As a rising senior, I’m finalizing my list of colleges to apply to, and I’ve been heavily considering Stanford SCEA, but am attempting to fairly gauge whether I’d actually have a chance or not.
Mainly, I was wondering how influential being a Finalist for the Cameron Impact Scholarship would be in the ultimate decision. To be clear, I have not been named a Finalist and I plan on applying RD for the award this year, but I was wondering if anyone knew – do most AO’s at Stanford and other colleges already recognize the prestige of something like a Finalist for the Cameron Impact Scholarship? And if so, is being a Finalist for something this major essentially a congratulations/very high chance at Stanford?
For reference, the Cameron Impact Scholarship is a full-tuition scholarship given to extraordinary students for community leadership and academic excellence. The program has a <4% acceptance rate for Finalists, and <1% for Recipients. I’m wondering if being named a Finalist is essentially a lock for something like Stanford, and if not, how much influence it could have.
Any help is appreciated, I’m just trying to understand the process better.
(Again, not a Finalist (not yet!), but I can hope!)
Being a finalist for any highly competitive scholarship looks good on your application, but it isn’t at the level of a national competition award. It definitely will not be a lock for Stanford, which accepts fewer than 5% of their applicants.
Remember that, for the scholarship, you submit an application, and that’s it. If you are a finalist, it is because of your letters and because of your activities. These activities are also on your application to Stanford, so all the finalist status represents is how the people at the Foundation evaluated your activities and your transcript. It helps because Stanford AOs value their opinion, but that’s it. It doesn’t represent a project that you did which was unique or outstanding, an extremely high level of expertise that you had demonstrated in a competition, or an outstanding essay or poem that you wrote that was judged by top people in the field.
SO it’s great, but it is not at the level of a national award, and it does not provide a lock to Stanford or to any highly competitive college.
It’s still one of the best Scholarships out there, so good luck!
@MWolf Thank you very much! So in other words, it’s great to have because it shows that SOMETHING on your overall application stood out to the Foundation Committee, but that SOMETHING won’t necessarily stand out to Stanford’s Committee as well?