siblings found out they both got American scholarships on March 10.
Andriy, who is now in 10th grade, will start the 10th grade over at Taft school this fall. He will also have to graduate from his Ukrainian school as an external student. Tania will get into the 11th grade. They will study for three and two years respectively.
Future plans
The scholarships they won cover all their expenses, including textbooks, medical insurance, flights, in some cases even laptops. After graduating from the schools, they want to get into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ranked the best in the latest annual QS World University Ranking.
Only six Ukrainian universities ended up in the same ranking among the world’s best 1,000 universities in 2018, with the most successful one, Karazin Kharkiv National University, landing at 401–410. Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv was ranked 411–420.
According to the rules of the Ukraine Global Scholars program, all the finalists have to turn back to Ukraine no later than within five years after gaining a university diploma. They also will have to work in Ukraine for at least five years.
Both teenagers are excited to come home after studying.
“After returning from the United States, I would like to promote land resources and environmental sciences in Ukraine,” Tania says.
Andriy wants to improve the process of studying of astronomy in Ukraine.
