Late last year, Year 11 student, Darcy Faulkes, applied for the highly prestigious ASSIST scholarship to study for 12 months in the United States. To everyone’s delight, Darcy’s application was successful – one of only a handful of students in Australia to be offered the ASSIST scholarship which pays all study expenses in the US for a year (including the costs associated with boarding). The scholarship creates life-changing opportunities for outstanding international scholars to learn from and contribute to the finest American independent secondary schools.
Earlier this year, Darcy and her family were informed that she had received a place at Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Westtown is a school that was established by the Quakers in 1799.
Online classes at Westtown were due to commence later this month; however, given the current situation in the US, ASSIST has offered participants the option of postponing their exchange for a year. Darcy has accepted this offer in the hope that later in 2021, the possibility of completing her year at Westtown in person will be a realistic possibility.
This is an enormously exciting opportunity for Darcy, even if the circumstances are not entirely ideal, and we would like to congratulate her on successfully securing such a prestigious academic exchange. Students selected for the program had to display not just good academic standing but also the ability to thrive in a new environment over an extended period of time and be an outstanding cultural ambassador; temperament and character, therefore, were vitally important. We are confident that Darcy will provide Westtown with an outstanding scholar-leader and that she will also be a great ambassador for both Inaburra and Australia. We also look forward to the significant contribution she will make on her return to our school to complete her HSC in 2022.