<p>Yay! Congrats to everyone else!</p>
<p>Depending on the state, advancement to the state level may guarantee some type of award (not necessarily the national, four-year awards), but at least something. Good Luck once again as you move the process!</p>
<p>I called my local lodge and asked if they knew if my application had been forwarded to state and he said he didn’t know, but he would ask tomorrow and would call me back, but when I asked if he needed my number, he said no and he didn’t take my name…</p>
<p>Caller ID maybe??</p>
<p>Well, my lodge actually told me all the applications were forwarded, so that’s why I assumed they didn’t receive many.</p>
<p>Are there any CC-ers on this thread that are from New Jersey? I was never contacted when I moved to districts so I am assuming that there may not have been that many New Jerseyan applicants.</p>
<p>My lodge told me its getting moved to the next level!
So, what does that mean lol?</p>
<p>I guess it’s districts! New Jersey was pretty quick for me…they didn’t even notify me when I moved onto districts only for states.</p>
<p>So if the organization chooses 500 national finalists, does that mean that there is about 10 students from each student on average?</p>
<p>^It’s kinda like the electoral college… the more population a state has, the larger pool of applicants go onto the nationals. For example, Alaska had five last year, while my state, Pennsylvania, had fifteen. You can see the breakdown here: [Elks</a> National Foundation](<a href=“MVS Scholarship Recipients”>MVS Scholarship Recipients)</p>
<p>Sheesh…my state had more than 20!</p>
<p>i heard that i made it to districts and was eliminated there. i’m thinking it was probably family income that prevented me from advancing to state (or maybe not, but i’m guessing it was). good luck everyone who has made it to state! you deserve it!</p>
<p>Thanks! I really hope I become a national finalist!</p>
<p>I haven’t heard anything else back on their part. I’m starting to not believe the woman I spoke to on the phone because she wasn’t even on the committee. I’m going to e-mail the scholarship people to see if they can tell me.</p>
<p>My advice to everyone here wondering what in the world is going on with their applications…</p>
<p>Allow time to pass and be patient… should you have to be? Probably not, there are faults in communications with this scholarship (although, it should be considered a privilege to find out that you are advancing levels). What I mean here is that the scholarship is administered by the Elks National Foundation and not local lodges… these lodges simply forward the applications they find the most appealing, they have no obligation to notify applicants. </p>
<p>As a parallel, consider the college application process which (for many colleges) takes three or more months after you apply. On March 31st, or whenever decisions come out, you are notified if you are a “winner” or not. But from January 1 until that team, your application will go through levels… from regional admissions committees to the final committee (could you really expect one committee to go through 10,000, 20,0000 or even 30,000 applications thoroughly?). During this time, you are not alerted to your application status. The same goes for most scholarships, including the Elks for many people.</p>
<p>So, why I no longer have to sit through this agony, I urge you to be patient, and one day, you will hopefully get that pleasant surprise in the mail.</p>
<p>Thanks for putting it all into perspective :-).</p>
<p>Mythbuster - </p>
<p>Do you recomend that students contact their local lodge that they submitted their application to for follow up?</p>
<p>My D submitted hers back in November - but we haven’t heard anything one way or the other. At the time it didn’t appear that the lodge had many applications.</p>
<p>We really hadn’t thought any more about it until I read this thread today.</p>
<p>Hey guys. Today I got the official letter from districts saying I had moved onto states. No money, but lots of optimism. :)</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone.</p>
<p>Congrats, gifted gothic!</p>
<p>giftedgothic: </p>
<p>I received the letter that I had moved on to states yesterday. Congrats and good luck!</p>