<p>has anybody heard back??</p>
<p>Not heard yet. Hoping its SOON…Very SOOON…</p>
<p>i got an email yesterday saying the admissions office was still waiting to hear from the president’s office. UGH!</p>
<p>Anyone received the pres scholarships yet?</p>
<p>My son interviewed last month too and we haven’t heard yet either.</p>
<p>I heard back from my admissions counselor today at around 2. He called me and told me that I was one of the chosen pres scholars!</p>
<p>Congrats slubilliken! Would you please post your stats?</p>
<p>slubilliken, that is wonderful. I hope that you have as wonderful time at SLU as my daughter did. She was very active in the prez scholar group. Are you going to take it?</p>
<p>you guys are restarting questions on a one year old thread!!! He posted this a year ago</p>
<p>got the “presidential award” of 18k per year, but not the full scholarship. Might kinda consider it for med scholars, other than that useless.</p>
<p>It seems that everybody who participated in the interviews got the $18K scholarship, except the 24 out of the 500 students who received the presidential. As a parent, our only criticism about the entire process is that SLU could have done a better job in narrowing down the number of students to be interviewed. We had to take time off from work, spend money for travel, and students had to miss school, only to compete for a less than 5% chance of getting the presidential scholarship. It seems that SLU used the venue as a “captured audience” situation for students to visit the campus, instead of using it to grant the scholarship. Surely, the admissions office could have narrowed the list to a more realistic number before inviting students to the interview. Students flew in from all over the US at their own expense, only to have a >95% chance of being turned down from the scholarship. I would not advise others to apply, based on the statistics that I know now. This was not disclosed to us prior to the event. I hope this will help the future applicants.</p>
<p>^^^Thats exactly the true point of the Pres. scholars competition (btw, the same process is done at many many schools). The purpose is to not REALLY find the 24 deserving candidates…the purpose is to get these kids on campus and SELL them the campus. </p>
<p>It’s all marketing, and a very effective tool, I might add. </p>
<p>IMO, they already know who the real contenders are by their stats.</p>
<p>When are the winners announced?</p>
<p>thanks for confirming our suspicion after attending the event. unfortunately, it’s the parents who have to shoulder the expense of such visit. money that otherwise can be used for the tuition instead. there really isn’t much to gain overall, unless one gets the scholarship.</p>
<p>^Well, I think the most expenses could have been would be around 500-700 dollars. Now, you are getting a 2k scholarship per year if your kids do decide to go! But, I agree the event was useless, they should have narrowed it down to 100 kids then decided.</p>
<p>Also the, interview, I think is bogus. They already are choosing the presidential scholar body to include people of this race, religion and make it look all diverse. I mean, not to sound cocky, but had the best stats than anyone there. I already got into Princeton. My interview was top class, one of them even followed me up with an email, congratulating the volunteer work I am doing. But, finally I do NOT get chosen and most probably because I am Asian. If they already have an idea of who they want to be scholars, why the heck did they invite me?!</p>
<p>ngongs, </p>
<p>Where did you get that 24/500 stat from?</p>
<p>runomarsy, as a current Presidential Scholar and a senior who has helped with the weekends for the past four years, I feel like I need to address your concerns (which I realize have been brought up by others as well, that’s why I’m taking the time to respond).</p>
<p>I respect your opinion that the weekend was “useless” because I understand your perspective that there were too many invitees. From your post, it seems you believe that the best students are easily determined by the “best stats”, but that SLU is somehow manipulating the system to choose “people of this race, religion and make it look all diverse”. I can assure you that is not the case.</p>
<p>As I’m sure you were told at the weekend, once you get invited, you are seen as an equal to everyone else there. ACT and GPA don’t matter at that point because the interview is all about how you have served your community and been a leader while doing it. (That is precisely why so many people are invited, even someone who barely makes the ACT/GPA cut can be an outstanding leader on campus. Who will get the scholarship is not at all obvious initially.) There is no consideration of race, religion, culture, ANYTHING like that: it is based entirely on who you are as a human being and a leader.</p>
<p>I’m sorry that you feel so jaded by the experience, but I just wanted to let you know that you were invited because it seemed that you could truly thrive and contribute at SLU. At that point you had just as good of an opportunity as any other person to be a Presidential Scholar. Just because you did not end up getting the scholarship does not necessarily mean you interviewed poorly, that the interviewers didn’t respect you, or that there were too many people with your heritage. It just means that the interviewers did not think you were the best fit for the Presidential Scholarship. That’s what the college search is all about: finding the best fit. Not only are you looking for the college that fits you best, but colleges are looking for the students that fit them the best.</p>
<p>I hope that you now know where you fit the best, and that you have a wonderful four years there. College is a great time to challenge yourself and your beliefs, with the hope that your experiences will help you grow as a person. I wish you the best of luck!</p>
<p>Hi Summer07, thanks for taking your time and giving a response. I know it doesn’t matter a percent now, but since you said you are part of weekend, I just would like to say some things.</p>
<p>I got invited to the weekend to be evaluated on the leadership and volunteer work, I have done. Leadership and volunteering IS what I need to get evaluated on, not how well I would fit in to SLU. If that was the case, change your interview criteria, because I spend time, effort and money to be there. I am not there, so you could see if SLU would fit best for me, I am there for an interview that is said to evaluate on leadership, character and volunteering work. And I had all that, my stats clearly showed that. If you ask any great person, company, they evaluate based on what you have DONE, not based on if the panel thinks you are great. I am sure if Steve Jobs came to your interview, he would have failed, because SLU would not be a “great fit” for him, though he spent his time and effort for being evaluated on his leadership. </p>
<p>Also, I am sharing this, because I felt the process was really inconsistent. You invited me for interview on leadership, then you should be evaluating me for that. I felt this way strongly, because a current presidential scholar ( I do not want to name any names) said that she cried in one interview when asked about her grandmother and talked about ice cream in another interview! Of course she felt really bad about her grandmother and all my sympathies are with her. But when my uncle passed away from diabetes (which I talked about in essay and interview), I did not sit there and cry, I did a research project at a university(not naming it) and lead that project and won awards for that. I had hundreds of volunteering work promoting my religion and culture, working at a hospital, elementary school, etc. I lead many projects and raised a lot of money with a vision. I am not saying that I should have gotten it, but I am just saying that the interview must be based on your leadership history and volunteering work. If it was that, then I would have surely gotten it. I am not saying SLU is bad school at all, but I got the UC Berkeley leadership award for my work. </p>
<p>Anyway, SLU is still a great school and one that I am definitely considering! Hope you as a weekend organizer got something out of it.</p>
<p>Don’t bother. They invite 500 students and their families, you spend three days getting the hard-sell, you spend a fortune on gas/air fare and hotel and in the end they give about 20 presidential scholarships out, so 480 go home with nothing. Every one of the 500 students deserves the presidential scholarship (that’s why they are invited) so who knows how they pick the 20. Even if you have a 32 ACT and straight A’s you probably won’t get it. Waste of time and money.</p>
<p>Not surprised. The criteria was not based on grade, so someone with less than 32 ACT and less than A can get in while others with 32 ACT and straight A’s probably not. :(</p>
<p>In my opinion, they award the scholarship to a student that they think “will” attend if awarded the scholarship. Not the best student that “might” turn them down afterwards. Hence the discussions posted above. A student that most likely will attend another institution is of no use to them, no matter how good the stats and leadership qualities are. Sort of like a “yield” calculation in their part.</p>