I am a high school senior, currently debating whether or not I should even put forth the time and effort to apply (very late!) to the Wendy’s Heisman Scholarship. I have solid extracurriculars and community service for 10th and 11th grade; for 9th grade, I was far more into athletics than volunteering/ clubs (regrets!!), so I have less to show for that year. I am a “good” athlete but not phenomenal by any means; I switched from varsity soccer to cross country in my junior year and experienced a lot of success, but had a rough districts race and didn’t make it to state. I’m worried that I’m not impressive enough athletically, let alone in my volunteer activities.
However, I am in a very unique and rigorous early-college program where students actually conduct undergraduate research, and by maintaining a 4.0, it definitely bolsters my resume. Another hook might be my art; I’ve been working on a small business (drawing and selling portraits) since last summer. Still, I have to list my sponsoring high school as my primary school (even though I don’t take any classes there) because my school is obviously sponsoring the athletics, which is the whole point of the scholarship. My test scores are okay (31 ACT, re-took in September and waiting for results… 2020 SAT, not so great but I only took it once, never studied).
Any opinions on whether or not I should give this a go? For perspective, I was a semi-finalist for the Nordstrom scholarship. Writing is my strong suit and I am usually a relatively competitive applicant in smaller scholarship pools, but I feel really out of my league on this one. If I do this, I’m going to try to incorporate as much about the early-college program as possible into my essays.
If you have the time, then go for it. It is a time intensive application with five essay questions. It is heavily sports related though. It would also depend how many from your school may be applying if you could find that out. There is one male and one female winner from each school selected to advance. So if you know many from your school are applying and have stronger athletic and scores-most will have higher ACTs and who have won conference, placed at state, varsity captains and that type of stuff. Also most, if not all will have 4 years of the same sport and usually 3 of those on varsity.
Thanks so much for your input @ssjr16 !! The deadline actually got extended to Monday, so I now have more time than I anticipated. Here is my high school sport timeline (should have put this in original post - sorry!):
JV Soccer and Varsity track freshman year (placed 6th in all-time high school record in Girls' 800M race)
Varsity Soccer and JV Tennis sophomore year
Varsity Cross Country (voted to be Captain for 2015-2016 season, "Rookie of the Year" Award - haha - Scholastic (4.0) award, and 1st Team All-District), Varsity Tennis (Most Improved, Coach's Award) junior year
Varsity XC this year, spring sport TBD... (but I don't think senior year matters as much for this app)
I obviously lack the continuity that you addressed when describing a “typical” applicant… in terms of # of applicants from my school, I would guess that very, very few (if any) are applying. It’s a large public high school, not known for having top-notch academics/athletics…
Do you think I should go for it, given that I’ll likely have very little competition with people in my school?
Thanks so much again!!
Yes definitely go for it. I originally thought for the essays that the 1300 and 500 were word limits but they are actually character limits so they should not take quite as long as I thought. Having a school record will really help you along with the other sports awards. Since there is not a spot to list Captain for your cross country team because it’s senior year, make sure you make mention of it in one of your essays.
If anything it will help prepare you for future scholarships as you will have to gather all your volunteering hours, work hours and other EC’s which you may have already done for the common app. Good Luck and let us know how it goes.
Hi,
All scholarships are great, so you should definitely apply for them. College is really expensive nowadays, so it doesn’t hurt to apply, especially since writing is one of your strengths!!
