<ol>
<li>Harvard: 326</li>
<li>Yale: 205</li>
<li>Stanford: 203</li>
<li>Princeton: 195</li>
<li>Duke: 136</li>
<li>K-State: 130</li>
<li>Brown: 127</li>
<li>Chicago: 124</li>
<li>MIT: 122</li>
<li>Cornell: 114</li>
</ol>
<p>Anyone know how KState got up there? Do they have a super dedicated scholarship office or something?:)</p>
<p>They got up there the old-fashioned way—they earned it.
At K-State, they ask, “How did Duke and Brown get up there? Do they have a super-dedicated scholarship office or something?”</p>
<p>Because, while this is difficult for provincial northeasterners such as yourself to believe, there are smart people everywhere? And not everyone who is smart dreams solely of HYPSM et al?</p>
<p>
What in the world are you talking about? First of all, I live in the South now and I grew up in the Midwest and have never stayed for more than a week in the Northeast. </p>
<p>Of course there are smart people everywhere-my point is that Kansas State sticks out on this list because I have never seen it on any credible academic ranking ever or mentioned in academic circles at all.</p>
<p>If anything, I would like to draw POSITIVE ATTENTION to K State and its proven excellence in producing fellowship winners. If you dream of winning a Goldwater, clearly K State seems to prepare you just as well as MIT if not much, much better considering K State has a weaker student body than MIT.</p>
<p>FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, stop trying to kill every discussion that involves the discussion of the ranking of schools or highly sought after careers. If you don’t like the topic, then feel free to IGNORE the discussion at hand and move on. You’ve made your egalitarian motives clear and no one needs to hear your “there are smart people everywhere” and “prestige doesn’t matter” mantras over and over again. Why are you even on this site? I’m sure you know enough about universities to help your children make a decision on their college choice.</p>
<p>Just proves that this forum puts way too much attention on prestige.</p>
<p>I think it is quite interesting that K St does so well. While everybody is just saying prestige isn’t that important (and I generally agree), as you can see from the list, the top schools typically churn out the most scholarship winners. That isn’t to say there aren’t smart people at other locations; just that the schools with the most resources (read: money)/prestige/high academic stats student body typically fare better in sheer numbers for receiving national prestigious scholarships. This is just a fact. So why is K St so well represented? I think it’s a fair question. First, I must acknowledge that K St was the one who created the list and selectively chose which scholarships to use. They used the Udall Scholarship (in which they rank #3 on the listed schools), but left out Mitchell and Fulbright? Why? I don’t know, but perhaps they don’t focus on those as much. I’d say Mitchell and Fulbright are more prestigious though. According to their website, the Udall Scholarship requires you to either 1.) Be Native American or an Alaska Native and interesting in tribal public policy or health care, or 2.) interested in a career related to the environment. It awards 80 $5,000 scholarships and 50 honorable mentions of $350. Is K St including the $350 scholarship winners? I have no idea, but winning $350 as opposed to getting a masters degree from Oxford for free and a living stipend shouldn’t be counted as the same. Perhaps K St has a lot of Native Americans or a very large and dedicated environmental policy department. Having said that, K St’s other numbers are still decent, but if you remove Udall it drops below everything on the list except Cornell. Interesting…</p>
<p>^^^^ “…but if you remove Udall it drops below everything on the list except Cornell.”</p>
<p>Forget the Udall and the total number of awards. Pay attention to the number of Goldwater Scholarships. The Goldwater is extremely competitive and is considered the most prestigious undergraduate award in the sciences. Only Princeton and Harvard have more and not that many more than K-State.</p>
<p>It’s more a case of the school actively informing, encouraging, and supporting its students to apply for these fellowships. K State obviously makes it a more of a priority.</p>
<p>^^^ What? You don’t think Harvard et al. actively informs, encourages, and supports its students to apply?</p>
<p>Whether or not K-State encouraged their applicants, the awards were won on the merits of the applicants. </p>
<p>It’s funny that no one questions what Harvard is doing up there. What’s wrong with the selection committees? Don’t they know they’re supposed to kiss Ivy ass?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, I agree. K-State’s numbers are certainly impressive. They clearly must have a dedicated staff to help such high achieving students in the process and must provide a solid environmental in general in which top students can thrive by conducting top-notch research, etc. Clearly, they are doing something right. My only point was there could be some selective bias to skew the results, but even with that, their numbers are impressive. The Goldwater certainly is extremely prestigious.</p>
<p>Wizard of Oz: “Why, anybody can.have a brain. That’s a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven’t got: a diploma.”</p>
<p>But…“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Of course not, this is CC!</p>
