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Selection Process

2025 USSY Program

The United States Senate Youth Program (USSYP) Washington Week will be held March 1-8, 2025. Two students from each state will be selected to attend the online program and each student will receive a $10,000 undergraduate college scholarship. All student leadership qualifying positions are subject to the judgment of the state selection administrator and will be verified and confirmed.

NOTE - the Hearst Foundation, who funds the USSYP, is requiring some new information be added to the application.  Please read the application carefully, as it has changed from previous years!  

New this year - The Top Ten applications selected for a virtual interview will be required to submit a 3-4 minute video "portfolio" outlining their work as a youth civics leader. 

2025 Selection Process

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The Top Ten USSYP applicants for Wisconsin will be contacted on October 31, 2024.  If you were not contacted, you were not selected as a Top Ten candidate for WI USSYP.  Thank you for your application and interest. 
 
Due to the large number of applications to the US Senate Youth Program and the limited resources on our end, individual feedback cannot be given to students on their applications.  
 
Please note that 11th graders who applied this year but were not selected are invited to apply again next year. 
 
 
The following process will be used used for the 2024-25 selection once the application portal closes on October 14, 2024:
  • -- applications were submitted.
  • Incomplete applications will be discarded.  This left -- applications.  
  • Each student's application will be checked for the elected/selected position required by the Hearst Foundation for this program, and accuracy on Wisconsin's senators, governor, and the individual student's Congressional Representative.  This left -- completed applications.
  • Applicants will be matched to letters of recommendation from their school principal.  Those without letters from their principal were disqualified.  High schools with more than one student application were discarded (program rules specifically say that only one student per school may apply).  This left -- applicants.
  • Short essays will be evaluated on a 1 (poor/weak) -5 (excellent/strong) scale based on how students supported their answer (students were not evaluated based on what their answer was - they were opinion questions), use of appropriate grammar and syntax, and supporting evidence from outside sources (if necessary).  Short answers were evaluated blindly and separately (no names were attached to the answers).  After this step, students with a 3 or lower on a scale of 1-5 were removed from the competition. 
  • Long essays were evaluated on a 1 to 10 scale, with 1 being poor/weak, 5 being average, and 10 being outstanding.  Students were assessed on political knowledge, answering the question completely, supporting their answer, appropriate grammar and syntax, and supporting evidence from outside sources.  Essays were evaluated blindly and separately.  After this step, the 10 students with the highest combined scores will be selected to move on and Zoom interviews set up. 
  • The judges/interviewers will be given detailed information about each student to be interviewed by telephone, including future plans and answers to the long and short essays.  They will NOT receive information such as gender, name, year in school, or school district. 
  • Zoom/Microsoft Teams interviews with the top 10 students will be conducted in November 2024.
Immediately following the conclusion of the interviews, two delegates and two alternates will be selected after extensive discussion using all information on the applicants.