Who Am I?
My name is Adiya Nurmakhanova. I am from Astana, Kazakhstan. I graduated from 11th grade and got a full ride to NYUAD Class of 2029 in Political Science. I studied at 75 gymnasium (a public school in Astana), Nazarbayev Intellectual School (NIS), and eventually graduated from the Canadian International School (CIS). My full ride consists of $300,000 for all four educational years — covering books, living expenses, insurance, and other resources.
Why NYUAD?
I was only considering North America — the USA or Canada. I was admitted to most of the universities I applied to. In the end, I chose NYUAD precisely because it is one of the strongest universities in the USA, especially for my major, Political Science. Additionally, this university shares the same values as I do. They highly value inclusivity and diversity, academic and personal growth, and they really value human relationships. This is strongly seen even in the fact that at my university, on the Abu Dhabi campus, we have students from more than 120 nations. It also has a mix of American and Middle Eastern cultures, which is interesting and important to me. All of this is very close to me and very interesting, so I decided to choose this university. Also, they give the most generous scholarship. Some universities gave me grants, but they didn’t cover, for example, my flights or my insurance, or my books. I decided not to spend money on those things and chose NYUAD. Essentially, I still lose nothing because of this grant, and I don’t regret my decision.
Why Political Science – upbringing, childhood, and early interests that became the foundation of my choice
From childhood, I was interested in history and politics. From a young age, my parents instilled in me a love for all disciplines. My parents tried to surround me with various useful and productive means of recreation. One of them was the Leonardo da Vinci channel, which mainly had historical educational programs. It was then that my interest in history, including other disciplines, was formed. In the process of my development, I asked more and more questions to my parents, and my family is connected to government structures in one way or another.
Therefore, in communicating with my parents and relatives, they always touched on politics in one way or another. Eventually, my interest in history intertwined with politics. As I grew older, I became increasingly interested in knowing how various things happen and get resolved. When we study history, we understand that this happened and that happened, but who stood behind all of this? Such things have always made me very curious.
Then I realised that maybe I should pursue something related to politics. I always read books about history with passion, and I read biographies of various great political figures. I have a whole bookshelf. I have been curious since childhood, and that curiosity has stayed with me to this day.
Extracurricular activities that shaped me: Science, interviews with diplomats, my own project, and networking
Global project – Learn Modern Politics, which was created for borderless and unbiased learning
One of the important activities for me was creating my own project. I got the idea that there are no open resources for learning politics. I thought, Why not create our own if one doesn’t exist yet? Thus, the idea for Learn Modern Politics was born. The more I thought and worked with my team, the more we developed the project’s concept. Now we see two pressing problems:
We cannot find objective and unbiased sources and news for studying politics.
Young people around the world either know too much or almost nothing about politics, and we see this daily.
To reduce this gap, I decided to create a project that would address these two problems. We write news, analyse news from other sources, and write articles about international politics so that young people can educate themselves. We also provide a safe platform for conducting online debates and discussions where young people can discuss topics they are interested in without fear of being told that their opinion is wrong or judged. Our team consists of people from different continents; everything is quite global. One of the project's principles is that an article is not written by just one person; it is written by different people from different corners of the world to ensure maximum objectivity and to have multiple perspectives. Currently, we are trying to move to social networks – Instagram, TikTok.
Republican Model UN – the encounter that led to Model UN and why one should never refuse opportunities
Actually, it turned out that Model UN had little impact on my application, because it happened after I had already applied. However, many people know that you can still supplement applications after submission.
But at that time, I had already been accepted into the university, and I saw no point in supplementing the application. Still, this experience was very interesting. Again, this is the conference I mentioned when I spoke about the Youth Policy Centre. We got in touch with them and talked. After talking with the organisers from the Youth Policy Centre, they decided that I could participate, despite the fact that I was a schoolgirl and not a university student. They invited me to participate in the model. I happily travelled to Karaganda, where this model took place, and met many wonderful people.
By the way, thanks to the fact that I participated in this model, I was invited to the UN House to discuss my project further, because I had been telling people from the UN about my project – Learn Modern Politics. After that conference, I was invited to the UN House. They let me in fairly easily, again thanks to networking.
