Being interviewed in your pyjamas may seem a strange step on the path to become a 'global citizen' but it worked well for Caitlin Shepperson.
It also showed that, while global citizens address issues transcending national boundaries, no one has yet found a way to transcend time zones - as Shepperson found out when the former ACG Parnell College student applied to the prestigious University of Oxford to study chemistry.
Her first interview by Skype had gone well but when the four professors overseeing selection wanted a second interview they were up against a deadline that said the decision had to be made the next day - hence Shepperson, in pyjamas, in interview.
It was never going to be an easy task - more than 17,000 people apply for just over 3000 places at Oxford every year. With results of over 90 per cent in maths, chemistry and physics in her final year Cambridge International Examinations, Shepperson was well qualified and was accepted to Pembroke College in Oxford a week later.
Her story is an unusual one but her acceptance into one of the planet's most sought-after universities isn't. Recent ACG alumni accepted to such glittering academic institutions include Hope Sutherland, also formerly of ACG Parnell College, who is studying English Literature at Oxford and Stanford.
While she is at Stanford on a three-week international study exchange, she will catch up with former ACG Senior College graduate Katherine Yang, at Stanford combining engineering and science with fine arts.
Angela Chan will study law at the University of Cambridge: 'It's really amazing that we're all here together, because we studied together, worked hard and achieved what we really wanted to," she says. "I'm so happy to share that with them."
Meanwhile Nina Jeffs, another ACG Senior College alumna, has won a $68,000 scholarship to attend Cambridge University.
All have come through a system which uses an international curriculum as a platform for New Zealand students to compete on a world stage; ACG teach the Cambridge International Curriculum (CIE) which is exam-driven, has an awards system that pits Kiwi students against international counterparts and satisfies the entry criteria for universities worldwide.
But academic qualifications are far from the only stimulus driving ACG's hopes of producing global citizens.
ACG Executive Principal Larne Edmeades says schools have a responsibility to expose students to different cultures, ideas and thought processes to prepare them for the wider world.
"Mechanisation, automation, digitisation - these things have connected the world. As New Zealanders, we have to operate in quite a different way than we did 10 years ago," he says.
"Although it's not solely the domain of education, we must teach this awareness and the skills needed to deal with it in every subject - humanities, English, geography, history, classics, languages."
Edmeades says New Zealanders need a global outlook to participate fully in the world economy. Auckland is also the fourth most diverse city in the world, with around 200 ethnicities and around 44 per cent of our workforce born overseas.
Former PM Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, recommended to University of Auckland students last year they think beyond the New Zealand "microcosm" and explore issues on a worldwide scale - like climate change, which has no borders and can only be overcome when tackled globally.
ACG has built an international mindset into classrooms for 20 years: "Students are exposed to a global society in their own environment," says International Marketing Director Kim Harase. "It gives them an appetite for learning more about the world, opens their minds to global opportunities and forms lifelong friendships."
ACG Senior College is introducing a new programme in Year 11 combining the best aspects of - the International Baccalaureate (IB) and CIE. The idea is for students to gain the critical thinking, research skills and community service aspects of IB and the subject choice and academic rigour of CIE. At Year 12 they choose which one to pursue.
"It's about not just preparing them for university but also for life," says Edmeades.
A global citizen can also have more than just outstanding academic achievements; Shepperson, for example, is a nationally ranked competitive diver who captained last year's New Zealand team to the Pacific School Games, and trained six times a week before starting at Oxford.
She was a prefect, participated in buddy reading in primary school and peer tutoring, passed grade 8 piano when she was 15, set up a science club for middle school students alongside a few friends, and took part in a chemistry Olympiad.
In a few months, current ACG Senior College student Teresa Lee, 17, will visit Europe and New York with United Nations Youth NZ's Global Development. The tour culminates in New York at the Youth Assembly at UN headquarters, a conference to empower young people to spark meaningful change.
"I'm hoping we can develop initiatives that we can take home and start in our own communities," Teresa says. As head student leader, she is responsible for global citizenship - organising student activities with charities and NGOs like Amnesty International, UNICEF and UN Youth Group. With top grades, next year she will study International Relations at a university in America, Australia or New Zealand.
Longer term, she has a simple ambition: "to be a true global citizen who actively works towards a fair and happy global community where everyone is equally as important."
