Thank you for choosing to apply to United World Colleges through UWC Sverige. We are excited to have you as an applicant, and wish you every success. 

This section contains important information regarding the application process. Please read it carefully. If you have any questions, please contact ansokan@se.uwc.org and we will do our best to answer them as quickly as we can.

Please allow 3-4 hours in total to complete this application. You can save the application at any time and come back to it later.

SELECTIONS PROCESS OVERVIEW

You are applying to study at one of 18 United World Colleges for two years, which will see you gain an International Baccalaureate Diploma. This is equivalent to a "gymnasieexamen" in Sweden and is recognized by universities all over the world, including Sweden. 

This is the first of three stages of the selections process. You will be asked to complete a written application form. As part of the online application form you will be required to answer a number of questions about yourself, and provide us with two references. These will then be assessed by us, and a number of candidates will be shortlisted for interviews. 

The application form, as well as all references, must be in English or Swedish. We will not accept applications or references written in any other language. 

If you are shortlisted, you will be invited to the second stage of selections, which will involve you attending an individual and group assessment in January 2025.

The second stage of selections lasts for approximately 3 hours and is designed to allow you to learn more about UWC, meet former UWC students and other applicants. This stage consists of two parts: a group interview with various group activities, which is estimated to take about 2.5 hours, and an individual interview, which is estimated to take about 20-25 minutes. 

Individual interviews are conducted by UWC alumni in either Swedish or English, depending on your language preference. Group activities are conducted entirely in English and are designed for us to see how you interact with others in a UWC-like environment.

If you are successful at this stage, you will be asked to rank the colleges you wish to be considered for. We will take your choices into account, but ultimately we will decide which college to offer a scholarship to. Our choice is based on several factors, but mainly on the fact that there are only a limited number of scholarships for each college. We also do not send students to every college every year. Where we end up sending our students depends on which schools offer us places and our current financial situation.

We expect candidates who choose to participate in the final interview to be prepared to accept a scholarship to any UWC college we may offer, even one that was ranked low on their form. Ultimately, all UWC schools have far more in common with each other than they have differences.

For the third and final stage of selections, around 20 candidates are invited to a more formal and fully individual final interview with the UWC Sweden Board in Stockholm. The final interview is estimated to take about 1 hour in total and consists of two separate interviews of about 20-25 minutes each. The interviews are conducted in Swedish or English, depending on your language preference.

One of the sub-interviews assesses your intellectual curiosity, academic robustness and commitment to the values and ideals of the UWC. For this sub-interview, you will prepare a 5-minute presentation, conducted without aids, on a topic of your choice that you find important or interesting. 

The other sub-interview interview assesses your social competence, resilience, self-awareness, independence, and personal integrity. 

You will receive a decision on whether you are offered a scholarship within 3 weeks after your final interview.

The UWC National Committee of Sweden will then nominate the successful applicants to colleges in February-March 2025. Students will begin attending their UWCs from September 2025 (or January 2026 in the case of Waterford Kamhlaba UWC of Southern Africa).

UWC SELECTION CRITERIA

Each of our schools and colleges has its own distinct character and identity, influenced by their host country, the specific setting, cultural context and their community. What makes each one of them a UWC is a deliberately diverse student body, with students coming from all over the world, bringing with them very different backgrounds to learn and live together - and their joined mission to make education a force for peace and sustainability. 

Each year, we look for applicants to join our schools, who bring the following:

• Intellectual curiosity: You love learning about the world around you - both inside and outside the classroom. You have at least one academic area that you are passionate about, and would like to explore further. You are able to recognise global and local issues, and analyse them critically. 
• Active commitment to your own values and those of UWC: You share UWC’s values and show a commitment to follow UWC’s code of conduct. You have humility and the ability to listen to, and value, other people’s opinions. You appreciate that although others may have different points of view, they may also be right. You promote UWC’s values in your daily life, and act as a global citizen of the world. 
• Social competence: You interact respectfully with others, understanding and appreciating their viewpoints and perspectives, and you are able to work within a team to find solutions to problems. You know how to express yourself appropriately in different situations and to different people. 
• Resilience, self-awareness and independence: You can look after yourself physically and emotionally during challenging situations, for example in a boarding school environment. You have developed good coping strategies, and you are not easily overwhelmed. You also know when to ask for help for yourself, and for others. 
• Personal responsibility and integrity: You can express and examine your own values, and you are ready to contrast and reflect on them in comparison to the values of others. The way you behave within your family and community reflects your values and beliefs. You can communicate your own needs and are mindful of those of others, demonstrating a sense of communal responsibility. 
• Academic robustness: You have the potential to meet the rigorous demands of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme or the International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme.

FINANCIAL REQUIREMENTS

Your and your family’s financial situation will not affect the selections process. All selected students receive a full scholarship that covers tuition, room and board.

AGE REQUIREMENTS

Applicants must be born no later than 2009-09-01. Applicants must be born no earlier than 2007-01-01. Some colleges may consider slightly older students. The decision to admit older students is at their sole discretion.

PARENTAL CONSENT

We will need one of your parents or guardians to fill out the parental consent form which forms part of this application.

APPLICATION FEE

The fee for applying to United World Colleges through the UWC National Committee of Sweden for 2025 entry is SEK 200. The National Committee is a charity, and your application fee will go towards processing your application, and towards running the assessment. This means the fee is non-refundable even if your application is not successful. Please contact us at ansokan@se.uwc.org if you feel this fee would prevent you from applying to UWC.

DEADLINE

The deadline for submitting your application is the December 15th, 2024 at 23:59 CET. We will only assess your application if by that point:

1. You have filled out all sections of the application;
2. Your parents/guardians have sent us their consent form;
3. You have paid the SEK 200 application fee;
4. You have clicked ‘Submit’ at the end of the application and have received a confirmation email from us.

We acknowledge that your teachers and activity leaders are busy people, and we will therefore accept and process applications without a completed academic or activity reference. However, we will need your referees to submit these by 28th December 2024. We may also ask you to remind your referees if they don’t respond