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<p>This is why it’s a shame when a merit-based program disappears.</p>
<p>Encouraging and rewarding excellence appears not to be a prioirty for this country’s taxpayers. That sounds rather short-sighted to me.</p>
<p>blue: not necessary for kids to have a 2400/36 to be eligible for byrd in california. it was a nomination process (obviously excellent grades and scores are a requirement). perfection isn’t (wasn’t) necessary. maybe i’m reading your comment too literally.</p>
<p>In our state, the Byrd went to the kids who did not necessarily have the best test scores, but were the most community minded. My son tutored and volunteered as a teacher assistant all through high school at an inner city school and had very strong feelings about what should be done to encourage education in our state. I was very moved by his essay, and was not surprised that he received the Byrd, as I thought he fit the spirit of the program. Believe me, the parents of the valedictorians were plenty mad that their sons did not receive the scholarship. How could anyone turn down their superstar child? In their case, that was just one less scholarship that would be listed under their name in the newspaper following graduation. Kudos to the Byrd for recognizing kids who were working hard to better society and themselves, not just pad their resume.</p>
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<p>For my daughter it was, indeed, based on one test score: her SAT. We are in NY. I am very sad to see this go. It was a small amount, relative to the entire COA, but it was helpful.</p>
<p>Since the Byrd was administered by the state, the requirements vary. In my state GPA, test scores, class rank, and recommendations were all factored into the decision as to who would receive the Byrd scholarship. I believe the principal of the high school also had to sign off on the nomination before it was sent to the St Dept of Education.</p>
<p>Over the course of 4 years it amounts to $6,000. Not a lot when you are talking a $200,000+ education. But I agree with Franglish-it helps. And she worked damn hard to get to the point where she could apply and was fortunate enough to receive it. We do not qualify for need-based aid.</p>
<p>My D is a rising senior in college. I’m not holding out too much hope for a continuation of her scholarship. State Dept of Ed said they will let us ow as soon as a decison has been made.</p>
<p>bluebayou: Although California may have awarded Byrd Scholarships to students who scored a perfect SAT/ACT, other states were more balanced in their criteria. For example, in NY State, a student’s SAT score accounted for only 25 percent of the score. 75 percent of the score was from weighted GPA. See page 3: <a href=“http://www.highered.nysed.gov/kiap/scholarships/documents/2011RobtByrdBulletin.pdf[/url]”>http://www.highered.nysed.gov/kiap/scholarships/documents/2011RobtByrdBulletin.pdf</a></p>
<p>“The 2011 series scholarships will be awarded on the basis of combined Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scores and the converted Byrd grade point average (GPA) from EITHER the high school academic units indicated below OR the General Educational Development (GED) test scores. The SAT scores will be weighted 25 percent and the converted Byrd GPA will be weighted 75 percent to determine scholarship winners.”</p>
<p>“In order to be eligible to file an application for the 2011 competition, a candidate must have a minimum Byrd GPA of 95.00 and a minimum score of 1875 on the SAT (critical reading PLUS writing PLUS math scores from a single administration). An ACT score will be allowed only if the SAT was not taken, and a minimum composite score of 28 is required.”</p>
<p>the issue, gibby, is the difference between minimal requirements, (SAT=1875) and the actual awards. (Kinda like Harvard & MIT saying that there is no minimum SAT score required for admissions.) Has anyone ever earned a Byrd from NYS with a <1900 SAT? </p>
<p>Plus, do the math. If 75% of the score is gpa, and nearly every Val has a 4.0, the only remaining differentiating feature is test score, correct? Yes, I see that the state uses weighted gpa, but the point is the same…if nearly every Val has a 4.5 (or 5.0 or whatever scale they use), every student starts with 75 points. The remaining 25 points (and $ awards), are then in essence based on test scores. Heck, test scores are even more important for those with ‘only’ a 3.9 gpa.</p>
<p>The issue, which you brought up in #18. . .</p>
<p>“That’s bcos most, if not nearly all, of the “winners” are middle-upper class students, much like NM.”</p>
<p>. . . is simply not true in New York City and many other cities across the nation. For example, here in New York State, one of the schools with the largest percentage of Robert Byrd Scholarship winners is Stuyvesant High School, where more than 40% of the school’s student population qualifies for free or reduced lunch, making the school eligible for Title 1 funds. The same can be said for other schools in New York City that have had a large percentage of Robert Byrd Scholars, including Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Tech, and Townsend Harris High School. Those scholarship winners are not from the upper-middle class you describe – and they have lost out.</p>
<p>My S was nominated and probably would have been awarded the scholarship if it wasn’t eliminated and we are nowhere near upper middle class. In our state it was a formula of UW GPA and the state merit exam results so it was purely merit. Obviously the private and top public schools have a better chance in certain districts but since the awards were distributed equally over all the congressional districts it allowed the students in the lower income areas to receive it as well.</p>
<p>^^^Thank you, kdog, for pointing that out. The Byrd is also distributed over districts in our state as well. We have many very poor districts, as well as many districts where most students don’t go past the sixth grade, as they are rural/fishing communities where the kids basically go to work as soon as they physically are able. The Byrd scholarship probably made a difference between some kids going to college or not in those communities. Although they are poor, those kids are not minorities, so will not qualify for many of the merit scholarships that are based on minority/sex status. I also have found those families to be too proud to even fill out financial aid forms. A high school friend of mine who was very bright and probably would have gotten scholarships/aid to go to perhaps the local state college did not even apply, as she was too embarrassed for anyone to see how little her father made. She might have been willing to apply for the Byrd, though, because there was no need for her to disclose her family’s finances.</p>
