Episode 103: Undergraduate Research Scholarships

Transcript

• [0:00:07] BHA: Seeking a scholarship is among the best ways to secure financial support for college. But that's not all scholarships are good for.

  [0:00:14] BT: For those looking to enrich their college experience right from the start, certain scholarships provide something more: learning opportunities. I'm Brooke Thames from Bucknell University.

  [0:00:22] BHA: And I'm Becca Haupt-Aldridge, also from Bucknell.
  In this episode, we're diving into the world of undergraduate scholarship programs. We'll discuss the opportunities that these scholarships afford, how they take shape at Bucknell, and the kinds of students these programs can benefit most.

  [0:00:36] BT: Joining us are two guests with experience in this realm. Elizabeth Durden is a faculty member in Bucknell's sociology department, and Carrine Phillips is an associate director of admissions here at Bucknell. Welcome to the podcast.

  [0:00:47] CP: Thanks for having us.

  [0:00:49] BHA: Elizabeth, this is your first time on the podcast.

  [0:00:51] ED: Happy to be here.

  [0:00:51] BHA: Can you tell us a little bit about your work in the sociology department at Bucknell and any particular research areas of interest?

  [0:00:57] ED: Thanks, Becca and Brooke, for having me. I'm happy to be here. So I just want to say to the audience, what distinguishes college faculty from high school faculty is that college professors are actively engaged in research. And my own research encompasses health outcomes and health inequalities, immigration policies and even food. And so courses that I've been teaching lately reflect my research interests, right? Health, Medicine and Society is a 200-level sociology class. Immigration and Children is a course that I have recently taught. And this semester, I'm also teaching the Sociology of Food.

  [0:01:26] BT: Carrine, you've shared your experience with us a few times here on College Admissions Insider, like in Episode 67, where we talked about community engagement, and more recently, our discussion about pre-college programs. That's Episode 87. But for those who may be catching you for the first time today, what is your role at Bucknell?

  [0:01:43] CP: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. So as an associate director, one of my main roles for the office is to help oversee our large-scale events. So all of our Open Houses and Admitted Student Days. I also help to oversee our admissions ambassadors and our summer program called the BASE camp. And outside of that, just a normal territory manager recruiting in Fairfield County, Connecticut, New Haven, and our Northeast and North Central PA areas.

  [0:02:05] BHA: Corinne and Elizabeth, you both work in tandem to enroll and guide students through Bucknell's most prestigious scholarship programs. There are three, one for the College of Arts & Sciences, one for the College of Engineering, and one for the College of Management. These are far more than monetary awards. But before we get into exactly what that means, Carinne, how can a prospective student tell what scholarship is just a dollar amount and which ones have an academic component involved?

  [0:02:31] CP: That's a great question and oftentimes something that I think a lot of students may struggle to differentiate when they receive news from universities. I think when you get that initial financial aid award letter, it's really important to look beyond that initial dollar amount and really read the fine print.

  Some scholarships are really just going to be a financial aid award. You receive a certain amount of dollars every year. You could be awarded that because of academic achievement, community service, artistic talent, something that was seen in the application. There's a plethora of options there as to why you might have received that. An example on our own campus is our Dean's Scholarship that is awarded for students for academic achievement, but there's no additional component to that.

  Other scholarships are going to be a combination. You're going to get both financial aid, money you'll get every single year, and it could have an additional component to it. That could be maintaining a specific GPA every single year. Maybe it's an honors program and an honors college at that institution. Maybe it's taking certain courses or you're part of a certain cohort with a community service or leadership opportunities. There's some particular element there, which is what we're really going to highlight and talk about today.

  So I will say as you're thinking about a scholarship at a certain institution, look at their financial aid website. That's a really great place to originally go to to see if they have information about the merit scholarships they're offering. And they should typically have information there about what the qualifications are or what the components are. And if that's a little bit confusing, you can always reach out to the representative for that institution — admissions rep specifically or just their regular admissions @ email account — and just ask them a question about the scholarship. What are the components? What do I need to do, if anything, in order to be potentially considered for this opportunity?

