<p>Dragon pointed out something important, every body must reapply each year and not every one gets it every year. You need to be active and involved on campus, that seems to be what they look for.</p>
<p>Anyone get this email? Seems odd that they don’t proceed w/o a signed SIR. Too bad, because that’s part of the decision making process so the assumption is “no”.</p>
<p>(Dated 4/2/09)
Dear Leadership Award Applicant,</p>
<p>Congratulations on your admission to UC Berkeley! We commend you on gaining admittance to one of the worlds best public universities. </p>
<p>Your Leadership Award application will now be under review throughout April.</p>
<p>Next Steps:</p>
<p>The Scholarship Department will send an e-mail on May 2, 2009 regarding Finalist Interview Notifications.
Only students who submit their Statement of Intent to Register to UC Berkeley by May 1, 2009 will be eligible for a Finalist Interview for the Leadership Award.
Students who are granted a Finalist Interview must be available to interview May 9, 2009 - June 8, 2009.
Congratulations once again and GO BEARS!</p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>Kristarae Flynn</p>
<p>I applied, didn’t get that e-mail :/.</p>
<p>They used to interview every one and then give you a yes/no before May 1, but last year they changed the procedure a bit to allow more people to make it to the semi-final interview, but there were then so many people that many interviews were not completed prior to the May 1 date and people were freaking out.</p>
<p>This way they will only interview people who are planning to attend. The monetary amount is not enough to make people decide yes or no on Berkeley, $1500/year or $2000/yr later, but it sure is nice to get.</p>
<p>According to info many years ago, the Alumni and Byrd should not take away from your grant aid only self help (loans/WS) so pay attention to your initial offer and then the update.</p>
<p>Yes, somemom, the monetary award is not a deciding factor. But getting this scholarship was what broke the tie between UCLA & Berkeley for a friend of mine’s son a few years back. It’s not only the money but also the connections and opportunities that are attractive to students looking to take the next step in “leadership” roles.</p>
<p>What do you get for winning this award? Besides money</p>
<p>I just got this a few minutes ago. </p>
<p>Dear Applicant to The Leadership Award,</p>
<p>This email is to let you know that your application is still under consideration for The Leadership Award and has advanced to the semi-finalist round.</p>
<p>What this means:</p>
<ul>
<li><pre><code> Your application will be evaluated during the month of April by our selection committees to determine if your application will be advanced to the finalists round in May.
</code></pre></li>
<li><pre><code> You will receive a status update to know if your application will or will not be advanced to the finalists round via email on: May 5, 2010.
</code></pre></li>
</ul>
<p>Please review the requirements, FAQs and timeline for each phase in the application process and timeline regarding The Leadership Award here:</p>
<p>The Leadership Award application process timeline</p>
<p>Best regards,</p>
<p>The Leadership Award staff</p>
<p>sooooooooo, how come theres no mention of any semi-finalist round on the website??</p>
<p>i just go that e-mail too…</p>
<p>i wonder how many people are semi-finalist…</p>
<p>thats what i was wondering too dreamer92.</p>
<p>I got the email too! I’m not sure why they don’t mention semi-finalist…but hey, at least we are semi-finalists. 
What’d you guys write about on your applications? Because, honestly, when I applied for this scholarship, I was really close to the deadline, and really thought I wouldn’t get it, and I thought I wrote horribly. But I guess I wrote decently at least, because I’m a semi-finalist.</p>
<p>I also go that email. And I know people are saying that this award isn’t enough to make a decision, but I’m really tied in between Cal and UCLA and I have the same amount of financial aid for each school, so knowing in advance if I got this award really would make a difference for me. It’s frustrating that you have to commit to Cal in order to find out if you are a finalist.</p>
<p>I got the email about being a semi-finalist too…</p>
<p>Got the email as well. Does anyone know what non-monetary benefits there are to this award?</p>
<p>@ xatlasb, Cal Alumni Association restructured the scholarship because it turns out most students don’t consider the scholarship to be a deal maker in terms of deciding where to attend. That is why the scholarship has such a late interview time frame now.</p>
<p>@ takemeseriously, you can see the benefits at [Current</a> Scholars | CAA](<a href=“http://alumni.berkeley.edu/services/scholarships/leadership-award/current-scholars]Current”>http://alumni.berkeley.edu/services/scholarships/leadership-award/current-scholars)</p>
<p>ms sun, what percentage and/or how many semi-finalists do you think there are compared to the total number of scholarship applicants?</p>
<p>i dont know what they’ve changed, but last year I remember tons of people made it to the interview round. I had my interview around late may and didn’t find out the results until mid-end of june…and at the award dinner they said only a small amount of people actually got the scholarship after the interview round. guess i was lucky. i did have a really great interview though :)</p>
<p>As I recall it is about 200-250 freshman who receive the award, then you reapply each year and I think there are about 700-800 total scholars.</p>
<p>And, yes, I do think ASkMsSun is right, it was adding hype to those months of waiting for admissions and deciding and people did not seem to see it as a deal breaker. Also, it was tough for the local alumni groups to get all the interviews done and decisions made by May 1st, so some finalists from some areas knew they were awarded and others did not. I do know my DD found out she got it on the day she was picking a school and while it was not the only factor, it was definitely good timing!</p>
<p>Wow 200- 250 is a veryyyyy small number, anyone know how many people make it to the semi -finals?</p>
<p>I don’t have the paperwork right in front of me, but I think it’s around 1,000-1,500 semi-finalists and 250 freshman scholarship recipients.</p>
<p>that’s a little annoying because it does happen to be a deciding factor for me. I know that I’d get a great education at either UCLA or Cal, so now it’s coming down to wherever I can get the most financial aid.</p>