The only thing I know about this scholarship is that the recipients are extremely accomplished and impressive — congrats to your daughter for being selected as a finalist!
There are photos of recent scholars on their website — submitted by the students themselves during Covid-times, I suspect. I am guessing the photos they shared may also be suggestive of what they chose to wear during interviews and I see everything from suits and ties to T-shirts and a lot in between.
Take this with a grain of salt because I have zero personal knowledge about these interviews l, but if it were my child, I would advise her to wear something she feels comfortable in and that is consistent with the activities she is passionate about. For instance, a student who does something involving business or lobbying big businesses or Congress might decide to wear a suit. A student who does a lot of grassroots organizing or activism in low-income neighborhoods might go for a more business casual/urban chic outfit and an artist might wear something that is more of a fashion-forward choice.
Woot! In-state applications were submitted this afternoon during our state’s free application dates. They are safeties, and it’s nice to feel like those are under her belt so to speak. D says the Common App now has a countdown timer in the corner, so that’s stressful to see it ticking down. She did figure out how to hide it though.
The next couple of weeks look to be quite busy with theater tech, so I hope D is on top of things. She already decided to not REA Stanford, so that helps a bit. The UC apps and a big in-state scholarship are deadlines coming up soon though.
We visited UW Seattle over the weekend and D decided she would apply even though they are on the Coalition App, I think she was halfway hoping she didn’t like it so that she wouldn’t be filling out another application. lol
I’m thankful my son likes my input and help with it. He’s doing most of the work, but he has no issue with me checking his college email and making sure he’s on top of what’s coming in from places. He’s got so much homework this year, it’s crazy. I have a spreadsheet we share too with all the colleges, their dates, what’s left to do, etc in it. We can both update it as needed.
He finished his UMich essays today and will give them one more look-over/edit this weekend and submit on Sunday. He double checked and he can turn it in later than we originally thought, so that was helpful. Then he has a couple scholarship essays and honor colleges due as well in November.
@Southoftheriver , no advice, but that is fabulous news! It sounds like she is well prepared for interviewing in general, and that will likely serve her well.
My son has been setting up his portals when the applications were submitted- but it made me nervous when I kept asking him if some of his schools emailed him back with the portal setup info. He has so much spam from colleges. Turns out half his portal setup emails went to his spam account.
It may be too late but we created a separate email account that we only used on applications. That way, if an email went to the “application account” we knew it was important or required action. All email accounts were similar so it was easy to tell it was the same person (ex. Bob.Smith2022, Bob.Smith22, Bob_Smith22)
In the end, we had three email accounts
primary account which received very little spam and we would unsubscribe if it did.
college board/ACT, send me more info about your school/program account - 99% marketing materials and now basically a useless account.
application account - used for college and scholarship applications. Every once in a while an email will still be sent to that account rather than the .edu account. Other than that, account isn’t really used anymore.
ETA: When my college kids are signing up for things that will likely send a lot of spam (ex. Target, BBW, DoorDash) they will use account #2 above.
The good news: you aren’t finding out what a lottery the UCs are next spring. The bad news: the UCs are a lottery. Those of us from CA who have been through this process already have seen and heard all the stories of “this kid should’ve gotten into UCLA or UCSB and only got into Irvine!” or “this kid got rejected at Riverside but got into Berkeley!” and the many high-achieving kids who didn’t get into any. Your kid might get into their top choices, but you can’t count on them. And what, if any, UCs your kid does or doesn’t get into, does not reflect what kind of student they are. Hedge your bets. Broaden your application process. And don’t sell the Cal States short; there are lots of great options there. Sorry to add to your stress. This process is already so overwhelming, but there are really great places that I"m sure will be excellent fits for your kid! Just cast that net a little beyond the UCs. Good luck!
Pre-pandemic the UCs were actually pretty predictable for instate kids (much more so than top private schools). You could look at your high school and if X kids got into UCB/UCLA last year, you knew that this year’s results would be fairly similar. You could rank the top 2-5% (depending on high school strength) and after adjusting for ECs and subject (engineering/CS being harder to get admitted for) know that the kids getting in would all be in that group.
As class president, and a top 1% letter & sciences applicant, my S18 was sufficiently comfortable that he was getting into at least one of UCB or UCLA that he didn’t apply to any other UCs (he got into both). We likewise weren’t surprised that the brilliant NMF kid with no ECs was shut out at UCB/UCLA for CS (went to UCSD) and the hardworking but not brilliant 4.0 GPA kid who was hopeless at SAT testing was shut out almost everywhere (went to USC).
But unfortunately over the last couple of years, the shift to test blind and trying to admit more disadvantaged kids (and in some cases fewer from the top high schools) has scrambled most predictions based on prior results and made ECs/non-school activities/experiences more important.
IMO, I call that pretty darn gutsy move applying to only UCB and UCLA, no matter how wonderful an applicants stats were pre-pandemic.
My D18 was (and continues to be) a high stats/EC’s blah, blah, kid. She applied to 5-6 UC’s back in 2017 as her counselor (and I wholeheartedly agreed) suggested, since UC’s can be unpredictable. Even 3-4 years ago.
It worked out for ya tho. But it’s all relative. Now, it’s even more unpredictable.
I don’t know how long the UCs have been unpredictable, but in 2018 when our oldest (D19) had friends who were graduating, we discovered how unreliable the UCs are. But regardless of when they became a lottery, they’re a lottery now, so kids just need to have a Plan B … and probably a C.
My 2 son’s went through the admission cycle in 2016 and 2017. For 2016, we got really only 1 surprise denial from the UC’s but 2017 son’s results were what we expected. Very hard to determine what is predictable or not especially with varied interests, majors, GPA and test scores but I wholeheartedly agree that within the last few years, unpredictability has increased for the UC’s along the number of qualified applicants and the number of applications. When you have 7 out of 10 top applied schools in the country (6 UC’s and 1 CSU), you should expect these kind of results.
Are you hearing anything more on the selection process at CSUs, which also seems less clear? While some CSUs are transparent, schools like SDSU are less so. Is SDSU really doing true holistic review when a couple of years ago they used a simple calculation of grades/test scores and then ranked applicants by major?
Each CSU has had to come up with supplemental criteria for admission review. Some campuses such as CSULB and SJSU calculate an index using GPA along Math and English GPA. Although not really “holistic” in their application review, they have added a few more academic along with non-academic parameters to consider vs. just using the Eligibility index.
D22 working on her UW honors essay questions today. As she dives deeper into the course catalog and other materials she has been blown away by the varied centers, research opportunities, etc. One of the best parts of this process has been learning about the amazing things going on at our universities and colleges.
We are still in a somewhat holding pattern here. Son has no idea of how many (and which) schools he will be applying to. Is doing EA at our state flagship to have something in his pocket but remains noncommittal about the rest. If I had to guess he’ll apply to somewhere between 7-10 schools and will probably only do one reach. He has finished his common app and teacher recommendations are complete and submitted so he is good in that respect. I assume that we’ll be hitting the submit button at midnight on January 4 (or whatever date it is for RD) . . .
We are entering essay fatigue phase (including me- sick of reading them). Can’t wait for everything to be submitted, but then the waiting part is just as bad!
Ditto here! I need application season to be over! Unfortunately, I still see another month or two as he is not submitting as mane EA applications as he said he would…
Exactly how we feel here… My D22 only has MIT essays left and we hit the wall. Poor kid is just done and I cannot stand to read them and critique again and again…
