<p>I recently recieved my letter saying I am not a finalist for the Park Scholars program. I asked on the IC Peers forum how many people got accepted, and out of everyone I heard from, none had moved on to the next round. There are only 15 awards a year, but how many finalists are there? And out of how many applicants?</p>
<p>An admin posted on the board saying they have 35-40 finalists. I was rejected too.</p>
<p>son is considering applying for park scholar next year, just wondering what your stats were if you are willing to share</p>
<p>son is considering applying for park scholar next year, just wondering what your stats were if you are willing to share</p>
<p>My Daughter is a finalist and we are all excited. Yes- I did hear that they are interviewing about 30 students. She received the news via phone call early in March.
For future applicants:
4.0 / 2.9 ACT/ lots of AP courses/ Ed-in-chief of school newspaper and very involved in community service which I do believe is a big part of this program. </p>
<p>Good Luck</p>
<p>I am a current freshmen park scholar, so if you have any questions, feel free to private message me! Or just ask on this board.</p>
<p>For my class, there were 31 finalists and 14 selected. The reason why you don’t hear about a lot of people becoming finalists is because we are not allowed to say anything about it. We receive information from the director that basically asks us to keep it a secret until they finish contacting everybody.</p>
<p>As far as my stats went, I had a 4.2 GPA, 29 ACT, about 5 APs, and a ton of extracurriculars including editor of my newspaper. While academia is a strong suit for the award, the thing that will get you the most noticed is your passion for communications. Be creative in your essays and really get your passion across to the board. It will get you far!</p>
<p>Thanks Ksp791-
May I ask-
What do you think made you stand out among the other finalists?
Do you like the program?
What would you change about the program?
Do you like the classes? The professors?</p>
<p>Hmmm…
I honestly have no idea what made me stand out. There were others at finalist weekend that had done things I could only do in my wildest dreams (like service trips to Ghana, winning emmys etc) but the one thing that I did correctly was portray my absolute love for journalism. I have a vision on what type of journalist I want to be, what flaws I believe are prominent in media today (and how I want to fix them), and also a few ideas on how I’d further my journalism career at Ithaca.</p>
<p>I LOVE the program. The community that is formed by the scholars is priceless. Because of my friendship with some senior Park Scholars, i have integrated myself really well into college life. Courtesy of the senior PSers, I have had help finding rides to places (I’m from CA, so i dont have a car here) and they also had me and a few of my friends over to their house for a finals study party (which turned into a youtube video watching/baking party).</p>
<p>I honestly wouldn’t change anything. The requirements are tricky…a 3.5 is not as easy as it sounds (college is different than HS), but you have two semesters of lee-way. Matt Fee, the Director, is so incredibly friendly and you can tell he genuinely cares about each and every scholar.</p>
<p>Classes as in the Ithaca college classes? Or Park Scholar classes? If you mean Ithaca classes, i have loved all my professors. As far as PS classes, you only have one required PS class, and it’s during your first semester freshmen year. It’s a one credit P/F class. Basically you meet for an hour a week with Matt and the rest of the freshmen PSers and debate globalization topics.</p>
<p>Thanks so much KSP. It sounds like a nice fit for you. It also sounds like a perfect fit for my daughter…who I hope you get to meet! We are off to Ithaca on Saturday for the interviews Sunday & Monday.
My daughter is from NH…perhaps you will meet.</p>
<p>That’s very exciting! The finalists will be staying with freshmen and sophomores, so there is a very good chance she will be staying in my building. But yeah, please let her know that the weekend is a BLAST. It can be rather stressful when interviews come up, but other than that it is not a worry. Just show the board how dedicated you are to communication, and she will go far. But basically the weekend is our chance to wine and dine them, haha. They do interviews and group session, but they also have game nights, an ice cream party, tons of fancy dinners, and other things like that. Have a safe trip!</p>