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I am not sure how it is done in other states but in our state the student doesn’t apply. The HS principal fills out the form and calculates which student is the highest and then sends that nomination in. It is limited to one student per school unless two or more have identical scores. Then, all the nominations are ranked in each district and the awards are given out to a top certain number of students depending on the aid amount the state was awarded. It ended up being about 15-20 in each district.</p>
<p>My son is a rising senior at MIT, and has received the $1500/yr Byrd scholarship each of his first three years. I called the Florida contact number listed by parent56 (thanks!), and was told our new Governor is considering things and they expect to know the status of the program by the beginning of July.</p>
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The status is it has been eliminated. Since this is a federal award the only possibility is if your state is going to look for funds elsewhere to subsidize this year or not. I am not sure what they are saying to you by saying they “expect to know the status by the beginning of July”.</p>
<p>I read earlier that West Virginia is funding the program for an additional year; maybe Florida is doing that too.</p>
<p>We are in Florida and my daughter got an email that said she would not be receiving the Byrd Award due to federal non-funding of the award. We are disappointed because there are so few merit awards for middle class students that are not need based. And as most of us found out, their definition of need is far different from our definition, haha!</p>
<p>As stated in this thread earlier, there will be no new Byrd scholarships awarded, those that would have gone to current seniors in high school. The jury is still out on whether individual states will be funding the scholarship for returing/renewal students, those who are rising sophomre, juniors and seniors in college. The states are waiting word from the US Department of Education. Stay tuned…</p>
<p>I haven’t been following this for awhile and just caught up. I agree with so much of what mathmomvt has written.</p>
<p>Much of what you wrote, mmvt, would have been my response to mommaJ (#42).</p>
<p>As for the principal nomination, thank goodness our school didn’t have that. The same kids get all the awards, over and over, and no doubt would have also gotten the Byrd over my son. I actually knew about the Byrd from CC research and contacted the state department myself to get the application. I had son fill it out and do the essay and submit his resume. He did have to get his principal to sign and approve it. His principal read his essay and commented on it, so it wasn’t just a rubber stamp approval. I’m sure if the principal did not like what he said, or felt it was too radical, he would have rejected it. I was a little scared at this, because son had some criticism for the way things were done at his school, but suggested things that could be done to improve it. Rather than being offended, his principal thanked him for the recommendations and told him he had some great ideas. </p>
<p>Sorry to hear it will be up to the state to refund this program. Our state is doing major cutbacks in education. We have a local program that awards merit scholarships to students that stay instate for school, and they are talking of phasing that out because it is merit based alone. Since the Byrd is a similar, though less money, scholarship, I wouldn’t be surprised if son’s scholarship is renewed.</p>
<p>Thank goodness our school did it that way. It took popularity out of the equation and it was not subjective. At our school, the awards and scholarships were given out to the popular multi-sport athletes while my son received nothing. The science award was given to the 7th or 8th highest GPA student who didn’t even take AP Biology, the toughest science course at the school. My son, who is 4th and will end up tied for 2nd and the Val did not get a single award or scholarship. Numbers don’t lie. The school was talking about using the ACT score as opposed to merit exam combined with GPA. It wouldn’t have mattered in my son’s case as he had the highest ACT as well.</p>
<p>I thought it was sad that two out of the top 4 academic students received no accolades while the “prom king and queen” walked away with a half a dozen so I hope that if the Byrd is reinstated in the future it stays the way it is and not turn it into a popularity contest.</p>
<p>there seems to be confusion about the term ‘nomination’ here. yes, it is up to the student to do the research, fill out the application and apply for this scholarship. but–if i remember it correctly-- at the bottom half of the application was a section that the principal and transcripts people (records office, whatever that office is called) had to fill out. they had to acknowledge that they were ‘nominating’ --by virtue of the signature and school seal --this student for the award. </p>
<p>obviously, the bulk of the work was on the student (or their parents) to get the form into their school counselor’s hands in the first place, and students who didn’t have the gpa/scores to reinforce their request for ‘nomination’ didn’t get their application moved to the next phase of the process. so it wasn’t some random process where a principal or school counselor picks a student they ‘like’. and i’d imagine in many cases, neither the principal nor counselor likely even heard of the award before seeing the paperwork presented by the student. in california it was a very obscure, not well-publicized scholarship. </p>
<p>if anything is unfair about the process, it’s that students whose parents weren’t sophisticated enough to do some research about the existence of this award lost out because they never started the application process to begin with. </p>
<p>anyway, according to the csac website (for californians), for those students who were awarded the scholarship before 2011-2012 school year, it’s being discussed with the dept. of education as to whether they will continue to fund these students. it says they’ll know more in july. so we’ll see what happens…</p>