How Azuli Turned Fear Into a $60,000 Path to UBC Engineering

One night near the start of Grade 10, I sat with my family and made a promise. My mom had found AdmissionPrep, and the question in front of me was simple: Are you ready to commit to this?

My family had already made an enormous commitment to my future. They moved to Canada so my siblings and I could dream bigger, and now I could study almost anywhere in the country. That freedom felt exciting. It also felt terrifying. University seemed impossibly far away, and I did not know what to look for, where to start, or whether leaving home was something I could truly afford.

The fear underneath all of it was even more personal: what if my story was not as good as someone else's?

Learning Where to Look

I knew I wanted to continue my studies. I knew I was capable of working hard. But wanting something and knowing how to reach it are completely different things.

AdmissionPrep gave me a place to begin. Instead of staring at university as one giant decision waiting in Grade 12, I could see the smaller choices in front of me. Here are the programs to research. Here are the experiences to build. Here is what an application will ask you to explain about yourself. Here is the next step.

That guidance did more than calm me down. It gave me enough confidence to help other students at my school who were just as lost as I had been. When they did not know where to search, I could point them toward a starting place. For the first time, I was not waiting for someone else to show me the road. I was learning how to read the map.

From Showing Up to Leading

In Grade 10, I started looking at my activities differently. Before, I was happy to participate. After joining AdmissionPrep, I began asking how I could take responsibility for something I genuinely cared about.

At my school, I helped bring a multicultural performance called Diversify to our community and became its vice president. The goal was not to make one culture or one person's idea the centre of the show. It was to listen until every student could see themselves in what we built together. That experience taught me one of the skills I value most now: leadership begins with listening.

I also served as an external affairs coordinator for a youth parliament, became an ambassador for Winnipeg's Mexican Pavilion at Folklorama twice, and took on youth and worship leadership roles at my church. These were not activities I chose because they might look impressive on a list. I stayed with them because they reflected my community, my faith, and the person I wanted to become.

By Grade 11 and Grade 12, I was maintaining a 92 average while carrying those commitments. The application profile grew because I was growing with it.

The Voices That Said, “You Can”

There was no single trick that changed everything for me. What mattered was hearing the right message often enough that I finally started saying it to myself.

One of my advisors reminded me that other students had reached goals like mine before. If they could work for it, I could work for it too. It sounds simple, but when someone looked at everything I had done and said, You can do this, I had to ask myself a better question: if they believed in me, why would I refuse to believe in myself?

So I kept applying. I kept writing. I stopped treating rejection as proof that I did not belong and started treating every application as another chance to tell the truth about who I was.

The Year Everything Changed

Then Grade 12 became harder than any application plan could predict. I lost someone I loved deeply, and the future I had worked toward suddenly felt impossible to carry.

Even after receiving university offers, there were days when my mind said, I cannot do this anymore. I visited Calgary, the city I had imagined myself choosing, and came home thinking I might not go to university at all that year. Leaving the safety of home felt like too much.

Grief did not disappear because I had deadlines or offers. I had to make room for both the loss and the future. I also knew how hard my family and I had worked for this dream, and I believed my loved one would want me to keep moving toward it. I could not let fear make the decision for me.

That was the real test. Not whether I could write one more essay, but whether I could hold on to the life I had been building when part of me wanted to stop.

The Emails From UBC

I applied to three universities and was accepted to all three in the programs I wanted. But the decision became real through a series of emails from UBC.

The first arrived in March: I had received a $25,000 UBC Centennial Scholars award. I was thrilled and grateful, but I was still trying to picture myself leaving home. Five days after returning from my Calgary visit, another email arrived. UBC had revised the award to $40,000.

That message did not erase what I was going through. It did make the path feel possible again. I accepted my offer to UBC Okanagan for Engineering and the Bachelor plus Master of Management dual degree. Then, shortly before my interview with AdmissionPrep, one more award brought my total UBC funding to $60,000.

I had spent years asking whether someone with my story could make it. Now I had my answer, and the freedom to step into the future my family had imagined.

The Word: Gift

If I had to describe my three years with AdmissionPrep in one word, it would be gift.

That is how my mom explained it to me. She could put the knowledge, the guidance, and the resources in my hands, but I still had to decide what to do with them. The gift was not an acceptance letter waiting to be opened. It was the chance to prepare, to grow, and to discover how much I could do for myself.

My family gave me that chance. My advisors gave me direction and belief. My responsibility was to make the most of both. I think of this next chapter as something I am doing for all of us.

A Note to the Next Grade 11 Student

Do not wait until you feel fearless. I never reached a point where every doubt disappeared. I reached a point where I understood that fear did not deserve the final vote.

Start early enough to learn what matters to you. Choose activities you care about, then stay long enough to become useful and lead. Ask for feedback. Keep applying when your brain tells you someone else's story must be better. Your application is not a competition to have lived the most impressive life. It is your opportunity to show how honestly you have lived your own.

And if someone gives you guidance, use it. A resource can open a door, but you still have to walk through.

What I Carry With Me

This fall, I am heading from Winnipeg to UBC Okanagan. I will study engineering, build a foundation in management, and walk onto campus knowing I earned my place there.

The Grade 10 version of me could not imagine this. She was afraid to aim too high because missing would hurt. I wish I could tell her that courage is not knowing the dream will work out. It is deciding the dream deserves your effort anyway.

The gift was placed in my hands. The future began when I chose to use it.