<p>I know that one of the benefits of being in the Emory Scholars program is having more opportunities in research and to be more widely recognized among faculty throughout the university. However, is it still easy for one to be notable among the university and be able to participate in rigorous research with acclaimed faculty, while not being in the program? </p>
<p>Of course…many of the students who end up with honors or significant recognition for research and the like are not scholar’s. This isn’t an honors program or something where there is some HUGE gap between other admits and the scholarship students. Many non-scholarship students have the same stats. and credentials, but did not even apply for scholars. It doesn’t offer that much of an advantage because Emory is fairly small/smedium UG wise and there are plenty of opps. Your influence and chance for advancement is still very much controlled by the classes you take, peers and faculty you meet (and create relationships with. If you take a really good course and do well, you may end up being recommended by a faculty member to join someone’s lab and if it’s a research faculty, you may even be recruited. I have a friend who was recruited by Bruice Levine who is a pretty well-known/high profile microbiologist) and as long as you are pro-active and display interest, you’ll likely end up just like the scholars to be honest. Anybody can access the type of “advantages” they have if they want to and there are essentially no barriers to doing so other than your motivation. I mean, come on, we have SIRE grants for freshmen! All or most of them are not scholars. They are simply people who wanted to be involved in research as soon as they got to Emory and applied for the grant. It’s so easy if you want it.</p>
<p>Yup! As the poster above many people don’t apply for the scholars program because you have to apply by a particular deadline. Many people either don’t consider this deadline or did not know about it, so even though they are qualified, they aren’t in the program. And remember this is just a very small select group. And no it won’t influence you achievement as the majority of the students not in the program go on to do spectacular things!</p>