“Freedom Degree Gave Me Both a Degree and Freedom”

After facing political pressure, a Higher School of Economics student was able to enrol at a leading London university and later at Yale University. Here is her story of political pressure in Russia, applying to universities abroad, and how her life changed completely over four years, as told to the independent student media outlet Groza.

Soon after the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Elizaveta left Russia because of political pressure. She left behind her studies at HSE and her job. Within a few months of emigrating, she managed to collect the necessary documents, submit applications, and gain admission to leading European universities—largely thanks to the Freedom Degree project. Elizaveta spent three years completing her bachelor’s degree at the London School of Economics (LSE), followed by another year at Yale University in the United States.

On Studying at HSE and Emigrating

I am originally from Moscow—I was born and lived there, and then studied at HSE for a while. When I was at secondary school, I became interested in art history, and from the eighth grade onwards I took part in the national Olympiad in World Art and Culture. Once I realised how easy it actually was, I went on to win prizes four years in a row, which allowed me to enrol in the Cultural Studies programme at HSE on a state-funded place. When the full-scale invasion began, I was already in my second year.

On the third day of the war, I left for Israel and then went to London, where I studied for several more years. After that, I moved to the United States and studied at Yale University.

On the Decision to Emigrate

It was a very spontaneous decision. I had been involved in political activism since my final year of school—I had been politically engaged since I was 15, attended protests, and participated in various initiatives.

When the full-scale invasion began, everyone at HSE was in shock, and within the first few hours it became clear that we needed to find some way to express what was on everyone’s mind.

My friends and I then wrote an open letter: we worked out how to articulate what everyone wanted to say but had not yet been consolidated anywhere. It was a letter from the academic community—students, postgraduate students, lecturers, and universities from across Russia.

It contained a clear statement against the invasion. It was addressed not only to the [Russian] president, calling on him to withdraw all troops from Ukrainian territory, but also to universities, urging them to declare that their position was not neutral. At the time, it was common among the HSE leadership to talk about neutrality and the prohibition on associating the university with political positions. The main message of the letter was that war is not a political issue: it affects every area of life, including academia. When we protest against war, we are not making a political statement but a human one.

The letter spread very quickly, and people began adding their names—in the end, it received more than 15,000 signatures. Threats [against us] from the university administration soon began pouring in. At the time, there was a meme, “you’re on the lists”—a play on the phrase “you’re in the dance”—which meant that you had supposedly been placed on FSB lists and were being monitored because of your political activity. Raids were being carried out against politically active students, and I was told that it would be better not to come [to the university]. Universities had become dangerous places. Because of the threats and pressure, my friends and I left for different countries.

I took academic leave from HSE because the university prohibited students from switching to distance learning. Fortunately, before that happened, I managed to download my academic transcript: my GPA was 9.3 out of 10, and I was ranked first in my year—this was an excellent indicator for admissions committees at foreign universities. After I left, my grades became much lower because I stopped attending classes, but that transcript helped me many times. At some point, I lost access to my [university] email account and do not even know how it all ended—I was probably expelled.

On Applying to Universities in Europe

Of course, at first it was stressful because I had interrupted my bachelor’s degree and was left without a diploma. But I began looking quite quickly for programmes that would allow me either to continue the education I had interrupted or to start again. This went on for several months.

During that period, an excellent academic community organised itself: there were many chats, initiatives, and resources supporting students and academics—and my professors from HSE helped enormously by writing letters of recommendation. During my first two or three months in emigration, I applied to the Classics programme at Sapienza University of Rome and to the Politics and Big Data programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). I was accepted by Sapienza but rejected from the second programme. I then tried applying to LSE again, this time to a different programme: Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. I passed the selection process and already knew by the summer where I would be studying.

On Starting to Work with Freedom Degree

During my first few months in emigration, I emailed them. At first, I received no reply, but by the summer my case had been assigned to one of their mentors. She had a great deal of experience and understood exactly how the documents needed to be presented to appeal to the admissions committee. She helped me prepare a personal statement for the specific programme. I had written it in one style, and she returned it to me in a completely different one—I did not even expect that the committee would like that version, but they really did.

She understood very well what foreign universities were looking for, and I think that was why I was accepted. They admitted me even after the official admissions period had ended, because she somehow managed to get my application package in front of the committee.

On the Most Difficult Part of the Application Process

The most difficult part was funding. The programme at LSE cost £30,000 (3.1 million roubles) per year. I did not have that kind of money. I was completely at a loss and understood that I needed to do a great deal of outreach—looking for contacts. In the West, there is a widespread culture of outreach, where you write to and contact people with whom you have had no previous connection. And it happens on a scale I had never imagined. You can send ten emails every day to different foundations or organisations, and 99% of them will never reply. That is normal and should not discourage you. It is very important to become accustomed to rejection.