<p>zapfino, of course Harvard et al do. Articles about this subject have been posted on this site in the past claiming level of institutional support is critical for getting its students fellowships.</p>
<p>The big # is the Goldwater scholarships, which I understand is some kind of science award.</p>
<p>There aren’t that many universities in Kansas, and K-State is the land grant school with programs in agriculture, veterinary medicine, also the best program in engineering (and architecture).</p>
<p>If some attempt is made to distribute the scholarships by state, or by region depending on how defined, I could well imagine scenarios where K State would logically garner the lion’s share of such awards in its region.</p>
<p>Might it be because Kansas State is the only good school in Kansas, and therefore anyone with half a brain goes there?</p>
<p>I’m being serious here. It would make sense.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. Kansas is generally more well-regarded than K-St. For example, Kansas is ranked #96 in USN&WR while Kansas State is considered third tier. Not saying that’s the end all conclusion, but KSt is clearly not the only good school in Kansas since most would consider Kansas to be better.</p>
<p>Both K St and Kansas practice qualified admissions:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Note that if you’re out of state for KU, you need an ACT of 24 or SAT of 1090, or be in top third of class or have a >2.0 GPA.</p>
<p>Edit: K St apparently has a much lower acceptance rate though at 55%, while Kansas admits 91% of its applicants according to the collegeboard.</p>
<p>The value of a proper awards office is very clear. UW recently started a small one and the improved results were immediate. And KU is a very good school.</p>
<p>[News</a> | UW-Madison Academic Staff](<a href=“http://acstaff.wisc.edu/announcements/posting.aspx?item=1002]News”>http://acstaff.wisc.edu/announcements/posting.aspx?item=1002)</p>
<p>Each institution can nominate up to 4 students. I think there is some distribution of awards by state of residence. Nonetheless, the quality of an applicant’s research must be deemed meritorious for the award, i.e., it’s not automatically given just to fill some sort of state quota. </p>
<p>I doubt many people would even ask how Harvard got its Goldwaters, but when it comes to K-State, I think the tendency of many people is to think that they must game the system. Of course, given K-State’s track record, the logical conclusion is that it might be a pretty good place for a talented science student to go (especially if s/he is from Kansas), but you’re not too likely to hear that heresy expressed much on CC. An important thing to note about the Goldwater is that students apply in their sophomore and junior years. I think this points to how quickly K-State gets these budding researchers up to speed. To do that, requires a very good mentoring process, and if we know anything about how young researchers develop, it’s very much a mentoring process. This is more readily recognized when it comes to the success of LACs in producing future PhDs, but I think it’s less likely to be noticed in the case of a school like K-State. </p>
<p>They don’t just just grow wheat out in Kansas…they’re growing some future scientists, too…good to see that that good 'ol Midwestern empiricism is alive and well in the Land of Oz (or is it, AHHHHs?)!</p>
<p>What an interesting thread. It is pretty much a snapshot of what is good–and bad–about CC.</p>
<p>Way to go K-State. I certainly would not have known it was giving the big dogs a run for their money in this particular metric.</p>
<p>
This is the major reason. The reason why top privates easily outperform most publics (UVA, UNC, and the military academies are exceptions) for awards production is because the former push and recruit top students to apply for those awards. Some have an entire office devoted to helping students get Rhodes/Fulbright/Truman/Marshall/etc. awards.</p>
<p>
This is the secondary factor. There are more Goldwater scholarships given out each year than some of the others combined. Kansas State is 3rd (or thereabouts) in the production of Goldwater scholars. This helps its overall numbers.</p>
<p>
One must also consider that Kansas State has as many undergraduates as Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton combined but produces 18% of their combined total.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Kansas State doesn’t do particularly well in the recruiting of National Merit finalists, suggesting it goes beyond attracting top students. I agree with those suggesting Kansas State is clearly doing something well.</p>
<p>266 Harvard
234 Yale
214 Chicago*
196 Princeton
110 MIT & Stanford
105 Duke
91 Brown</p>
<h2>68 Cornell</h2>
<h2>49 Kansas*</h2>
<p>8 Kansas State*</p>
<p>*Offers NMF scholarships</p>
<p>^^^ “Interestingly, Kansas State fares poorly in the recruiting of National Merit finalists.”</p>
<p>I think it’s a given that many admitted students at top private universities will be NMFs. It’s not that big a deal for them. For K-State to recruit more NMFs, it would require some incentives. Politically, I think public institutions have a difficult time doing this, at least in the case of out-of-state students. It would probably involve significant merit aid at a time that most state universities can even provide sufficient need-based aid.</p>