that’s it. close this topic. the JKCF should just be divided between @georgemk and @nekozuki in its entirety.
@georgemk @nekozuki You are both INCREDIBLE people and after hearing your stories, I honestly don’t see how either of you couldn’t win. I am in amazement. I feel like I should share my story now, because you guys have really touched me and given me the willingness to open up about my situation a little more.
I grew up in an abusive home. My mother was an alcoholic and abused me pretty severely. She later passed away when I was 10 years old, which sent my father into a deep depression and he started drinking really heavily as well. It got to the point where my little sister and I were completely neglected. We would go days without food in the house, until my dad would drunkenly go out and come back with a couple bags of chips or some candy. I stayed in school until I was 16, when I was violently sexually assaulted by a person I was friends with at the time. This is when I dropped out. My father was laid off of his job two years later and we were forced into homelessness. Around this time, I started dating a guy who I thought would treat me really well. Fast forward a few years and he was beating me so severely that I now have permanent injuries.
A year after meeting him, however, I realized I had to do something to get out of my situation, so I got my GED. I then enrolled into community college, and was able to do well academically, while doing volunteer work at a soup kitchen, volunteer work with the Human Services club that I was in, working 25+ hours a week only to have all my money taken away, interning at a drug rehab center to help recovering addicts and alcoholics, and working on a school-wide campaign to end sexual harassment on campus.
I’d go home to a man who’d call me stupid and worthless, and who completely controlled my entire life (he would take all my paychecks, monitor my phone, and even track me through GPS with my phone.) Then, I’d go to school and act like a normal girl, to be told by teachers that I was brilliant and would go very far. I basically learned to leave the abuse at home, and go to school as a different person (the person i wanted to be.) Over a 3-4 year period, I either had to live with my abusive ex to avoid the streets, or be completely without shelter. Believe it or not, the shelters are always full in my area.
A year ago, I escaped this man. I now have a restraining order against him, and have to see him in court every month. He still walks free despite everything that he did to me, and I just have to keep wasting my time with court dates until they decide to do something more.
My story is why I’ve become a social work major. I want to devote my life to helping domestic violence victims, I feel like it’s what I was born to do. I wouldn’t change a single thing about my past for this reason 
@kpcosmic Thanks for sharing your story, more often than not people mistakenly think is only people from developing countries that suffer the most devastating circumstances in life, but your story tells me that life can still be challenging even for people living in developed countries like the US. it will be so hard for me to understand JKCF if you don’t win this scholarship. And if I do win and there is a possibility to switch for you in case you don’t get, I will not hesitate to do that. Your story is moving, I hope we both win so that we can meet up finally.
You’ll find stories like this are not the exception, but the norm among JKCF Scholars. These stories show a true and defined will to overcome adversity. Strength and perseverance are incredible qualities which serve you for a lifetime. Aaaaaahhh!!! I want to meet all of you!
I just got off the phone with someone at the Foundation and they said that they are still deciding and reviewing applications. They’ve had a couple bumps in the road this year is what I was told and that’s why it’s taking longer than usual. We should expect replies back by the end of April.
Thnx for the update @sosm1301
End of the month? Good lord. I’ll be graduated before I find out.
Thanks for the update. This is soul killing, unfortunately one cannot do anything about this. good luck everybody
i’m so shy that the excitement of winning is offset by the nervousness of having to like meet people in virginia. the silver lining of rejection is getting to stay home with my adoring cat.
i wonder if the estate in virginia is grand anyway. i’ve always appreciated big dark entrances with maroon fluffy carpets and great maple or oak or cherry or whatever stairs. one time, i went to a very big house in indiana and stuck my head between the balusters of the staircase and hoped that if i couldn’t get out, i’d have to stay there and be rich forever like they were.
wasn’t jack kent cooke married about a million times? such a hearty appetite for women. i mean wikipedia reveals everything.
i’ve always wondered if a person’s house reflects how they treat their spouses. like an untidy house might suggest a kind of mutual adoration for one another because they’re so absorbed in each other, they never bother fussing over a few dishes. maybe a good gardener who has a very well landscaped lot extends the same care for their loved ones. i read somewhere that a lover of plants is kinder to life than a person that shuns flowers.
the end of april! jeez! easter was bad enough. i held a plastic easter egg to my ear and hoped i could hear my good fortune spilling out of it like people do with seashells.
