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Did anyone's kid do a competitive scholarship, scholar's day type interview online last Spring?


Dmmetler
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3 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

L’s interview is Monday afternoon, so spare some positive vibes, please 🙂

 

The Scholar’s day activities and the classes they can choose to sit in (virtually) next week look awesome. 

How did it go?

I'm getting here late. My daughter did a few online interviews because of our distance geographically from schools. Never a full scholarship weekend online though! That is next level for sure 🙂

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Next Monday :). The interviews are Monday-Friday, and there is a whole list of courses that the scholars candidates can sign up to attend (which sound really neat), and then a weekend of virtual stuff, including meeting with different campus groups, departmental folks, students in the scholars programs, etc. Any candidate who completes the weekend and interview gets a small scholarship added to their package (I think everyone who is a candidate has already gotten substantial merit aid), and is in the running for the top scholarship.

Apparently in most years, scholars candidates would have gotten a plane ticket to come in and do this on campus. Which would have been nice. On paper, this looks like an amazing school, and they have been really trying to do events virtually, but even if you go to campus, you can’t see more than closed buildings, because they have not reopened in person at all this academic year. Which in some ways is a plus-it is obvious that they are taking the safety of their students and faculty seriously. But it means that, ultimately, this year’s students will have to decide sight unseen unless they had visited before last March. And when you’re talking a private LAC, that’s a big commitment to make. 
 

 

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6 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

Next Monday :). The interviews are Monday-Friday, and there is a whole list of courses that the scholars candidates can sign up to attend (which sound really neat), and then a weekend of virtual stuff, including meeting with different campus groups, departmental folks, students in the scholars programs, etc. Any candidate who completes the weekend and interview gets a small scholarship added to their package (I think everyone who is a candidate has already gotten substantial merit aid), and is in the running for the top scholarship.

Apparently in most years, scholars candidates would have gotten a plane ticket to come in and do this on campus. Which would have been nice. On paper, this looks like an amazing school, and they have been really trying to do events virtually, but even if you go to campus, you can’t see more than closed buildings, because they have not reopened in person at all this academic year. Which in some ways is a plus-it is obvious that they are taking the safety of their students and faculty seriously. But it means that, ultimately, this year’s students will have to decide sight unseen unless they had visited before last March. And when you’re talking a private LAC, that’s a big commitment to make. 
 

 

Oh! Well, wishing her the best of luck! The Class of '20 got a good bit of attention for the things they missed (and I have a '20 college grad, so totally get it), but I tend to think Class of '21 is getting a worse deal, in most parts of the country anyway. I'm even stressing a bit about my '22 grad, who has a personality that really needs to see places to get her mind wrapped around differences. I guess we may try some summer visits/walkarounds, depending on...various things. EA apps are going to hit fast in the fall, and fall is a terrible time from our location as far as visits.

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A box arrived from Agnes Scott today, presumably for the Scholar's weekend :). They definitely seem to be trying to make things special for the kids. (Although between this and the charm that arrived with the early action acceptance, it is starting to feel less like a college and more like Sorority rush!) 

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L thinks it went well, but also wonders how the heck they judge those things 🙂. The panel included L's Admissions rep, a chemistry professor, aND a political science professor. 

 

The box contains a t-shirt, tote bag, keychain, note pad, coloring pages, colored pencils, pen, purple M&M's, hand lotion in their signature scent, and a personal note from L's Admissions rep. Almost all with cute little purple Scottie dogs on it.   

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L tends to assume the worst (and, in fairness, when your point of comparison for kids your age are all other early college overachievers you meet at summer programs, and your point of comparison professionally are all people who are either PhD candidates or working professionals, it is probably easy to assume that you aren't terribly exceptional!), so when I hear " it went well, but I probably won't get it because I'm sure there are people who have more interesting plans and ideas than I do", that probably means it got knocked out of the park. 

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I really think Agnes Scott did about the best job they could do. The kids had a range of interesting classes they could sit in on, as well as panels with current students. There was also a virtual Fair where students and parents could talk to different campus services, and social events, like watching a movie together (Netflix sharing), color and chat, games of Among Us, and virtual tours of the observatory with an Astronomy professor. Parents had the usual alumni and faculty panels, financial aid, etc. 

 

They has said they will call EVERY applicant about scholarship decisions on Friday, so fingers really really tightly crossed! We need at least 10k/yr more to bring it to the same range as the state schools after automatic merit. 

 

We are planning to go to Decatur and visit the town and campus, at least, in a couple of weeks. 

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Not the top full ride scholarship, but a pretty good amount of merit aid. It would still be a more expensive total cost than some of the other schools. We’re going to visit over Spring Break and at least get an idea of the campus. I think it is going to come down to Agnes Scott or UAH. 

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If the choice ended up between AS and Mizzou, that would be two extremes. UAH is only about 8000 students, which is still a lot more than Agnes Scott, and because of transferred credit, there aren't likely to be many, if any large classes. The honors college will also provide a smaller group. But there is still a distinct difference between small LAC Women's college and State Engineering Focused University!

 

The good news is that I don't think there's a bad choice to be made. The bad news is that one still has to be, and since we can't see either school right now as they will be in the fall, it's hard to make that choice. UAH has a bit of an edge since we have visited there pre-COVID. 

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