This experience, I think, was very useful because it taught me once again that you should never refuse an opportunity, and you should never underestimate the power of networking. You should always take the maximum from any experience and from any event you participate in.
If I had not approached certain people, if I had not talked, if I had not presented my project, perhaps it would not have led to such a great outcome.
NASA Space Settlement Contest – 3rd place after a month of preparation before the deadline
I worked on a contest called the NASA Space Settlement Contest, an annual design competition by the National Space Society for middle and high school students around the world. Our mentor was a professor from Nazarbayev University. There were 5,200 teams, and my team and I took 3rd place worldwide. At NASA Space Settlement, we started with teamwork. In school, I have friends who are interested in physics and astronomy. Thanks to this interest, we learned about the NASA Space Settlement Contest, and we then started working on it.
We started our work one month before the deadline; it was both interesting and difficult. I don't know how we did it all here, but I want to thank our mentor, Aidar. We won the prize together with the team, thanks to the mentor and our enthusiasm. This experience was very informative and productive, reminding me how important it is to work together with the team, not just in words but in action. Every member of our team brought something of their own and something unique to our project. This, by the way, helped me realise how important it is to involve people from different disciplines and fields, because this way you can create the most comprehensive, interesting, and well-thought-out project.
Astana Physics Battle – one of the organisers of the first battle in Kazakhstan
My involvement in the Astana Physics Battle – a team-based physics competition held in Astana (Kazakhstan), where high school students solve challenging Olympiad-style physics problems, then present and defend their solutions while other teams critique them – started with the fact that I got along well with the organisers. Previously, the Battle had been held in France and Russia. It was held in Central Asia for the first time. Participants came to us not only from different parts of Kazakhstan but also from different countries. We also attracted a significant amount of funding for organising the battle. They invited me to participate in organising the project, and this is how I ended up on the organising committee. I realised that there can be such amazing people who themselves are schoolchildren or first- or second-year students, and that one should not put oneself in any boundaries, because if a person strives and truly wants to create something, then they can do it – everything is possible.
Research projects and art – things I did out of interest
I have my own research projects, for example, the development of gender policy in Kazakhstan. I examined gender policy during the time of the khanates, how it changed with the annexation to the Russian Empire, how it developed during the Soviet Union era, and its development in modern Kazakhstan. I also have volunteer projects: I helped children from disadvantaged backgrounds get admitted to various schools. I personally worked on this without any organisation, recruited the students, mentored them, and helped them to enrol. I also love art. One day, I decided to join the school music band, and we gave several concerts. We were invited to different places, including schools like the Republican Physics and Mathematics School (RFMSh). These are very important and warm memories for me, which is why I decided to include them in my application.
Internship and interviews with 12 ambassadors in Kazakhstan – journalism, interest, and the uniqueness of this activity in American universities
I was on the student council at school and engaged in leadership activities. I had an internship in government bodies, and this is highly valued in the USA. It is incredibly difficult for an American high school student to get an internship in such institutions. It's never easy to be an intern in government bodies, but in Kazakhstan, compared to the USA, it is slightly easier. This is impressive, and the administration changes its opinion about you for the better. I interned for about a year. It was a very important and fascinating experience.
In addition, I included my journalism activities. I love communicating with people and writing. I used this when writing articles and in my role as an interviewer. I conducted about 12 interviews with ambassadors in Kazakhstan. I was invited to certain events where I met them and spoke with them, asking them questions and recording our dialogues. For me, this was also quite a fun experience; I didn't take it super seriously. It was very pompous. Because, you know, there was a period when I romantically idealised this whole story with ambassadors and such, but then I realised that they are the same people as we are. And perhaps someday, I hope, I will also be one of them.
Therefore, I connected with them outside of official events so that they would be more relaxed and I wouldn't be too nervous. I simply approached people, already having an idea of who each ambassador was. By the way, I personally know the Canadian ambassador because I studied in a Canadian school. I approached these ambassadors and asked if I could ask questions, saying that I am a schoolgirl and I’m 15-16 years old. They were charmed by the fact that a 15-year-old student is interested and engaged in such activities. Then I talked with them, asked questions, and conducted interviews.
