Dedicated to UWC and all the challengers
Hi there. I don't know exactly what was going on before, but I saw what people were saying below, and I guessed you might be going through something hard right now. So I wanted to say this — for you, and for me too.
From what I can tell, you're about fifteen — that's an age full of confusion, but it's also when your mind and abilities are growing the fastest. It's completely normal to hit setbacks now. I want to share my story with you — not to ask for sympathy, and not to make you feel ashamed of anything — I just hope it might give you some perspective, some way of thinking about things.
When I was 8, my father got seriously ill. He needed brain surgery, and afterward, half of his skull was gone. From then on, my mother was the only one earning money in our family. Later, when I started middle school, she scraped and saved to send me to a tutoring program. She was sleeping only four or five hours a night. I couldn't bear it, so I stopped going. I had to step away from books, away from the classroom, and rely only on what my teachers taught in school. That was the first time I tasted what it felt like to lose access to education. My grades fell apart.
But I'm grateful to my mother — she taught me never to give up, and how to endure hardship. I'm also grateful for the internet. Through online courses, in just six months, I taught myself the entire ninth-grade curriculum, which is how I made it into high school — entirely self-taught. That was the most lost I've ever felt, and also when my ambition burned the brightest. I slept maybe three hours a night, and there were still so many problems I couldn't solve. Later I found communities like Reddit, full of people who were kind and, honestly, kind of amazing. They taught me how to work through problems and how to think. I never matched the top students, but I still believe what I achieved was something built out of countless people and countless small chances lining up.
Then my father passed away. He had always been my biggest supporter. He never got to see me get into high school — that's a regret I'll carry forever. The winter he died was brutally cold. His insurance left us 50,000 RMB, and my mother scraped together everything to send me to a well-known private high school. I loved my time there. My classmates were so warm-hearted, and never once looked down on where I came from or my family's situation. What moved me most was that even the cafeteria staff looked out for me. It made me realize — even someone as small as me can receive real kindness from others. Later, I started helping them back whenever I could. That experience taught me something important: helping people without expecting anything in return makes you feel lighter, freer. It taught me so much.
What I mean is — you will never feel ready. But don't let that stop you. So many people want the glory without wanting the responsibility. So many people show up for the ribbon-cutting but never do any of the real, hard work behind it. Be different. Leave behind something that actually matters to the people around you. And always remember — you can't take it with you when you go, but you can pass it on. Look for hope inside the challenges and the chances. Nobody starts out knowing everything. You just need time.
I want to leave you with a line from Mao Zedong: "世上无难事，只要肯登攀" — Nothing in this world is too hard, as long as you're willing to climb.
I'm also in the middle of applying to UWC right now. I'm not expecting to get in. But what I want to tell you is — it's never the result that changes you, it's the process. The moment you start doing something, you've already begun to grow. It's like a stonemason striking a rock — the first hundred times, nothing happens, the stone doesn't crack. But on the 101st strike, it splits open. We all know, deep down, it was really those first hundred strikes that did the work.