Yes, we were surprised and pleased to learn that D was accepted into Honors at UK. She is a recipient of the Patterson Scholarship and UK is a “graduate debt-free” option for us.
In my opinion, UK seems full of opportunity. D might need some convincing still. We are signed up for one of the Merit Weekends in March. It will give us another chance to take a look at UK, Lexington, and for her to get a glimpse at the other merit kids likely going to UK in the fall. We have visited once, last October, and came away with a good impression. Not love, but plenty to like.
We get a lot of blank stares from people when we mention UK is on our short list. “Uh…Kentucky!!! Does your daughter like basketball?” UK is just not as well known in our area as the flagships in IL, IA, WI, MI and IN. I probably even see more MIZZOU and OSU car stickers, vs UK.
Congratulations @Midwest67 and to your D. That is so very wonderful! We have been extremely pleased with UK, extremely welcoming. Coming from a family that ‘bleeds blue’, my S would love to be part of BBN. Just need to think about it. I am somewhat inclined to believe the opportunities at UK will ‘pay for itself’ in the long-run, but my S is paying his own way so ultimately his decision.
Hi @ohiovalley16. It seems very competitive this year. My S had a 34 ACT, 3.96 unweighted gpa, 4.17 weighted gpa and will have approximately 33 college credit hours (4 AP classes; 7 college dual credits). He interviewed with UK in November. He was captain of the football team for 3 years, and Senior class officer, but no other leadership positions. He did have a fair amount of community service work. Hope that helps, but I have come to realize that sometimes it is just doesn’t make sense…
My D also had a 34 ACT, 4.0 unweighted, 6.45 weighted. Ranked 1st in class of 350. 1st singles in tennis for 3 years, and many EC activities. She has taken 12 AP classes. With dual credit will have over 60 hours by high school graduation. Interviewed for singletary, but rejected.
I have a question about the scholarship letters today. My daughter is NMF, and received notice from UK today that her “final” scholarship offer was the Kentucky Heritage Scholarship for non-residents. Does this mean she cannot receive the Patterson if she names UK as her first choice? Or does “final” decision simply mean as far as the competitive scholarships?
@GoodGrief16 … She will still receive the Patterson Scholarship if she names UKy as her first choice. Our D2 got the same letter last year, and she had already named UKy as her first choice with NMSC. Since NMSC doesn’t start notifying universities of Finalists who have named them as their first choice until after Mar 1, the scholarship office doesn’t notify anyone of a Patterson award until after receiving word from NMSC. IIRC, D2’s letter arrived sometime around mid to late March since her name was in the first batch NMSC sent out.
D received very nice scholarship letter from UK today that offered Patterson Scholarship, contingent upon being named NMF. Additionally the letter offers her the Presidential Scholarship should she not be named NMF. Very nice offer to consider :).
Congrats @momofsmartdancer !! I’m pleasantly surprised that UKy sent that letter to your D, but it’s possible that my pestering them last year actually had some effect
We sent the scholarship office a copy of D2’s Finalist notification letter last year in an attempt to get a Patterson offer “in hand” prior to attending Merit Weekend but the offer letter missed us by a few days and she received it shortly after we got back home. I explained to them that several of the “large dollar” NMF schools send contingent offer letters like the one your D received and was told it wasn’t their policy to do that. It appears they may have modified that policy.
I wonder why they didn’t do that for all NMSFs who applied? In any case, the Patterson is still guaranteed and automatic for any NMFs who name UKy as their first choice, so @GoodGrief16 need not worry about it.
@GoodGrief16 My D is NHS (National Hispanic Scholar) & qualifies for the Patterson. With NHS, unlike NMF, there is no naming first choice school.
After her acceptance to UK, D received a letter offering her the Kentucky Heritage Scholarship.
I wasn’t sure if there was anything else we needed to do in order to officially receive the Patterson. I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss out because of a technicality. I contacted the UK Office of Academic Scholarships and received a prompt, friendly response re: clear instructions for the next step.
Very soon after UK received the necessary document from D’s high school college counselor, we received our official award letter in the mail for the Patterson Scholarship. The letter explained that the Patterson replaced their previous offer of the Kentucky Heritage Scholarship.
I hope that helps! If you have any questions about naming UK as first choice for NMF, the Office of Academic Scholarships will surely help you out.
@ohiovalley16 Is UK still on the table then, for your D?
@Wolverine86. Thanks. I will add that I think that perhaps this offer might be somehow related to be making US Presidential Scholarship candidate. The US Dept publicly posts the list of all candidates, state by state on their website. The list came out about 2-3 weeks ago. Also of note is that her PSAT score is well above the cut-off in our state. SInce they have seen this and her grades (all As) they probably realize NMF was a pretty sure thing. Just wanted to add this so that others who are waiting for that letter don’t get overly anxious. If likely letters are not what they typically do, I am sure the other NMF will get their offers as soon as they forward a copy of their NMF letter to admissions office. Or, perhaps they are now doing the likely letters??? :-?