I had a letter and a personal statement in English that told my story and explained why I had left and what I wanted to research next. I wrote to a huge number of charities and foundations, and, of course, the success rate of those emails was less than one per cent.

I even wrote to some Catholic monastery in America. They replied: “Liza, we are very concerned about you. Unfortunately, we cannot help you at the moment, but we will pray for you.” Thanks to their prayers, I eventually managed to find a grant.

At the same time, I was looking for internships: I swear, I sent 500–700 emails to different companies. I had always been interested in UX design and wanted to find a remote internship at a design firm. Basically, I just spammed everyone.

I think people from Russia need to get used to the fact that sending large numbers of emails [when applying to university] is normal. This may involve not only the admissions committee but also people who already study at the university: write to them on LinkedIn or by email—anywhere. One person will connect you with another, and someone will certainly help you and offer advice.

In the end, I received funding for my education from the university: they were very generous and covered 90% of my tuition fees for all three years. The Freedom Degree coordinator negotiated this. Another donor, through Freedom Degree, gave me several thousand pounds for relocation, which was also extremely helpful.

I was allowed not to take the TOEFL or IELTS and instead simply sit LSE’s internal [language] examination. The examination was administered by an LSE lecturer, and I took it remotely. This kind of internal university examination is entirely valid and is accepted as proof of language proficiency when applying for a UK student visa.

I think many people are deterred by the need to take numerous tests, but there are ways around this. At Yale, I also met students who had been admitted without taking the SAT. The absence of standardised test results is not the end of the road. You simply need to research programmes and requirements thoroughly, write to people, ask for advice, and look for information online and with the help of ChatGPT. I am certain that options can be found, because I did not take a single standardised test myself.

On What Helped Her Gain Admission

The main reason I was able to gain admission was having a clear personal narrative. Admissions committees want to understand why an exception should be made specifically for you. Committees like stories that appear coherent and logical: how what happened to you led to what you now want to do. If the committee is left with no unanswered questions, its members may even be prepared to depart from certain rules and protocols.

It sounds very pragmatic: you never live your life in such a way that it produces a beautiful and coherent narrative. Life simply happens, and only afterwards do you have to assemble everything that has happened into a logical and coherent story.

On Studying in Britain

London seemed more exciting to me than Rome, and the programme was very interesting: it was founded by Karl Popper, the famous twentieth-century philosopher. An LSE degree is also highly regarded around the world—they are apparently ranked first in Europe for social sciences.

The style of education is very different. LSE has a great deal of money, infrastructure, and resources—materially, everything is excellent. But classroom discussions are weaker than at HSE. Perhaps I was simply fortunate enough to have incredible lecturers in Russia, but I missed that kind of experience in London.

I feel that professors and lecturers at Western universities are less inclined to tell students that they are wrong or mistaken. In the classes I took, the consensus was that every viewpoint had a place and made some kind of sense. There is less of a culture of public disagreement and intellectual debate, although that is only my experience. At HSE, my brain would boil during seminars; at LSE, it boiled when I was writing papers.

LSE has an extremely strong culture of academic writing, and mastering it was difficult for me. I thought that, to write a good philosophy essay, it was enough simply to express my opinion beautifully and in a sophisticated way. It turned out that writing well was far more difficult. You need to construct a strong argument in the form of premises and conclusions, with a logical connection between them. And the argument must be genuinely persuasive in substance, not merely look persuasive.

I was also surprised that there was no grade inflation: at LSE, it is virtually impossible to receive more than 70 out of 100 in philosophy. Not because it is difficult, but simply because, as a matter of principle, professors will never give more than 70—for them, that is already a red line, even if you know the subject perfectly.

I remember that, during my first year, I took a Russian-language course for heritage speakers because I wanted to reduce my workload. To receive 100 marks, you had to speak like a native speaker. I received 80. It is important to lower your expectations regarding grades: if you are a perfectionist, you will have to work on that.

On the Educational Programme in the United States

America happened entirely by chance. After graduating from LSE, I had no plans—I thought I would continue my career, and I worked at start-ups and then briefly in finance. But when I was offered this programme, of course I accepted. Yale had always been an unfinished chapter for me: I had dreamed of studying there since I was 13 and had attended EducationUSA, an organisation that helped students learn English and prepare for the TOEFL and SAT, neither of which I ultimately had to take.

The Henry Fellowship sends graduates of leading British universities to study in the United States for one academic year. Each year, the committee selects two or three people: one is sent to Yale University and two to Harvard.

You choose either a research track or an educational track. On the educational track, you simply take courses and earn credits: there are no compulsory classes, and you construct your own programme. But you need to explain very clearly why that particular university can offer you something you could not obtain anywhere else, and why you are the ideal candidate for them. At Yale, I studied global politics, election campaigns, and artificial intelligence.

