<p>Recent posts on this forum lead me to offer my two cents on St. Olafs top scholarship. Two important points to ponder:</p>
<p>No. 1-St. Olaf wants to feel special too. Youve probably noticed that St. Olafs application inquires into the names of other schools that applicants are applying to. While their application may state that the information is for statistical purposes, youre foolish if you dont believe that the admission team looks at this information with an eye to how St. Olaf rates in the pecking order of your selections. If youre a strong candidate with a lot of competitive schools on your list, its very likely that you may go elsewhere. If, however, your list shows mostly state schools and lower quality private colleges, youre sending the message that St. Olaf is the pinnacle. This will make them feel special. Sure, the college can try and bribe a few top students with a Buntrock, but theyd prefer to give it to a candidate that REALLY wants to attend their school. Applicants who truly want to attend St. Olaf and get the most serious consideration for scholarship dollars need to customize their application to St. Olaf and show continued interest with campus visits, correspondence, etc all with the goal of making the school feel special.</p>
<p>No 2-Top grades and test scores do not always correlate to receipt of top scholarship money. Good students are a dime a dozen. Believe it or not there are lots of students out there with a 4.0, ACT scores of 30+, all with respectable ECs. The best candidates, in addition to having great stats, bring a unique background, skill set or story line to the table. For example, lets say your college essay spins a tale of learning to play your grandpas accordion at age six. You begrudgingly play the dorky thing despite constant teasing from your peers for playing such an un-cool instrument. Now, fast forward a dozen years, youre now the front-man of local polka band that play at the local Legion hall every other Saturday night where youre tucking away money for your college education. St Olaf will eat this story up. Trust me on this folks. Youre now not just every other kid with good grades, who plays soccer and volunteers at the church.</p>
<p>Good luck to all awaiting admission and financial aid awards!</p>
<p>Just want to share that students do not have to answer the “other colleges” question on their application. My D was offered the Buntrock last year, and she did not answer this question on any of her applications. She did, however, demonstrate a lot of interest - visited the college and touched base with her admissions’ rep at the area college fair. Her essays were also very strong. My sense from attending the Buntrock weekend last year is that admissions is really good at finding students who will best fit St. Olaf - their admissions’ team is terrific!</p>
<p>Best of luck to all - this is a wonderful school!</p>
<p>A comment on Potholepete’s point #1 above:
My daughter was just offered a Buntrock interview, and she had at least four more competetive schools on her list, including two Ivies.</p>
<p>I am sure that St. Olaf’s admissions and scholarship selection practices are well thought out based on what has worked for them in the past in terms of attracting students who will accept their admission offer – and if they have found that the high stats students aren’t inclined to accept their Buntrock offer, then it is probably a good idea to invite other students for the scholarship weekend. (Though it is interesting to note that there are schools that have improved their academic profile pretty significantly by pursuing National Merit Scholars aggressively.) The major point made by several posters in this discussion hasn’t been that St. Olaf is picking the wrong students, but rather that the infamous “Buntrock letter” doesn’t need to be sent at all to candidates who aren’t chosen. Why on earth are you sending out a letter that says, “We didn’t pick you but we did pick 200 others” to people who haven’t even applied for a specific scholarship. If St. Olaf really feels the need to send a letter at that point in the process, it should at least be worded in a way that doesn’t come across as insulting to students who may still be interested in St. Olaf.</p>
<p>My daughter never expected to be chosen for a Buntrock, she just thought the letter was a bit of rubbing salt in the wound! However, her visits and interactions at St. Olaf have been much more important in her appraisal of the school than one poorly worded letter. St. Olaf has always been near the top of her list in selectivity but was around the middle in desire to attend – the letter knocked it a bit lower, but her visit shortly thereafter has put it in a tie for the top three.</p>
<p>paying4collegex4, your posts and several others seem to insinuate that the Buntrock is primarily offered to students who the college thinks will accept, those being students with stats lower than that required to get into the Ivies or comparable schools, “high stat students aren’t inclined to accept”. I have to disagree with this train of thought as I know of several students who are Buntrock scholars and who have stats in the 4.0 34/35 ACT range which are on the upper end of accepted students at the Ivies etc. Also, if you look at the common data set for 08 (which is the most recent year this info is available) half of the students offered turned down the scholarship. So the Buntrock isn’t just offered to lower stat student who they are sure will accept.
Rather, I think the admissions team does a remarkable job of in admitting students in general, and specifically of offering the Buntrock to students who are a good fit overall for Olaf. If the student has very high stats, so much the better, but I think the scholarship is also offered to students based on a holistic review and not just stats. As a result, you get offers being sent out to both students with high stats and stats that are slightly lower. Likewise, you get students with high stats who don’t receive an offer.</p>
<p>Again, I have no problem with St. Olaf selecting whomever they would like to interview for the Buntrock – high stats, low stats, no stats. They may want an accordion player from Alaska in the student body – and that is a perfectly valid reason to woo such a student with their major scholarship. Maybe they don’t really need another Midwestern soprano – or are convinced she will attend without the incentive of the Buntrock. Again, perfectly valid recruiting decision. I am sure that they know what they are doing, as I have repeatedly stated. (Although the 50% reject rate for Buntrock offers may sway me in the other direction.)</p>
<p>I really haven’t read any posts here insinuating that St. Olaf is picking the wrong students for their Buntrock interviews. I have only read that the letter that St. Olaf sends regarding the Buntrock interviews is a detriment to their overall recruiting effort. (You must remember here nobody specifically applies for the Buntrock so they really don’t need to “update” anyone on their Buntrock status.) </p>
<p>There are numerous posts here that found St. Olaf’s letter insulting. There are likely many more students who have never heard of College Confidential and who had the same reaction. Accordingly, at least in this regard, St. Olaf does not do a remarkable job, unless one of their major needs is to dissuade talented students from considering their school.</p>
<p>Does potholepete work in a college admissions department: “Trust me on this folks.” ?<br>
Not sure of the areas where his expertise lies.</p>
<p>Our experience is similar to HoComom, involvedmom, and sakmd11. </p>
<p>BTW, we found that about 80% of S colleges asked what others he applied to.</p>
<p>However, the best scholarship interview results have been from the LACs where he showed genuine interest; with no interview offers from the ones he did not communicate with other than an application.</p>
<p>Every college has different selection criteria and goals for the composition of a student body that <em>will accept their offer of admission</em>.<br>
Students’ results will vary with the stage of the college’s growth at that point in time.</p>
<p>Has the process for Buntrock’s changed? In the past (last year), there was a separate application with a separate essay for merit scholarships. Thus, if you went out if your way to ask for merit money, St. Olaf is obliged to keep you updated on your status for these awards. If you did not apply, there would be no need to send you a letter telling you that you are not a candidate for the Buntrock. Are people really getting the “Buntrock reject” letter that did not apply for merit scholarships?</p>
<p>No, it was not a separate application. There may have been a box to check if a student wanted to be considered for merit scholarships. Even if there were a separate application, it seems the college could just wait until all merit decisions have been made, rather than specifically sending a rejection letter about the top scholarship before any other decisions have been made.</p>
<p>In the Fall of 2007, when my D applied, there was no separate app. for the Buntrock, just that all application/materials had to be recieved by certain (pretty early) date, even if the student was applying RD (she was). There was a separate app, however, for the Leadership Scholarship. D got the Buntrock, Leadership and NMS. St. Olaf was in the running until April 30 at 10:00PM, when she finally chose another school, but it was a tough decision.</p>
<p>The school is wonderful, and had it been in a warm climate she might be graduating from there this May.</p>