I am a semifinalist from Florida! I honestly applied knowing I wouldn’t move on further than just the initial application and receiving the dreaded computer-generated email stating that I was not going to move on. So when I received the semifinalist notification I was thoroughly shocked because this scholarship is extremely competitive. First of all…Congratulations to my fellow semifinalists! Here is a general overview of my stats:
Rank- Top 2% out of 700+ students
Numerous AP classes plus I will be Dual enrolling at the University of Central Florida
Community Service-
1200 hours
I co-founded two non-profit organizations for children in third world countries to receive cleft palate surgeries
President of 4 clubs+ multiple leadership roles in other clubs in school as well
Trained South Indian Vocalist
Girls State finalist
NSLI-Y Semifinalist
Varsity Tennis 3 years
Received a paid internship from a nationally known public affairs group- the internship is for enrolled college/university students in the top 30 universities in the U.S. but, I had received it as a high school student.
4-Year research project on antibiotic resistance in bacteria with a research paper
I had much more than the general list above but this is all I could think of off the top of my head. To reiterate, I seem pretty microcephalic compared to some of the valedictorian, semifinalists out there but I did pour my heart and soul into my non-profits and ECs. Those who did not become a semifinalist, I applaud you for your dedication and determination for success and by no means does this scholarship make you less of a stellar student than you already are.
tbh i think for the preliminary round (the round before Semi finals), they simply made an algorithm, weighting certain aspects of the application more than others, and whoever had the most “points” at the end was selected. In other words, they may have said that # of hours is 15%, # of clubs is 5%, GPA and SAT are 20%, etc. There’s no way they went through 87000+ applications. I do, however, think this next step is the most important. Going from like 2200 to 250 is a big jump, and they have to actually read these applications.
My question is if they look at both the preliminary and SF application side by side when selecting the Finalists. Does anyone know? What are your opinions?
I highly doubt they check test scores…I am looking at the semifinalist application and test scores are not asked for on any part of the application. They just asked for a high school transcript and my school omits test scores. The scholarship seems to have a holistic approach.
@baller55 according to a counselor at my school who is a former reader for them, yes they absolutely do compare prelim and SF applications, and look specifically for inconsistencies, because they are aware that students tend to embellish for the first round. She said they also often confirm the info entered with schools and various organizations at the SF stage. There is apparently a huge coca-cola scholars information network and they have contacts in pretty much every school district so it is easy for them to do so at the SF level. So honesty and integrity are probably very important and a big way they select down to the next level.
Semifinalist from CA! Honestly surprised I made it through, it was exceptionally difficult to work with the categories given in the first round and I thought my application was lackluster in comparison because I couldn’t work in everything I did. Congrats and good luck to all the other semifinalists!
@udelise There is a word limit for each field. I think it is 300 words max.
Also, where it says “Essay” (not the short essays, but at the end, above the tweet field) there appears to be no essay. So is there no long essay at all? I don’t think a 140 character tweet response is meant to be considered an “Essay.” In the past there apparently was always several short essays and one long one. Does anyone have insight on this?
What is your guys’ opinion on the activities sections?? Absolutely all of my “Non-School-Related Activities” are volunteering, so under which category do I put them in? Both? Same goes for the volunteering activities that are in school
No body in my high school made the first round. A lot of us have good academic background, GPA, and test scores. Unfortunately, our town is very small so we don’t receive much awards/honors.
@mediapr I think this is it. Maybe they’re experimenting how they receive responses this time around, but it’s interesting that they decided to go this route for essays; now I’m freaking out over what exactly to put for a tweet, haha.
@baller55 Definitely not both. Non-School-Related Activities is stuff that isn’t curricular, but not volunteering either. Think of that category as a structured hobby. For instance, I’m Editor-in-Chief of an online literary magazine that isn’t affiliated with curricular stuff but isn’t volunteerwork either. With that, I’d say put them in volunteering.
Does anyone know if there is a word or character limit for the “Statement of Impact” fields? It seems like you can type forever! A “statement” of impact requires at least a full sentence… can we assume this will all show on the submitted version? There doesn’t seem to be a way to preview it.
Does anyone know if for the Professional Recommendation, a Key Club Faculty Sponsor would work? I haven’t done any specific service project with her, but she knows me and my volunteering really well. I have no idea what kind of questions they’re going to ask and if she’d be able to ask them!
How brief are you guys keeping your Statement of Impact? I don’t think there’s a word limit.
Also, what is the situation with all the In school and Non school activities that are also volunteer activities? Do we pick whether it best first which? Do we put under both?