For the Henry Fellowship, I first submitted a personal statement and a programme that I had designed myself. If you are selected during the first stage, you have a 15-minute interview with heads of colleges from Cambridge and Oxford. During that time, they have to understand what kind of person you are, and you have to impress them.

Initially, I wanted to go to Harvard—it seemed to me that it had a stronger programme in global politics and theories of democratisation. My entire application was based on my desire to study there with specific professors. But when the offer arrived, I saw that it said “Yale.” I even replied: “I think you have made a mistake—I need to go to Harvard.” They said: “No, take it or leave it.”

As for the interview, I prepared extensively. I drilled myself using questions generated by ChatGPT, came up with answers to everything, and wrote out every difficult question I could think of on each subject. I prepared a one-pager on every topic I wanted to research: I wrote down everything I knew, briefly and concisely, covering all my expertise in that field—so that if the interview went into detail, I could demonstrate that I had a structured body of knowledge. Confidence is also extremely important: in a face-to-face interview, it plays a huge role.

At the same time, I had several calls with mentors [from Freedom Degree] who helped me prepare for the interview—we conducted mock interviews with the committee. This greatly strengthened my confidence during the second stage.

During the actual interview, I answered every question clearly and steadily thanks to that practice. At the end, they routinely asked whether I had any questions for them. I replied that I had no questions, but I did have one comment, and said: “I am sure that today you will speak to dozens of extraordinarily erudite candidates, and I am not the smartest among them. But I am certainly the most hardworking and determined. And I guarantee that, in ten years’ time, you will be able to say with pride that you chose me as a Henry Fellow.” I think the committee liked my self-confidence, because they did indeed choose me in the end.

Is It Expensive to Study Abroad?

Unfortunately, there were no scholarships in England—it is quite difficult there in that respect. In America, my education and insurance were covered, and I received a stipend so that I could live, eat, and rent a flat.

Yale has a school of global policy—the Jackson School—where I took half of my classes. It offers a Master’s in Public Policy programme that provides full funding if you cannot afford the cost and also gives students a living stipend. The school has very few students, and it wants to provide an opportunity to study to those who do not have the financial cushion needed to live in America for several years without working. You need to take a fairly easy examination and write a good personal statement.

I spoke to representatives of the school’s admissions committee. They are interested in candidates from Russia who hold pro-democracy and anti-war views—people who want to learn how to build strong democratic institutions so that they can put that knowledge and those skills into practice when the time comes.

It is important for universities to provide opportunities to study for those who do not have sufficient funds to cover the cost of education. Around half of Yale students do not pay the full tuition fee and receive scholarships.

You do not need to have a lot of money to study abroad. I paid virtually nothing for my education: in the first case, only 10%—£3,000 per year (313,000 roubles)—and in the second, nothing at all. I was paid to study there.

On Life After Graduation

I now work for an IT company that helps electoral and commercial campaigns understand which ideas and wording genuinely change people’s opinions. We experimentally measure how persuasive messages are and help candidates, organisations, and brands find rhetoric capable of attracting and mobilising audiences. I absolutely love what I do—it combines my love of political campaigns with my love of artificial intelligence.

Is It Worth Leaving and Studying Abroad?

Absolutely, but there is one problem: you may not want to return. If you manage to start a career abroad, you will have excellent prospects—good salaries, interesting work, a great deal of freedom, and plenty of room for innovation, all of which is enormously inspiring. Although I miss Russia, Moscow, my friends, and my family terribly, I understand that it is better for me to gain experience here, absorb the atmosphere, and master the technology before returning than to complete my education and go straight back. In any event, I cannot currently return to Russia because of my political activities.

When I graduated from LSE and applied to Yale, I wrote to the director of Freedom Degree to thank her for the fact that the project had given me both a degree and freedom. It is a special kind of happiness to be able to pursue what genuinely interests you without fear, to succeed at it, and to live in a country where that kind of freedom is the norm.

How Emigration and Studying Abroad Changed Her

Studying abroad gave me a profound sense of hope. This was particularly true after a year at Yale: the people here are kind, open, honest, interesting, and confident, and they will be involved in global politics in the future. If our future is in their hands, then not all is lost. I would very much like to see more young people from Russia in these circles—living and breathing this environment, absorbing its experience, knowledge, and understanding of how a free country can be organised. So that one day they can bring the best of all this back to Russia.

Another very important change in me is the understanding that anything is possible if you are confident and persistent enough. Everything that once seemed unattainable now appears entirely realistic. It works like a snowball: one opportunity leads to another. Being admitted to one programme helps you enter the next, then find a job, meet remarkable people, and gradually build a network of connections and opportunities around yourself. And simply living while studying abroad is incredibly exciting: your mind expands, and you realise that the possibilities are limitless. I am certain that one day this sense of an open future will return to Russia as well, and the impossible will become possible again.