*Ok, so it doesn’t have to be college. It can be for trade school or any other kind of higher education.
Guidelines:
You can afford to send someone to any college, for the amount of time needed to complete a BS/BA (4-5 years). Would your scholarship be for only one particular school (like your alma mater), or would it be the recipient’s choice? (Note: if it is truly their choice, this means you may be paying for them to go somewhere like UC Berkeley or Oral Roberts, so think hard about this one.)
What type of person should get it? Male, female, nontraditional, certain economic status, race, religion, etc.? How do you decide who gets it: essay contest, interview, high school transcript, flip a coin, etc?
Where does your pool of applicants come from? Nationwide? State? Just your county/city? Anyone who hears about it and bothers to apply?
Will you require them to have a certain major, or stay away from certain majors?
GPA requirement, if any.
“Full ride” usually means that the scholarship will cover the dorm. Would dorm living be a requirement the whole 4 years?
Can/Should the recipient work while in school? Do you have a preference either way?
Name any “extras” you would throw in (stipend, bonuses, etc.)
Name offenses – OTHER than GPA going in the toilet – that would cause them to lose the scholarship.
I would endow a scholarship at my alma mater, becasue my alma mater is in a conservative part of Illinois and my recipient would be openly gay (not something CI is used to yet).
Openly GLBT. Would need to demonstrate an understanding of some basics of queer history, so I’d design an exam that they’d have to score well on and an essay. GPA’s not that important to me as a criterion, but the school would have to admit them of course so there would undoubtedly be some GPA requirement.
Anyone who wants to apply for it could.
No required major, but I’d want them to take courses in things like Women’s Studies, Sociology, Psychology, etc. When I was in school we were talking very preliminarily about establishing a Queer Studies minor (mostly fashioned out of existing courses but adding new courses like Gay History and Gay Lit) so I’d hope the school would offer such a minor and I’d require it if they did.
They’d have to maintain a GPA at least equal to the one I maintained (and I ain’t tellin’!).
Hell no! They can if they want to but I would never require anyone to live in a dorm. If they lived off-campus I’d cover an amount up to the cost of dorm living.
I would expect them to be actively involved with the campus queer group. The faculty advisor would be involved in determining whether the person was actively involved or not; not sure what if any specifics would be involved in making that determination.
Dunno, maybe cover the cost of going to some Pride events?
Yeah, I think I’d limit it to my alma mater (William and Mary), just to narrow the pool of applicants and keep the costs from spiraling out of control.
Applicants would have to be 1) people who have never traveled outside of the U.S. before and do not have the means to do so on their own; and 2) people who want a college education (rather than wanting to purchase a diploma) and value learning for its own sake. Obviously the second criterion is subjective and eminently fakeable, but I think personal essays and interviews should do a bit to narrow down the candidates.
Anybody who cares to apply and meets criterion #1.
No, but I would require them to be continuously enrolled in classes in a modern foreign language of their choice. They do not, however, have to major in this language; I’d strongly encourage them to pursue any major that interested them.
3.0 sounds reasonable, but I’m flexible.
No.
No preference.
Ah, this is the good part. Recipients MUST study abroad for at least one semester (and will receive full financial backing for up to a year) on any program approved by the college, so long as it’s in a non-English-speaking country and all classes are conducted in the host country’s language. I’d also give them a generous chunk o’ change (say $3,500 plus airfare to the destination of their choice) on condition that they spend the first summer after their graduation traveling. No conditions about where they go and what they do, but they have to stay away for at least two months, they have to do all the research and planning for the trip themselves, and they have to travel alone, or at least without the company of anybody they already know. (This last bit will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis: if they want to spend part of the time with a volunteer organization or going to language school, that’s OK; if they just want to hop on a tour bus with a bunch of other partying college kids, no way.)
This would be designed for a somewhat traditional college student, 18-22ish. I have totally different ideas for a scholarship for a nontraditional scholarship.
I would prefer it to be for my school, Marshall University. However, I would be open to considering other schools, as Marshall doesn’t offer every course of study, and also sometimes a kid’s just gotta get out of their hometown. About the only stipulation I’d put on the choice of school was that it’s accredited. None of these tree-hugging hippy schools that don’t believe in grades.
I would pick a kid who wasn’t particularly stellar in high school but wasn’t a slacker. Someone who, for whatever reason, is going to have a really hard time paying for college: maybe their parents make too much money for financial aid or something. Gender, race, and religion are irrelevant.
As far as choosing who gets it, I’d look at a variety of things. High school grades would be important, but I’d be willing to overlook a C average if the applicant was really big into community service. I’d look at the ACT score, but take it with a grain of salt as some people don’t test well. Age would be somewhat of a factor, as someone who took a couple of years off after high school might be less likely to burn out than an 18 year old going straight to college with no break.
I would probably require an essay up front which would weed out the people who can’t write. It’s not that I’d be looking for the Great American Novel, all I’d want is correct sentence structure, grammar and punctuation. No clue as to what the essay’s topic would be. Probably one of those crazy hypothetical questions, because I’d be more interested in how they express and defend their position rather than their actual answer.
Whoever makes the essay cut would have an interview. It’d be informal, probably lunch somewhere with me, one-on-one. I would insist they wear jeans because I wouldn’t want some overdressed nervous kid on my hands; I’d want to see them in as natural a setting as possible.
