Halfway through our orientation camp in Ohrid, we gave our kiddos a chance to open up to us – and to each other – about anything that makes them anxious ahead of their UWC experiences. 10 minutes into the session, Mia raised her hand. In a voice shattered from days’ worth of partying, babbling, and the inevitable emotionality of the moment, she told us she was afraid that UWC would take a toll on her friendships at home. That she might let her parents down. That she might burn out by the end of Term 1.

And yet, even though she went further than anyone during that session in laying her vulnerabilities bare, vulnerable is the last word I would use to describe Mia Dragnikj. The strength she displayed in sharing her deepest anxieties about the future is the same kind of strength – the same kind of fearlessness – I saw in her eyes the first time I met her last January, as she was waiting to be called in for her second-round interview. She was holding a blue notebook tight to her chest, head up high. In an ice-breaking effort, I asked her half-jokingly: “Would the Girl with the Blue Notebook care to come in?”. With a disarming smile, she immediately accepted my humour (“The girl with the blue notebook will indeed come in now!”) and walked in with intent, ready for whatever we might throw at her.

And boy did we throw things at her. One thing we asked all our applicants that day was to reflect on a time they had to break bad news to someone. Most of the kiddos would talk about bad grades and rejected applications. Not Mia. Without even blinking, she told us how she found out a friend was being cheated on by her boyfriend. Ever the warrior of justice, she informed her friend right away and never regretted it, even though the friend didn’t believe her and stopped speaking to her for months. 

Because when it comes to choosing between the easy thing and the right thing, Mia will always choose the latter. Back in January, she said she felt the right thing for her would be to get a PhD in biology one day. I remembered this a few months later during her third-round interview, so I pressed her on the topic of allowing transgender athletes to perform alongside athletes outside of their biological sex. While I disagree with her verdict on the topic, I was awestruck by her three-minute explainer on the biological mechanisms of hormone therapy. I've come across many eloquent 16-year-olds in my role as admissions officer, but nobody has made me feel like I'm speaking to an intellectual equal quite as much as Mia did that day.

In fact, as I came to realise at this summer's orientation camp, an "equal" might be an understatement. Operating on 2 hours of sleep, and with her voice all but gone by this point, Mia decided to debate EU enlargement with me on the way to Kaneo. She speaks a funny brand of Macedo-English ("grades-oт", "subjects-от"), which I would normally look down on. Yet, somehow she always manages to get her point across in the smallest number of words necessary, with devastating precision.

I don't know if Mia will go on to be a biologist -- she says medicine and international law are on the table too. What I do know is that she will be exceptional at whatever she sets her mind to - and I think she knows it too. When other applicants freaked out about their Round 2 performance, she cried because she said she wanted to go to UWC Southeast Asia, which ended up not being available. Unsurprisingly, the only thing the Girl with the Blue Notebook could possibly imagine preventing her from being selected was... a logistical mishap. And she is so ready for UWC Changshu: "When you go and talk to someone in Debar Maalo, you know this person isn't someone who's going to change the world", she says in her trademark let's-be-real tone.

But don't mistake Mia's confidence for arrogance -- an error I'm sure so many people she'll cross paths with will make. Ultimately, what made her orientation camp speech about her pre-UWC anxieties so powerful wasn't her eloquence or intelligence but her touchingly profound introspection about the wide range of people in her life who will be affected by her departure. A few minutes into her speech, she burst into tears. "Do you need a minute", someone asked. "Nah", said Mia, almost indignant at the suggestion. "I'm just getting started".

Kristijan Fidanovski, July 2023