<p>Does anyone know how prestigious the coke scholarship is and what they look for in an applicant? I visited their website and it seems like an extremely competitive scholarship granting up to $20,000, choosing 250 students amongst 100,000 applicants.</p>
<p>It is quite competitive. They chose students from 4 regions of the country to be finalist. They bring them all to Atlanta for a long weekend. They do projects together, get interviewed, etc. They select a handful of winners, one from each region and one or two at large if I remember, so 5-6 total for the top prizes. All the others get the second tier awards. The second tier awards were recently increased from $4000 over 4 years to $10,000 over 4 years (too late for us).</p>
<p>There are 250 Coke Scholars invited to Atlanta. 50 receive $5,000 per year and 200 receive $2,500 per year. </p>
<p>The awards are based on community service and academics. There are no restrictions on race or income.</p>
<p>What kind of projects do they do in Atlanta?</p>
<p>I think the preliminary application isn't as thorough as I would like, and the website says not to send any additional information. How are you guys dealing with this?</p>
<p>The project 2 years ago was painting at a youth center.</p>
<p>Hrm, that's interesting. yeah, i took a look at the primary application too and I must say that I felt it wasn't very thorough either. I didn't think that they would be able to fully judge us on such minimal information.</p>
<p>the project last year was helping out at a community center--painting, landscaping, building picnic tables...very fun, despite the monsoon-like rain.
Coke has several layers to the application process--there's the initial survey online, which is "fairly simple" compared to the later levels...if you make it to semifinalist (2500 students), you have to send recommendations and essays, and then you're selected to be a finalist (250)...at the weekend, you hang out with other coke kids (braves game, aquarium, coke store) and do a brief interview...they might count your conduct during the weekend; that much isn't really clear...but it's seriously a blast. Anyway, when you get back, you find out if you got national (20k total) or regional (10k total)...
one thing to know, though--you can defer the award from tuition, and use it for computer/grad school...good to know for students getting other scholarships...</p>
<p>How many people apply for this?
How do they choose the semifinalists and when are they notified? </p>
<p>I applied for this but it's just so hard to know if my stats will put me in the running.</p>
<p>well, stats are a major part of the first screening...they get around 100k applicants (last year it was 96k), and pick 2500 semis, who are notified around December-time...finalist application is due in mid-January (ha, an enjoyable winter break =p)...for finalist, you're notified in februaryish b/c the trip (to Atlanta) is around spring break...there's a list published up on their site after all the letters go out, too. </p>
<p>good luck with the application, and if anyone has any questions, feel free to PM!</p>
<p>if anyone is interested in reading through the process from last year here's our thread...a bit panicky at times, but totally worth it.
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=249342&highlight=coca+cola+scholarship%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=249342&highlight=coca+cola+scholarship</a></p>