Scholars Weekend is held in a conference center that is amazing in proportions. Underground tunnels which intersect with other tunnels, leaving you absolutely lost. The living quarters are small single rooms much like a hotel. The grounds are beautiful and quiet, away from the bustle of the city. It’s a pretty awesome place to be. And as far as being too shy to meet people? I thought the same thing…until I arrived. The other scholars sweep you up into their Jetstream of excitement. Shyness is all but forgotten. That weekend will burn bright in my memory for a lifetime.
it sounds dreamy. swoon.
the more you hear about JKCF the more you want to win
So today I went to the PTK All California Academic Team awards ceremony and pretty much came to the conclusion that there is no chance of winning the JKC for me. There were maybe about 100 people there - almost all with 4.0 GPAs, and many of whom applied for the JKC - and so many in just that small group had started charities, founded organizations, published articles, and saved boxes of kittens from burning buildings. Had I known this was the competition I would have taken fewer units the last few semesters and done a lot more charity work and community service. I actually did a pretty large research project with real, actual field work and data collection for an anthropology course and now I am kicking myself for not publishing it. There wasn’t much guidance from the staff at my school on how to be competitive for this scholarship, which baffles me since three people from my CC have won it in the last two years. There really isn’t much hope for those who are completely independent and have no support from family. Oh well, time to look at alternatives.
@cmbradley2015 same here! I’m a 27 year old, high school drop out with a 1.3 GPA and 6 credits when I dropped out. Family full of drug abuse and mental illness which lead to me dropping out of school and running away. Been independent ever since, doing whatever it takes to get by. Fast forward almost 10 years and I’m a 4.0 PTK member with only about 35 hours of community service and no research or leadership roles. I work a full time job, plus a part time job with a 3 hour commute on top of school and a boyfriend of 5 years with 3 kids!
This article on the MIT Admissions Blog called Applying Sideways really helped me with that @cmbradley2015 and @FutureNurse2018.
"Because here’s what you need to understand:
There is nothing, literally nothing, that in and of itself will get you in to MIT.
For example:
A few years ago, we did not admit a student who had created a fully-functional nuclear reactor in his garage.
Think about that for a second.
Now, most students, when I tell them this story, become depressed. After all, if the kid who built a freakin’ nuclear reactor didn’t get in to MIT, what chance do they have?
But they have it backwards. In fact, this story should be incredibly encouraging for most students. It should be liberating. Why? Because over a thousand other students were admitted to MIT that year, and none of them built a nuclear reactor!
I don’t mean to discourage anything from pursuing incredible science and technology research on their own. If you want to do it, DO IT. But don’t do it because you think it’s your ticket to MIT. And that applies to everything you do - classes, SATs, extracurriculars.
There is no golden ticket.
So breathe.
Now that you are Zen calm, liberated from the pressures of not having cured cancer by your 18th birthday, what should you do if you still want to come to MIT?
Do well in school. Take tough classes. Interrogate your beliefs and presumptions. Pursue knowledge with dogged precision. Because it is better to be educated and intelligent than not.
Be nice. This cannot be overstated. Don’t be wanton or careless or cruel. Treat those around you with kindness. Help people. Contribute to your community.
Pursue your passion. Find what you love, and do it. Maybe it’s a sport. Maybe it’s an instrument. Maybe it’s research. Maybe it’s being a leader in your community. Math. Baking. Napping. Hopscotch. Whatever it is, spend time on it. Immerse yourself in it. Enjoy it."
I am extremely young and I do not have the life experience of many other individuals at my community college, so it is really hard for me to see my achievements as achievements when you see what others are doing and what they have gone through. It is hard getting over that mindset, unfortunately. 
And even if we don’t get this scholarship,
“Well, you may be disappointed. But you learned everything you could, so now you’re smarter; you were a positive member of your community, and you made people happy; and you spent high school doing not what you thought you had to do to get into a selective college, but what you wanted to do more than anything else in the world. In other words, you didn’t waste a single solitary second of your time.”
He is obviously talking about freshman applicants to MIT but I feel like the positive perspective could be applied to a lot of different application processes.
@FutureNurse2018 So funny. I just looked at my high school transcripts and I also had a 1.3 GPA. I dropped out my junior year during finals.
In the past, schools could groom a couple select candidates because the colleges themselves decided who was nominated. Now, it’s a free for all and I feel like many people haven’t gotten the information and support they needed. JKCF scholarships are things students need to know AS SOON AS THEY ENTER COLLEGE. Had most of us known about not just the monetary amount, but the degree of competitiveness expected, we might have made different choices throughout our academic career.
The december deadline drove me up a wall. I got published for a second time AND won in two statewide honors writing competitions AFTER the application was submitted.
@cmbradley2015 I think being independent helps when you’re past the age threshold for parental income reporting. But I’m also sure they take into account other circumstances. The one thing I do like is that they want a variety of people with diverse backgrounds and life experiences. They won’t have one cookie-cutter model. The guy who won from my school last year had 40 service learning hours (as required by our honors program) and small amounts of volunteer work, but he had spent ten years in prison, was living in a homeless shelter, and simply worked in the financial aid department. He had a 4.0, but he was awarded based on the personal obstacles he overcame.
You never know what struggles someone has been through, so you have to be really careful about assuming your life has been more difficult than someone else (even if it seems like they’ve got it all together).
@nekozuki Who was the guy from your college who won last year? Because THAT’S what I’m talking about…It’s not just about the ones who have all these major accomplishments, but about circumstances and the drive to overcome.
I have seen that atleast 2 or 3 students always win JKC from my NOVA community college. So does that mean we are competing only within our community colleges?