My daughter is going into senior year and we are researching school options for her and just learned about UR and the Richmond Scholars Scholarship. The school sounds fantastic and yet if my daughter does not get that scholarship we cannot afford to pursue it as we have no college savings and will not qualify for aid (please don’t judge me on this part, lots of reasons why we are in this position!). The will be a National Merit Finalist and her stats are good (GPA is 3.9/4.3 currently with 5 more APs this year, 1520 on SAT first try, VP of her class all 4 years, National Honor Society, numerous other clubs and leadership experience and hundreds of volunteer hours) but it appears that this scholarship is ultra competitive and I’m wondering if anyone has any insight about whether she would even have a chance. She is brilliant and driven but certainly has not done things that some of the kids I see getting these types of scholarships do (started a non-profit, traveled the world, invented something, etc… really who are these kids?!)… Any insight for me or ideas of making her stand out? Do these kids go through an interview process or is it just based on the application? I’m not sure that this is important to know but she would be a science major of some sort and is planning on a pre-med track. Thank you for any help you can offer!
My daughter is a Richmond Scholar and will be starting school this August, so I can tell you some things about the process. Note that they made some significant changes to the Richmond Scholars program last year, but I think this year’s process should be similar to last year’s. First, any applications submitted by Dec. 1 are considered for RS. There is no additional application initially. I recommend just going ahead and applying EA. Last year they said there were about 8000 applications that were considered. Out of those, they chose 75 finalists. The finalists submitted an additional essay and had a Skype interview with a panel of professors. (For my daughter, there were five people on the panel, but some other Scholars she met said they only had three or four.) I think the interview was about 25 minutes. About a week later my daughter received a phone call that she had been selected. I don’t know the exact number, but I think they chose around 30 people.
On the Richmond Scholars “About the Program” web page there is a list of Scholar Qualities. I think this gives a good idea of what they are looking for.
I graduated from UR in May and was a Richmond Scholar (Artist, for Music- but the designations no longer exist). Does your daughter have a specific area she excels in or has accomplishments in? The scholarship is not strictly based on academic stats.
As mentioned above, the finalists are interviewed- arts people also do a live audition.
My understanding is that they’ve changed the Scholars program by limiting the # to 25, so that they will be more of a community that does various things together. As for stats and EC, I’d assume the kids who get the full ride are similar to those who might get into a top school, maybe even lower Ivy’s, with no merit. Just to give some comparison, my S also had a 1520 SAT, but a 34 ACT (which I think is higher on concordance tables) unique ECs, lots of leadership, national level award in MT, went to rigorous prep school, 10 APs BUT had a lower UW gpa, which went down senior year (very young “why do grades matter” type), though not bad (3.77 (3.89 by his school’s system) 4.25 W when he applied EA, lower after). He was not in the running for Richmond Scholars. I think if your daughter keeps high grades, takes rigorous classes, and does a bit better on SAT or ACT, she would at least be in the running.
thanks all for the input! To answer your question Guineagirl96, she does excel in sciences/math and she was awarded the Science Olympiad gold medal this year Microbiology in the state of Maine won a “book award” for sciences and is doing a great some internship (funded by NASA) at an estuary so she has a few “extras” to go along with her good stats but I am afraid to get too invested in falling in love with the school when I know it is a long shot with just 25 students getting the Richmond Scholars scholarship…
Based on that info, she sounds great! It’s quite possible she could be selected. But in my opinion, you shouldn’t get too invested in any particular school anyway, since you never know the outcome. Given you need the merit aid, look at other selective schools that give great merit aid as well (there are quite a few) and she can also apply to the schools that have automatic full rides for NMFs. (There are other threads on these schools). It sounds like she should be successful!