@Midwest67 … I think the 3.3 GPA in Sciences is manageable, especially since students who achieve NMS almost always have solid study habits, organizational skills, and are highly motivated. What we’ve stressed to our kids is that there really can’t be a “feeling out” semester or two while they settle in to the college workload. They need to make hay while the sun shines and build a GPA wall early on while they knock out most of their Gen Ed requirements. They need to balance their schedule between the Gen Eds, major dependent “weedout” reqs (Calc, Bio, Chem, etc.), and any Honors program classes which might require above normal time requirements.
AP credits can get them ahead of the game in some circumstances, but I don’t always think that’s the best plan. It depends on the student’s planned major, how well their HS classes actually taught the material, etc. We’ve seen students who used their AP credit to skip freshman Chem or Bio classes only to struggle mightily when they get into Orgo or something else at the next level because their foundation wasn’t as strong as they thought.
I’d just recommend sitting down with them and roughing out a realistic gameplan for the first two semesters. Most of the NM kids are perfectly capable of doing double majors/minors, etc. while maintaining the required GPA but they don’t want to overreach early on by looking too far ahead too early.
@momofsmartdancer , my daughter is also a US Pres Scholar candidate with an exceptionally high PSAT and SAT, and did not receive such an offer. I think they quite liked what your daughter had to offer apart from her scores! Kudos to her
Follow up on my question about Patterson, my daughter got an e mail today (in response to an inquiry on the topic from her) confirming that she would get Patterson when she named U Kentucky as her first choice. Disappointingly, they also confirmed that the Lester engineering scholarship she was awarded could not be stacked with Patterson (a drag, as we were hopeful that this would allow her to go with the upgraded food plan…more than one meal a day, lol). I do wish they had been clear about that when they were encouraging her to apply, as the Lester application was a fair amount of work, and it appears it would not have been stackable with the Kentucky Heritage Scholarship either, which had already been offered. :-/
@GoodGrief16
Thanks. Not only was it a very good offer, the wording of the letter was very flattering. If it wasn’t her test scores and the US Pres Scholar candidate, I am guessing it was either her essay about technology for the honors program or her dance training. UK has a very good dance team and I think they won UDA College Nationals this year. My d has extensive training in all genres of dance- over 10,000 hours in total. While she is classically trained in ballet and point, her jazz and hip-hop musicality gets her noticed by professional choreographers everywhere we go. She almost always is called out to demonstrate at large dance-training conventions. Last week, she was advised she should spend her summer auditioning in LA. However, she is a very talented student and wants to study pre-med. Also, she knows girls on the varsity dance team at UK. I think they would view her as an asset to the team.
Re scholarship clarification-
I am sorry that your d had to go through that process. Knowing she was likely NMF, it would have been so much better to have that info on stacking (or lack thereof) before she put forth so much effort. There is so much information to be gathered from each university regarding their application processes; honors , fellowship, & scholarship applications. This site has helped me immensely through the process. Hopefully, people in the future will read your post about the stacking of scholarships and find it useful. We actually ended up dropping UA from consideration because I was so overwhelmed with all of their fellowship opportunities and other opportunities for incoming freshman that I delayed suggesting anything to d (who wanted me to vet things for her). After missing opportunities, I saw a former UA mom had summarized the fellowship and summer programs and made general recommendations for what would be best for out of state students. Too bad I didn’t see that before the deadlines.
Re: maintaining GPA. I saw that your d is an engineering major. Is she considering pre-med? For engineering, my understanding is that the engineering classes can be very difficult. I think a lot of engineers do not get As in those classes. However, the science classes should be do-able. To keep the GPA up, I would second what Wolverine86 said and not take AP credit for what is considered the foundation courses in her major.
@Midwest67 … That is what I was told by Crystal in the Scholarship Office. I specifically asked her if current students would require the GPA listed on their scholarship letter or the new 3.0 criteria, and she said the new criteria would apply to all of them. I’ll be fully convinced when D2 actually receives official communication though.
We’ll be heading down the week after next ourselves to get D2 moved in to her apartment. At least it’s on the ground floor and will be a considerably shorter walk from our vehicle than her dorm room was. :-bd
It would be nice to have all the student volunteers there to help unload all her stuff though. :-?
Just need to think about it. I am somewhat inclined to believe the opportunities at UK will ‘pay for itself’ in the long-run, but my S is paying his own way so ultimately his decision.