  [0:04:17] BT: Thanks for giving a rundown of those differentiations and some of the ways that students can tease through some of those. As far as what some of those extra components might look like, Elizabeth, you have a hand in organizing some of those academic enrichment opportunities attached to our Bucknell scholarships. So can you give us an overview of what that programming generally includes?

  [0:04:37] ED: Yes. So at Bucknell, we've got these three merit programs that were mentioned. One in the Malesardi Merit Scholars in the College of Arts & Sciences, the Engineering Merit Scholars in the College of Engineering, and also, we've got the Freeman College of Management also has their own Merit Scholar program.

  So one of the things I want to underscore is something that Carrine did mention, actually, is that some of these scholarships are providing financial aid, but you're also going to get an academic component, right? And that's something that I'm involved in. So as faculty director of the Malesardi and the Engineering Merit Scholar Program, we run common hours. So in addition to the money that you get, the students will also be paired with a faculty member. So one of the things that they do is that they are paired in an academic research component. They work six to seven hours a week in an ongoing, very collaborative research project. On top of that, we have a community common hour program. And the purpose of this common hour program is to really, I think, facilitate a community, a cohort among the students that are coming in to really support them in ways in and outside of the classroom, providing real enriching opportunities for them to learn about things that Bucknell offers that might not immediately be available or not immediately be seen.

  I think it's also a way to provide our really high achieving merit scholars with some more bespoke programming. It really does allow them to meet people that perhaps not every Bucknell student is meeting. It allows them to network in ways that are particular to their own interests and also their own achievements.

  [0:06:04] BHA: So at Bucknell, students have a common experience across all three colleges. But when designing these new scholarships, we also knew that there were nuances from college to college that we wanted those experiences to be unique or customizable so that the Merit Scholarship can really reflect the academic experience in the student's particular college. Can you talk about how that shows up in differences between a scholarship for an engineering student in the College of Engineering versus a student with the Malesardi Arts & Sciences Scholarship?

  [0:06:35] ED: So there are some differences. So for example, in our Freeman College of Management, the Merit Scholars, all students in all three colleges are given the exact same award amount. So they're all given $40,000 a year annually for the four years that they're here at Bucknell. But beyond that, there are additional programming and awards that are attached to these. For our students in the Freeman College of Management, they're given $5,000 that actually supports them in pursuing an internship. For example, if you're a management student, you've been here, you've studied at Bucknell for a year or two, and you're ready to go get some amazing internship in Seattle, your merit scholarship is going to give you some funds to help you get to Seattle, to pay for your apartment, to actually give you that networking and that enriching that you need.

  In the College of Arts & Sciences and in the College of Engineering, it's a little bit different, right? So what we're doing over in those two colleges is students are given that financial award, that annual award for every year. But then on top of that, every year, they're given approximately $2,000 each year to support their research endeavors. So students are matched with faculty members. The faculty members are having these ongoing really rich research projects that they're working on. Students are able to select the project that they want to be invested in, they pair up with the faculty member, and over the course of four years, they are engaged in a really deep intellectual project. But the students are also paid to be invested in such a project. This is one way that there is a difference between those two colleges.

  [0:07:59] BT: Those sound like really incredible, immersive opportunities across all three colleges. And although the details might differ, it sounds like there's a big emphasis on experiential learning altogether, whether that's academic or career focus, like you mentioned with the Freeman College of Management. What sets this grouping of programs apart from the standard experience a student might have, say, in a Bucknell major program?

  [0:08:22] ED: That's a great question. I think that one thing that really jumps out to me is that makes this program exceptional and quite different from a standard experience that a student may have at Bucknell or any other college or university that they may be looking at. And what strikes me is an immediate impact and a sustained impact, all right?