This influenced how I see networking; I see networking as one of the most fundamental things in my development and in the development of the world. If I didn't have strong networking, I wouldn't have ended up there. Naturally, this influenced my application and me personally. It directly added more weight to my application because it is a unique experience.
That is, when we think about various activities that applicants engage in, we can roughly gauge how unique it is and how not unique they are. For example, in the USA, there are 5,000 schools and 5,000 student council presidents. If they all apply to the Ivy League, then, of course, it will not be a unique experience. So it's not too valuable. But, for example, interviewing 12 or more ambassadors is not something basic, and few people do it.
Therefore, these signals play their role due to their uniqueness and because it is also related to my major, and because they truly reveal me as a different kind of person who is not afraid to do something new. This is what I think American universities highly value. These are all my activities that I included in my application; each of them reveals me as a well-rounded person.
Support from school – conducting Model UN, events, and the undervaluation of college counsellors
The school generally tried to support our admissions as much as possible. In some cases, I tried to be more independent of the school. This is not the school's fault, but the fault of the cultural context. In Kazakhstan, we do not take college counsellors very seriously, even though they are actually very important. My school had and still has a college counsellor. We are the first graduating class of the school, so many were confused and did not immediately know what to do.
Therefore, I thought it would be calmer for me to prepare with minimal support from the school. But, of course, whenever we asked the school to do something, the school did it – that was my experience. The school tried to support us when we asked, even if we didn't ask, support was still there. The school provides a huge number of opportunities. Because we have many connections with other schools, we have strong networking and very active students. We all learned about various opportunities from each other. And our school also tried to provide platforms for our projects and our ideas.
For example, I once conducted a Model UN within the school; the school was happy to provide a certain amount of funding and to provide the school as the location for this event. The school also often supports students in holding fashion shows, which are held periodically. They often invite the Canadian ambassador to us; our school and the Canadian embassy are on good terms as we are connected with Canada. This helped me a lot when meeting the Canadian ambassador and getting to know him.
Admissions process – IELTS, SAT, personal statement, CSS Profile
To prepare for various exams, I won a place in a program called "Study with Us". This is a program conducted by the USA. The right to conduct this program in Kazakhstan was won by two companies. The first company is Smartestprep. I won a grant there, and as a result, I studied for the SAT for free and the IELTS for free. As we know, exams also play a role in admissions, so I believe that this was also one of the most important resources I used. In addition to this, I used many publicly available resources. Various people write about admissions, who write about how to write an essay and how to write about activities. In writing Common App activities, I was greatly helped by Mahad The Mentor. He has one guide, and I used the same guide, because it seems to me to cover absolutely all areas of how they need to be described.
CSS Profile
In the USA, you use the CSS Profile. The CSS Profile basically indicates that you want to receive some grant or aid. The university, looking at your CSS Profile and your profile, then chooses how much money it is willing to spend on you. These are resources that the university has, and the university must decide on whom it is ready to invest a certain amount of money. If a person shows that they have no opportunity to pay for education and has a weak financial background, then they fill out the CSS Profile, and the university sees how strong an applicant and an important human resource you are.
The CSS Profile has a huge number of questions about your family, your possessions – cars or apartments, how much you spend on food, on clothing and on other things. And you have to specify all of this. Then you also indicate how much approximately you can pay, how much approximately your family can allocate for your education, and where you will get that money. Then you also need to attach documents, for example, you can ask your parents to get certificates of earnings from work, and you will also attach these documents to the CSS Profile. The CSS Profile is also something that requires money. In order to send it to the university, you need to pay a small fee. But if you multiply this small amount of money by many universities, then of course it will be a large sum.
Therefore, in order to save on that as well, I wrote to universities asking if they could give me a fee waiver so that I would not have to pay, but I still sent them the CSS Profile. Some universities gave me a fee waiver, and some gave me an ISFAA — this is a form that universities sometimes provide to international applicants to submit information about the family's financial situation, like the CSS Profile, but without the need to pay for its submission. It's the same document with the same questions as the CSS Profile, but the only difference is that for the CSS Profile, you fill it out on the website, and for the ISFAA, you have to fill it out manually.
SAT 1510 and IELTS 8.0 – how?
