<p>do any of you have book awards junior year in your school? we do...most of them are from colleges no one's ever heard of. A few good schools do them but its random : Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Columbia and Cornell have them; Yale and Penn do not. Williams, Colby, and Trinity give them; the rest of the NESCAC does not. Anyone else have these/are they good to put on a college app even if it's not the college you're applying to?</p>
<p>They are completely random. Do a search on this exact topic and you'll see what I mean. It's a nice chance for the HIGH SCHOOL to recognize excelling juniors -- the huge majority are picked by the HS administrators. It's mostly a PR opportunity by the colleges to keep their name on people's minds.</p>
<p>Book awards are a pretty big deal, at least at my school, because they're the teachers' way of recognizing the students whom they believe to be the best in the class. They vote for a certain number of students and then the colleges are assigned to the students randomly unless they have a specific component: Wesleyan's, for example, also mentions the arts, and I'm pretty sure Wellesley's has to go to a girl (unsurprisingly).</p>
<p>In Maryland, Princeton's alumni club had an entire application process for their book award. They ended up choosing 6 kids to recieve it. In their letter they said to contact them if you decided to apply to Princeton</p>
<p>wow, thanks! i would think my school was similar to MLeigh because with few exceptions the awards seemed rather random, and also many were from the oddest schools no one's ever heard of</p>
<p>There's a book award for Yale. A kid in my school who's going to be our salutatorian next (senior) year won it. Another kid got some sort of award from Penn (I believe it was a book award too). Maybe your school just doesn't offer it?</p>
<p>Our school gives them out at a ceremony next week. They give out 6 or 7 with specific criteria for colleges. It is decided by a committee of teachers and administration. I think it really shows who the real oustanding students at the school are better than gpa or rank.</p>
<p>We had 5 given out last year, and it was quite obvious that the school just gave the books out in alphabetical order by the school based on class rank. I was 4th, so I got Williams.</p>
<p>Book Awards are actually a way by which Universities market themselves to specific high schools. For instance, Brown may be interested in certain types of students which they recognize excel in their environment, therefore their alumni clubs target specific high schools. If you see a bunch of awards from ivies or liberal arts colleges, it is a good sign that the high school graduates competitive students.</p>
<p>All universities have book award programs. It is up to the alumni to make sure that it is active and relevant.</p>
<p>By the way, some universities have specific criteria to be met and they give the instructions to the schools. Northwestern, and the ivies do it.</p>
<p>From what I have heard, book awards importance vary a lot. At my school, most awards are quite useless. </p>
<p>But the RIT medal (not book lol) gives a student a $15k year scholarship to the school. Most awards are simply a book; I don't think they are that important. But I know that our award from Middlebury (has note written by alumni inside it asking student to contact the alumni for recommendation).</p>
<p>Like some have said, it's primarily a marketing op for the colleges (primarily administered by volunteer local alums) while school administrators get a nice means to recognize rising juniors. </p>
<p>But will the low performing inner city school with MAYBE its valedictorian going to the top state school -- do you think they award Ivy college Book Awards to juniors? Nope. That's just how it is.</p>
<p>Well, sometimes it works. My nephew won the Yale Book Award and did end up getting into Yale. My son just won the Columbia Book Award at his school. Sure would be nice if there really is a connection to the award and the school interest.</p>
<p>Congrats MMFL. Good luck to your 2nd son too. FYI: the Yale book award (at least in my area) is completely coincidental. A volunteer alum drops off the book and award letter to the principal's office. I don't even know if the alumni association (much less Yale) gets the NAME of the eventual recipient.</p>
<p>The "interest" lies in the college wanting good applicants (book award winners or not) to consider them. Book award winners are the best juniors -- so that fact isn't coincidental.</p>
<p>Book awards are 100% administrated by HS. Getting a book award will show that you are well regarded within your HS, nothing more and nothing less. </p>
<p>DD got the Yale book award from her HS and she did not even apply to Yale later.</p>
<p>I got the Princeton Book Award!!!!!</p>
<p><333</p>
<p>It was a bright spot for our family. By coincidence my son received
the book awarded by Brown while he was extremly interested in applying there. He read the book and enjoyed it, too. The author was a professor at Brown. It was the high school's first time handing out these book awards.</p>
<p>Each school giving an award sets the criteria for the recipient. So some
worthy students will get left out, what can you do? I was really surprised
at one student (perfect ACT and all the rest) not getting one, still annoys
me.</p>
<p>Yes you can put it on your college ap.</p>
<p>Huh, wow, I've never even heard of them until now. That's CC for you.</p>
<p>For my school a bunch of candidates are eligible for each award. The students then have to write an essay that shows why they deserve the specific award. I won my school's Caltech book award. I'm just hoping that colleges know that the award wasn't just given out, but rather some work was put into it.</p>
<p>In our school the student is chosen pretty much by the Dean of Studies...based on criteeria provided by the alum of that school (character, academic achievement, etc) and they are a big deal to receive. But personally I've often wondered b/c he seems to have a lot of influence in the choice. It is much much more secretive than the other awards, even departmental ones.</p>
<p>No idea how ours are chosen. They're given out at the final assembly every year (along with the rest of the awards).</p>