I’d want to keep it local. I’m dismayed at the number of capable West Virginia kids who don’t even consider college. If I couldn’t find a suitable person in my county, I’d expand my search to the surrounding counties. If in the highly unlikely event I still couldn’t find someone, I’d go statewide.
I wouldn’t require them to have a certain major but the goal of the scholarship would be to set a kid up so he/she can get a degree that they can use. All other things being equal, I’d pick a Business major over a Philosophy major. Both are worthy to be studied, but the idea is a career after graduation.
I would give a slight preference to people who were going into “non-traditional” fields: for example, a male kindergarten teacher or a female rocket scientist.
For their freshman year, all I’d want is a 2.5 but that would be very flexible. I think the freshman year is the hardest and it takes a while to balance school and social life so I could be forgiving of one VERY bad semester (especially if it was their first), as long as I knew they were going to class and doing their work. After that, as long as they stay out of academic trouble with the university (and their academic program) itself, I wouldn’t have a requirement.
I wouldn’t require living in the dorm.
I wouldn’t want them to work their freshman and even sophmore if it could be helped. One of the main reasons I nearly failed out of college the first time around was working a 40-hour week.
$250 stipend every month to be spent on whatever they want (barring illegal activities, of course). Also, maybe a bonus for really killer grades.
Any kind of trouble with the law is going to get them into deep trouble but it would depend on what they did. I could overlook underage drinking (or pot use) ONCE. After that, they’d better wise up and get clean, because if they get caught after that, it’s over.
A DUI, however, would be an automatic pack-your-bags regardless of age. There’s no reason to drink and drive, and they would know before they even started school that if they chose to, there’s no second chance.
Well, I would offer a ‘bouvolarship.’ It is a scholarship that goes to the person who most reminds me of me. Selfish? Yes. But I’m a rich, eccentric old man, I can do what I want!
It wouldn’t have to be my Alma Mater (RPI,) but it would have to be a similar school at least, like WPI, RIT, MIT, Cal Tech, etc…Basically, they need to go to a technical school, or at least a school that is predominately technical.
First requirement would be the recepient is male. Odds are, someone will complain and I’ll have to accept women too, but I can try to keep it male only (I’m trying to get the person who reminds me of me. It’s hard for a woman to do that.) They have to want to pursue a technical/science degree of some kind. Engineering, biology, chemistry, something with computers other than IT or electronic art (no offense to those majors, but, especially with EA, they are less technical than the others.) In addition, they need to have a good amount of extracurricular. I ain’t givin’ this thing out to the hardcore nerds! You need to have a social life. For instance, I was in the band (regular, jazz, orchestra, and pit orchestra for the fall musical), ran track and cross country, was in the scholar’s bowl and yearbook, and did the student run theatre. Obviously, they don’t need all these things, but if I look at their HS life and it’s all AP classes with straight A’s, and nothing else, they ain’t gettin’ it.
It would be nationwide, but from rural areas. If they come from a city with a population greater than 10,000, they need not apply.
See #2
No specific requirements, but if it drops below a 2.3 then maybe some investigation would be underway to determine why.
I feel that living in a dorm is part of the college experience, but so is learning to live on your own. I would only require them to live in the dorms their freshman year (most colleges seem to do this anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.) If they chose to live off campus, up to a certain amount would be paid for rent, the amount based off the average price for apartments/townhouses/whatever in that area.
They do not need to work while in school. I did a work study for one semester, and hated it, and wouldn’t put them through that torture, if they want to do it on their own, by all means, they can. (This is one of the times I’ll make an exception to the “as much like me as possible” claus.)
Doing each of the following things results in a slight stipend (maybe $50 or $100 to spend on something fun. It MUST be spent on something fun!)
a) Actually attending my Alma Mater
b) Being from my home state (VT)
c) Being from my hometown (Bristol)
d) While there, joining my fraternity.
e) Majoring in biomedical engineering
Switching to an unapproved major. Examples include:
Anything that results in a BA, not a BS.
Information technology
Psychology
Literature
English
History
Business
Economics
Certain majors might result in less money…say 75% paid, or something. This list might includes things that are science, but less technical/hands on. It might include:
Math
Astronomy
Physics
All things will be considered on a case-by-case basis, though. If he wants to be a math major, he’ll be asked what he wants to do with the degree. If he says teach math (while admirable), then the money is reduced. If he says crack codes for the CIA (cool job!) he can keep all of it. I’m very whimsical, and I’m allowed to be, cause I’m a rich, eccentric, old man!
Wait…an addendum to #7. They don’t have to work during the school year, but at least two of the summers they will undergo a ‘bouvternship.’ They will live with me and learn the ways of bouv. Training in several areas are to be included, such as:
Being wacky
How to obtain a girlfriend that will cheat on you (hey, I got 2 of them that did this, so apparantly I was doing something that attracted them.)
Mooching 101
Mooching 202
Intro. to rambling
Of course, the first few weeks will be mostly spent learing to speak bouv. It involves speaking very fast, trying to keep up with how fast one is thinking, going on long-winded stories that don’t go anywhere, and the all too infamous doubleback manuver.