I will not lie, I did not use any extraordinary life hacks to prepare for the exams. My stance on exams is that if you know English and mathematics, then you will pass. If you have a strong foundation, then you can prepare in a week, and you will pass. I found the SAT a bit easier because there are tools for taking it, like DESMOS. And I strongly recommend all students to use DESMOS to its full power. Because DESMOS is a calculator that has many features that other calculators do not have. If you learn to use it correctly, then you can solve half or a third of the exam. Sometimes you can watch advice on the internet, like on YouTube or TikTok; however, this works only if you have a solid base in these subjects. Basically, these are the life hacks I used. Before my very final preparation for the IELTS, I prepared for three days; before the SAT, I prepared for a week. This sounds crazy, like “Wow, how did you manage?”, but this is all because I had a foundation. And it’s all thanks to the fact that I once studied with StudyWithUs, I study in a Canadian school where I read a huge amount of information only in English. And all of this is thanks to that background. In the end, that's why I was able to spend such a small amount of time on truly concentrated and intensive preparation. Otherwise, if I didn't have that background, I think I would have spent much more time.
Misunderstandings during admissions and how I chose a topic for my personal statement
Of course, when applying, you face various misunderstandings and problems of a completely different nature. For example, I had a problem coming up with an idea for the personal statement. Usually, people write a personal statement about some very global or very major event that can completely change the course of their life. It can be the death of a relative, an illness, or a divorce of parents. Now they say there are 3D things that you should not write about. These are depression, death, and divorce. Most often, we see people write that someone got sick, was taken to the hospital, someone died, or someone did not recover. These are truly terrible things, and I don't want to seem heartless. I'm glad I didn't have such events, but this complicated the choice of a topic for my essay, because I don't have such "major" events. In the end, I decided to dig deep within myself. I came to the realisation that I wanted to write about something that I would never share with other people myself. This probably sounds funny, but I read an interesting phrase — you need to write a personal statement so sincerely and so honestly that you can share it only with yourself and only with the admissions committee. This, it seems to me, is very important advice. It's something I myself used. I dug so deep that I found something I wanted to share only with myself and only with the admissions committee. So I decided to write about it in my personal statement.
Supplemental essays are individual for each university, and here it is important to understand what the university wants to hear from you. In each supplemental essay, you can find a hidden question. For example, the university may give you a prompt, and after reading it, you understand that this essay is “Why us?”. The main thing is to write something unique; for this, you need to delve deeply into the university and find its values by doing research. The essay will show the university that you are genuinely interested in them if you have studied them well. This immediately raises the university’s opinion of you. Let’s consider specifically my essay for NYUAD. I wrote an essay that, it seems to me, perfectly fits all the values of NYUAD. It is an essay through which you can really understand that this student can genuinely study at NYUAD. This student truly carries values that are connected with the university: inclusivity, diversity, global mindset, and the scope of things you are doing. I combined all of this in my essay.
Application
Universities look at your application as a whole. When we prepare, we often separate something: this is my list of activities, these are my essays, these are other things. In reality, they do not separate these when they get to know your profile. It should all go together and come together in a beautiful picture that is complete and cohesive. I included certain activities in my Common App, and I tried to show these same activities through essays, demonstrating that I really did those activities, that I didn't just make them up, and that I really did them and they truly influenced my development. I indicated these activities in one way or another in my essays and in my personal statement. In one essay, I indicated my activities through metaphors or by writing quotes. In one of the essays, I used flashbacks. Through these flashbacks, I wrote about how I was engaged in a particular activity. Through such elements, I wanted to show that: yes, I am authentic, I really did these activities; you are reading work that I created myself, not someone else. Because, in fact, it is very easy to have others do your work, but that is not something you should do, because the university will consider you as an individual. I think that such a person will be much happier knowing that the university accepted you because you were honest with the university and honest with yourself.
You have value. Don't undervalue your work and projects.
Most importantly, do not underestimate yourself and do not fall into impostor syndrome. When you are submitting your applications and you are among active students who also want to get into a great university and are also doing something, it is very easy to undervalue yourself, your own work, and your accomplishments – what you have achieved in a certain amount of time in your activities. And most importantly, do not compare yourself too much with other people and know that you carry value within yourself and that you carry value through your creations, your essays, and your extracurriculars.
