<p>So, who here has applied for the Elks Most Valuable Student Scholarship?</p>
<p>My son turned in his application on 11-30 at our local lodge. Now the waiting begins! I think that the Elks are great to offer so many scholarships every year.</p>
<p>I did. 10char</p>
<p>My DD applied. Turned hers in two hours before deadline on November 30. Crossing our fingers that something comes of it.</p>
<p>On the main website it says that lodge judging should be completed by January 5th. So all applicants should get some info by then. Hope everyone moves on! Good luck.</p>
<p>What state is everyone from? I’m WA.</p>
<p>turned mine in on the deadline date. I’m from CA. good luck to everyone!</p>
<p>DD got a call on the 8th saying she has won $600 from the local lodge and is advancing to the next level. Got a letter in the mail today. We’re in CA.</p>
<p>Wow Smathur! They don’t waste time there at that lodge. Congrats to your daughter. Thanks for letting us know that some news may come earlier than Jan 5th. And for those asking I am sure you can tell by my name, we are in Arizona.</p>
<p>@ Smarthur</p>
<p>Congrats to your daughter! Is the 600 only useable towards college?</p>
<p>Lol. Flat out rejected…no demonstrated need though =/</p>
<p>Disagreement sorry to hear that they did not move your application forward. I am sure there are many others that you do qualify for so don’t give up. Good luck with everything.</p>
<p>The head chairman in my state called asking for letters of recommendation and other supplemental materials. It almost sounded like he was going to send my application to the national round, but it’s hard to tell. He was talking about how he judged the application of one of the national winners last year–it was rather intimidating, haha.</p>
<p>Nonexistent - it definitely sounds like he is planning on sending yours to the national round. That’s great news. Glad you got some positive feedback. We are still waiting for news here.</p>
<p>Could you two, and others, post their stats?</p>
<p>Well, I just got a letter today saying they “received many worthwhile applications, and [my] application was very impressive” and advanced to the district competition. Not sure if that’s generic or not.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard from them yet. I think the results might be based off how fast the lodge finishes their reviews?</p>
<p>It says on the Elk’s main site that lodge judging is done by January 5th. So hopefully everyone else won’t have to wait much longer!</p>
<p>I’m a bit confused. There’s several levels to this program, right - local, district, state (or is state smaller than a district?) and national? You start at the local level and your app works its way up the structure of the Elks organization?</p>
<p>Some questions:</p>
<p>There’s state and maybe local awards in some cases, right? So when in the process do you get awarded those? on the way up to national or ‘on the way down / after national makes their decisions’? If you award the smaller awards on the ‘way up’, then the top winners would be likely winning at several levels? Local and state say ‘this is the best student that applied, we’ll give them money and send them up to next level’? Or afterwards the state and local get told - ‘your student x didn’t get a national award. You liked them enough to send to us (national), do you want to give them some money’? If state says no, then local, etc.? All that said, Smather said: </p>
<p>DD got a call on the 8th saying she has won $600 from the local lodge and is advancing to the next level. </p>
<p>And I know our son got a letter from the local lodge saying he was moving up to national and no mention of money from the local level.</p>
<p>So some lodges give money on the way up and others on the way down? Or our lodge liked our son enough to move him up (to national?! Not state?) but doesn’t deserve money from the local? There were other applicants that were more deserving of local money? </p>
<p>I am not taking issue with what might be going on in their minds - he’s not worth local money! - just wondering how at least us and smather are having different experiences.</p>
<p>And the ideal that our lodge said his app was going to national (not state), is that a case of them simply mis-speaking of the process? Or they don’t understand the process and sending his app to the wrong place?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>This is my understanding: The applications start out at the lodge level, then if the are advanced at each following level they would move through district, state, then national. The only guaranteed scholarship money is at the national level. If you make it to the national level you get $1000 per year (if you finish the paperwork they ask for and they approve everything). Also, once at national you would be competing for the higher prizes. Now along the way local, district or state can award their own local scholarships using any criteria they want. So some applicants may get smaller amts on the way up or even a consolation type scholarship if they aren’t advancing. So it could be just about anything. So it sounds like your son may have made it to national already, but they won’t post those exact winners for awhile. Sounds promising though!</p>