  For the students, there is that immediate impact of being paired with this program. For the students in the College of Arts & Sciences and the College of Engineering, they are having immediate interactions with faculty members, the faculty director, other merit scholars before they even step on campus. So these students, they're coming from California, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, wherever they're coming from. Over the summer before they step foot on campus, we're having Zoom meetings, right? We're talking about things like what to expect in your research project, how to approach a faculty member, what are the expectations of college? And it starts to really build a cohort among them, but also kind of like makes entering into college not so shadowy, right? They're given information. And in some ways, that's sort of the non-monetary award of the scholarship, right? That's immediate.

  The other part of immediacy that I think about is students have an immediate faculty research mentor before they step on campus. And so in their first three days that they're on campus, they're meeting with their faculty members. They're setting up a schedule of what they're going to follow. They're diving into the research. And I really think that that gives them an immediate relationship that they can touch to.

  Dan Chambliss out of Hamilton College, he wrote this amazing book called What Makes College Work. And he has shown and his research has shown that what makes college successful is relationships. And if you can have relationships, and if you can have successful relationships from week one, week two, that's going to ensure that you have a much more fulfilling relationship. It's going to increase your ties to the university that you have. And I think that that's also going to set you up for long-term success. So that's that immediate thing that I think about.

  And then I also think about sustained. There's something about this program that really looks at a sustained relationship. So it's not as if we provide this bespoke programming and research opportunity your first year. It will last for four years. And that sustained investment in a student is going to pay dividends in ways that in some ways are incalculable, I truly believe. And that this is something that really makes the Merit Scholars program at Bucknell really unique and different from what other students are experiencing and I think really makes it unique from what other colleges and universities are offering.

  [0:10:49] BHA: Yeah. And it's something that we hear prospective students asking for early on. And so not only are you providing space to begin and continue and support these really meaningful relationships between students and faculty members. But you're also teaching the skills so that students can initiate those conversations across all realms within the bubble of that scholarship experience and common hour, but also outside of it at Bucknell and beyond. And one of those differentiators of a program like this is the built-in community that you're establishing from the start. How does the social aspect show up throughout those four years?

  [0:11:26] ED: It's a great question. I think that the social aspects, you feel them more immediately in that first year, right? Students, they're in a new place, they're in a new space. And we come together once a week. And so they're really able to build a different type of relationship outside of their roommate, their hallway, their residential college experience. And so this provides, I think, a set of like-minded people in which you're able to share experiences. Yes, I'm doing research over in a chemistry lab. Yes, I'm doing research with a professor of art history. Those are two very different things. However, what these students share in common is that commitment to the academic process, which is I think a real commitment to making the very most of their opportunities here at Bucknell. And by having a cohort that brings them together, it allows them to share that.

  But let's also be clear, these are also very social events. And so, yes, we're doing a lot of behind-the-scenes academic programming from them that really does support what they're doing, but we're also having a lot of fun. Oftentimes, students will have dinner at a faculty director's house. That would be mine. They're coming together in ways that are not just about the research that's in front of them, right? We go and see basketball games with the dean of the college, right? There are ways that we're taking these relationships and inserting them into other parts of their lives.

  [0:12:48] BT: Yeah, we know something that is top of mind for students coming to college is making friends, making those connections with their fellow classmates. And this sounds like a really robust way to kind of have that from the start. But you also mentioned commitment in there. And so what kind of commitment is expected from students time-wise, academically? What should they be aware of responsibility-wise when going into a scholarship program like this?

  [0:13:11] ED: That's a really great question. This program comes with a lot of benefits, but I also think it does come with a level of commitment that you do not see from your other scholarship programs. Students are expected to work between six and seven hours a week. There's flexibility in the expectation of those hours. But overall, that would be the general expectation, that students are engaged in research six to seven hours a week on top of their other classes and responsibilities.

