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August 25, 2025

How Starting Psychology Internships at Age 8 Earned Me a Near-Full Ride to Colby College

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Defne from Turkey 🇹🇷

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My Background Information

I’m Defne. I completed Uskudar American Academy (UAA) with a full scholarship. At first, I didn’t have Uskudar American in my mind. I wanted to go to a public school and was planning to apply to them. After I was awarded a full scholarship, I decided to attend Uskudar American. During my first years there, I didn’t have any plans for studying abroad, my family is made up of civil workers, and thus earning amounts insufficient to compensate for such abroad education,Though, it may not seem that way because of my social media presence, we are not that financially strong of a family. For example, I got accepted to UCL and King's College London, yet I couldn’t attend due to financial restraints, even though their rankings in psychology are higher compared to Colby. I had some obstacles with finance during my application cycle as well. When I was in my freshman year, they asked us if we were going to “go with” the IB or MEB (standard Turkish high school curriculum). You may go abroad without IB as well, yet with IB, you are kind of distinguishing yourself from the rest of the classes. I told myself that if I had the chance, I might as well take it. So, I chose the IB, and actually, that was a HUGE risk. When you are following the IB curriculum, you have little to no chance to get yourself prepared for the Turkish university exam. IB is such a challenging program because it's an entire curriculum; in that sense, it’s not like AP either. So, you kind of have to take a gap year if you want to do IB and still “ace” the Turkish university exam. By taking the risk of taking a gap year if I couldn’t get into a university abroad with sufficient aid, I started the IB program. Consequently, I decided to apply to colleges in the US.

Why I Chose to Study Abroad

Initially, I wanted to study medicine in Turkey and specialize in psychiatry later. Later on, I felt myself drawn away from the application fields of medicine, like surgery, etc. I realized I wanted to focus more on studying human behavior and conducting molecular-level research instead of practicing clinically. That’s why I chose to study abroad, as I believe those areas aren’t particularly “open to grow” in Turkey just yet. When you want to study psychology in Turkey, you will most likely have to take a bunch of additional, also very challenging exams to get a job, and then, if you are lucky, you enroll in a master's program, which is very expensive. Thus, I thought that I could study those areas as research-focused at abroad, and then I could bring my studies back to Turkey. So, I chose to study abroad mainly to be able to focus more on research.

Why I Chose to Study in the US

I chose to study in the US specifically because of how generous they were when it came to scholarships available to international students. Compared to the US, Europe is really expensive, and I feel closer to the US liberal arts curriculum. Also, my high school system was really close to the US college systems; it’s really balanced. It enhances you both academically and socially. That’s why I preferred the US as I was looking for colleges. Other than the US, I applied to the UK and the Netherlands as a safety plan. So, I applied to a total of three countries. I would love to study at both UCL and King's because they are big and rising institutions in psychology and neuroscience, but due to financial limitations, I will be attending Colby College. I hope to study at these schools for higher education on a scholarship, though.

My Stats When Applying to Colleges

  • IB Predicted 42/45 ( as coursework, I took Biology HL, Chemistry HL, English A: Language & Literature HL, Turkish A: Literature SL, TITC, Mathematics A&A, EE Psychology, and IA Biology and Chemistry on bacteria and antacids.)

  • SAT 1570/1600

  • IELTS 8/9

My Extracurricular Activities

  • Creator, Gulumse (“Smile”) Podcast 

    Produced weekly episodes on the psychology of daily life, 100K+ total streams & 42K+ on IG, TED talk in a national conference, interviewed by Turkish Psychology Students Society

  • Founder & National Representative, Brain Bee - Turkey of the International Brain Bee

    Established Turkey’s 1st HS neuroscience olympiad, led a team of 12 High School / 5 undergrad students, collaborated with the Turkish Brain Research Society

  • Research Assistant & Organization Member, IMDAT Violence Prevention and Rehabilitation Association 

    Ran nationwide survey research on peer bullying & addiction (formulated the surveys), spoke at an international congress as the youngest researcher 

  • Strategy Intern, Moodist Psychiatry & Neurology Hospital 

    Managed hospital’s IG & LinkedIn, organized/marketed professional training programs in psychology, explored the applications of media in mental health

  • Teaching Assistant, Acibadem Uni. Cognitive Neuroscience Summer Camp

    Supervised HS/undergrad participants in experiment design on social media’s effect on impulsivity using Stroop & Go/No-Go tests + SPSS & OpenSesame 

  • Secretary, UAA Student Council Supervisory Board 

    Surveyed UAA students monthly on their satisfaction of the Student Council, conducted numerical & qualitative analysis of results, and wrote their reports 

  • PR Team Member, Head of PR Team, General Coordinator, UAA Academic Research Conference (ARC) 

    Chaired international HS res. conference with 7 categories, led 5 sub-teams of organization, managed 45+ participants, held panels, created IG & LinkedIn content on how to develop research skills

  • Observer Intern, Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine

    Shadowed Turkey’s first neuropsychologist, Oget Oktem, in aphasia rehabilitation, interacted with client relatives, only HS student in the internship

  • Founder & Coordinator, Gulumse Book Club

    Started Turkey’s 1st psychological novel club, gathered 1.2K+ members, held monthly sessions, discussed literary portrayals of psychopathology

  • Psychoton Bronze medalist 

  • IPsyO Bronze Award

Reasons to Choose Colby and Financial Matters

I chose Colby mainly because of the financial opportunities it offered compared to my other acceptances (UCL, Kings, Manchester, and Warwick). I received a generous amount of need-based aid (92k USD each year), which covers my room as well as board and much more. Additionally, I was awarded a merit scholarship named “Pulver Science Scholarship,” which covers my STEM-related research and internship expenses. This was a very great attraction factor for me to choose Colby, too, because I am pretty sure that I will spend a great part of my college experience doing research, just like the way I did in my high school years. I will also be working part-time on campus (of course, within the visa-allowed range), just like almost all the international students, to cover a part of my daily expenses.

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My Common App Essay

I answered the following prompt: “Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.” When I was around 8 years old, my younger brother had issues with speech development. Thus, we took him to a speech therapist, and his therapist was talking to me all the time like, “As his older sister, you are responsible for supporting him at home just like I do here in therapy,” so I did, and played a massive role in my brother’s recovery process to speak. The process of my brother learning how to speak still touches my heart even today, 10 years later. Being able to heal a person by saying certain things in a specific way with the power of speech seemed very mystical to me. Since I had some experience in this field at a young age—I even mention this to my friends, like I started hitting psychology internships at just 8 years old, haha— so, I decided to wrote my common app essay about it to get my seat at Colby College, class of 29, with almost a full ride

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Defne
from Turkey 🇹🇷

Duration of Study

Aug 2025 — May 2029

Bachelor

Psychology

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Colby College

Colby College

Waterville, US🇺🇸

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✍️ Interview by

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Armagan from Turkey 🇹🇷

A very recent high school grad who is passionate to pursue social sciences.

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