Honors and Competitive Scholarships

no Singletary, no Presidential … no Kentucky

We encountered the same disappointment and surprise with competitive scholarships with our D’s a few years back. D1 had 4.0 UW GPA, 36 ACT (twice), 2400 SAT and didn’t even get invited to interview for the large competitive scholarships at schools she applied to. D2 had 4.0 UW GPA, 35 ACT, 2290 SAT and was guaranteed the Patterson as a NMF but didn’t get invited to interview for the Singletary. She is currently a sophomore at UKy and absolutely loves it there. It was certainly an eye-opener for us on the competitive scholarship processes.

I think grades/scores are certainly part of it, but in many cases the school is looking for some kind of “wow factor” or unique characteristic. Singletary recipients at UKy are often used as the “face” of the university in various promos and public events, and they often want students with interesting stories and backgrounds.

Both of our D’s experiences just solidified for us that our two favorite words as parents were “guaranteed” and “renewable” when it came to scholarships. >:D<

Sorry to hear about the disappointing results for some of your families. Hang in there.

Does anyone know how many Presidential scholarships were offered this year? Also vs years past? This must be reflecting what UK said about shifting from less merit awards to more low income opportunities.

Thanks for all the kind messages.

I wonder if they bothered to cross reference the merit list against needs, as we certainly would have qualified if they had. That was the main reason not getting the Presidential was so hard on my daughter.

@itsgettingreal17 - what is the value of the full Parker scholarship? Wondering what the requirements are and if that is an option for us.

@crazy4info It’s a scholarship for URMs and is up to $15,000 per year. I think the deadline passed.

@itsgettingreal17 thanks! We are actually applying for Fall of 2018.