<p>YPM, you already had one thread about this All Souls Scholarship". You were given information and the link to their official website, which really tells it all. Could you (on that NEW thread you just started) please clarify exactly what more you need or want to know?</p>
<p>I have already clarified it. Please go through it. Thanks for your interest.</p>
<p>I’m just curious…are you just searching for the most competitive and challenging awards to receive? Firs the Rhodes Scholarship, and now this one? </p>
<p>You sound like a very sharp HS student. There are so many ways to attain your career goals, and precious few people do so via these very select scholarship programs.</p>
<p>I don’t have first hand knowledge of the All Souls, but I did read the link. It is for students who have already attained a baccalaureate degree. Right now, you are in high school. It is very possible that the criteria will change for this award before you even graduate from undergrad.</p>
<p>I believe being competitive is good. And to succeed in life one needs to plan things earlier. So, in order to accomplish my career goals I do all the hardwork required. These all things shall add some more feathers to my hat. Thanks for your help uptill now and I expect to receive your blessings and best wishes to achieve all that I have set my eyes on. </p>
<p>You are totally off base- wrong. Being competitive is NOT good. ZERO blessings from here- you do not deserve them at all.</p>
<p>You are doing your planning all wrong. What kind of life do you hope to have? Always striving for something you don’t have and logically are unlikely to get? Wasting your time and energy seeking things instead of actually preparing yourself for a realistic future? Think of the time you have wasted on this website and others instead of learning material that will actually get you ahead in school. Learning that will actually make you eligible for future accolades.</p>
<p>The reality is that if your goal is to be laden with awards you won’t deserve any. Those that have the qualities of being team players are more likely to gain the very awards you want to compete for. Look at those who have the awards you desire. It seems to me you will come up short in the characteristics that garnered them their prize.</p>
<p>Success- how does a person define it? Is it money, fame or happiness found on the once popular board game LIFE? Will you ever consider yourself successful? Will you ever be happy if someone else has something you do not? </p>
<p>Overplanning your life makes it rigid and doomed to failure. You need flexibility. What do you do if plans A, B and C don’t pan out? Look at the biographies of some of the most successful (by some criteria) people in the world. Most of them did not meet every goal or get every award early on. Einstein? Any Nobel Laureate? </p>
<p>Do not be the jerk who runs over everyone in an attempt to get the prize.</p>
<p>The best reason to become a competitively ranked tennis player is because you love tennis. period, full stop.</p>
<p>Same goes for all this academic stuff you are asking about. Nobody who spends 20+ years toiling in a lab, or writing novels does it because they expect to win a Nobel prize. They do it because they cannot imagine doing anything else. The prize and the recognition is a by-product of the talent and the love and the devotion they’ve exhibited to their craft or their discipline, not the other way around.</p>
<p>OP- find out what you are passionate about and what you are good at. Take your college years to explore how you can contribute to society and what it is that gets you out of bed every day.</p>
<p>The awards will follow. You will find yourself surrounded by bitter and small minded people if you see the next few years as opportunities to calculate which elite circumstances and recognition is the MOST elite. The most humbling award ceremonies are those where the “winners” acknowledge the hard work and devotion of those who did not win. Go watch Neil Patrick Harris at this year’s Tony awards; Isaac Bashevis Singer or Professor Auman when they won a Nobel. When you realize that you are a pygmie standing on the shoulders of giants (or in NPH’s case, the public school teachers who are truly the unsung heros of the arts) then your entire life will resonate.</p>
<p>@wis75: Eh, competitiveness is rewarded in some fields, but people in those fields aren’t spending time thinking about how to get these awards.</p>
<p>I disagree. I know of no field where being competitive against your coworkers is conducive to the team being more productive. The awards come for achievements, not beating out others for the prize. You need to radically change your world view if you expect to get anywhere. Your current attitude will not get people to cooperate with you for mutual benefit. Read the bios of the successful. Read the adult posters’ words of wisdom. None seem to agree with you.</p>
<p>Good luck getting into ANY good college.</p>
<p>@wis75:</p>
<p>He’s not competing against his co-workers. In any case, as much as you seem to hate the idea, in some fields, a competitive attitude is looked for (sometimes even against co-workers; regardless of whether you think that is productive or not, it can be rewarded). Granted, striving for the stuff he’s listed seems quite silly (though admission to Harvard is acheivable . . . . though on the other hand, if his app reads like his posts here, that seems unlikely).</p>
<p>This poster is chasing a carrot that might or might not happen. His end seems more important than his means. At this point, I haven’t read anything compelling about his academic interests. All he seems to care about is the level of prestige a college or award will bring.</p>
<p>It almost seems like he has done a google search for most selective academic programs and awards. </p>
<p>thanks, the discussion is now ended.</p>