Hi,
I’m a junior in high school and I was recently looking in to the ADS at MSU. It’s in-state for me, and I have a 4.3 GPA, extracurriculars, sports, good test scores etc, so I think it’s something I could go for. Does anyone who’s gotten or been nominated know how it works? Also, I heard there’s a test and they pick the top certain number of scores for finalists. Is there anything you can do to prepare for the test in advance? This scholarship sounds really awesome so any info would be appreciated!
The ADS test has been likened to the “mother of all AP” tests – chock full of random and obscure questions. The university pulls from the top test scores and does interviews to select the award winners. This year - I believe there were over 1000 kids that participated in the two ADS weekends. When you figure out the chances of winning one of the 35 full ride (tuition and r/b) or tuition scholarships – the odds are low. We’re out-of-state so it was a great time for my daughter to visit and really get to know more about MSU - whether she won or not (she didn’t).
However, what you can do to help yourself with scholarships at MSU is to focus upon scoring well on the ACT. A 33 on the ACT coupled with admittance to the Honors College should get you a professorial assistantship and the STATE scholarship ($5000 annually). A professorial assistantship matches you with a professor to conduct research for 8 - 10 hours a week and earn $3000/year. You get the assistanship for your first two years, but many students that we met indicated their professors kept them on in paid research assignments their junior and senior years.
Good luck!
After you apply to MSU, you get invited to the ADS weekend. We came from out of state and it was a good opportunity to see the school and hear about the honors program and the engineering programs (my son will be majoring in engineering).
After the test they emailed that he had been one of the top 60 and based on his high school grades he was put into the top 30 for a web based video interview. He was told the that if he didn’t progress any further he would qualify for $2500 a year, but that the top 30 would either get full tuition for 8 semesters or the Alumni Distinguished Scholarship which is tuition, room, and board for 8 semesters as long as you live on campus.
As far as the test is concerned, he didn’t do any specific studying. It is so broad and far reaching that he didn’t think there was a specific strategy to follow. I guess just make sure you are on top of all of your major subject areas.
I took that test back in 1980. It was way harder than any test I’d ever taken. Needless to say, I wasn’t one of the high scorers, but when we drove up from Maryland for the weekend, I fell in love with the MSU campus. Ended up going there for a great 4 years. Later on I met a girl who had won one of the “runner up” awards (back then there were 10 “free ride” awards and 10 free tuition ones, she had gotten the free tuition), and she was very smart!
I’m still glad they invited me, my dad (who I’m sure thought I would ace the test) talked me into trying for it and (to my amazement) agreed to taking me up there and it changed my life. Almost 40 years later and still a proud Spartan!
I received an ADS for a full ride awhile ago, and as for the exam, it helps if you’re good at quizbowl or Jeopardy. Basically a lot of information across all academic fields.
I tried cramming a couple days for the exam, and nothing I crammed was on the test. If you’re thinking longterm, it’s broad-based academic knowledge. Perhaps the closest way to study would be to prep for quizbowl or read review books (NOT textbooks).
I remember a couple of questions on architecture my year–Ionic or Doric columns, and being really pleased about it, ha…ha.