  The other commitment I think is that, in some ways, it's an unwritten one, but students are expected to approach this with a maturity that might not be expected of other first-year students, right? We are providing the opportunity for these students to work with some of the very best academics in their area, in the country — and with no exaggeration — sometimes in the world, right? I mean, faculty are giving of their time to help mold these really young students, and it's something that's incredibly rewarding. But students need to be able to seize that opportunity, to be able to say that, "I need to show up to my meetings prepared." That, "I need to not blow off the hours that I've been given or expected." And when students do that, they are paid back 100-fold in terms of what they receive in this relationship.

  I often tell the students when they come in, I was like, "Yes, you got the largest scholarship that Bucknell offers. Congratulations to you. That's huge. You're given a small amount of money each year to help support your research. But a lot of what you're being paid for are intangibles." It's relationships. It's future conference presentations. It's publications on papers. It's learning to present yourself in a different way. It's networking at levels that are incredible in terms of who you get to network with. And this is part of the payment. But to receive that payment, you need to be ready to show up to do that kind of work.

  [0:14:49] BHA: I'd like to circle back around the top of the episode, where we talked about the admissions process and how a student even ends up with an award like this one. At Bucknell, it might be required for a student to submit a separate scholarship application to qualify for certain awards. But it varies from scholarship to scholarship, and it certainly varies from institution to institution. What's the qualification process for the scholarship programs that we're talking about today, and how might that differ from place to place?

  [0:15:16] CP: That's a great question. For our three scholarships we've been talking about — the Malesardi Arts & Sciences Merit Scholars, Engineering Merit Scholars — and the Management Merit Scholars, there is no additional application outside of your application to Bucknell. These scholarships are what we would consider an automatic consideration. You may hear other institutions using that language. It basically means that for every student who applies to Bucknell, you are automatically going to be considered and reviewed for one of those three based off of what you indicate your first choice major to be. So students who are applying in all three of our rounds — Early Decision I, Early Decision II, and Regular Decision — will all be reviewed for those respective scholarships.

  However, for other institutions, their top scholarships might require an additional component. Sometimes that could be submitting an additional essay or essays, plural. That might be a portfolio of your academic work or artistic work, depending on what it might be. It could also be additional letters of recommendation from an employer or from an additional teacher. For some, it could also be a certain deadline. Maybe you need to submit the scholarship application before the decision deadline is for their application. It's all going to be a little different.

  A good rule of thumb is to always check the website of that institution to determine what is required of you to even be considered for that respective scholarship. And of course, if things are unclear, send an email, reach out to a contact just to make sure that you are staying on your track of timeline as it relates to your college application process.

  [0:16:46] BT: And even though a student doesn't necessarily need to declare their intention through a secondary scholarship at Bucknell, are there academic requirements or thresholds that students should meet in their overall transcript that you're looking at in their application for admission?

  [0:17:01] CP: Right. The students want to know the secret sauce. What do I need to do in order to receive something like this? Since Bucknell is a holistic review process, there truly is no minimum or maximum. There's no specific number that we are looking for when we're evaluating a transcript in order to consider them for this.

  We evaluate students within the context of their high school and the opportunities that are available to them. We know that not every high school is made equally, and the resources that you have for academic curriculum are going to differentiate. So we want to make sure that we're looking at it through a contextual lens rather than just evaluating a number on a piece of paper.

  That said, these are extremely academic competitive scholarships. The students we're considering are typically amongst the strongest applicants in our pool. They have exceptionally strong grades. They've challenged themselves with the most rigorous coursework available to them. And they have demonstrated a consistent level of academic achievement throughout high school. We're also looking at the full academic picture. So things like rigor of the courses they've taken, how have they performed in those respective classes, and the context of their high school.

  So it's not necessarily about saying you need exactly this GPA or this exact number of APs, honors, IB courses, dual enrollment, etc. It's really about asking a larger picture of, "How has the student challenged themselves, and how successful have they been within the opportunities available to them?" And then once we identify that strong academic group, then we begin to look at some of those qualitative pieces of the application.

  [0:18:37] BHA: So you're really talking about the top of a high school graduating class, and then that's the top of an applicant pool here at Bucknell. In respect to those qualitative parts of the application, is there something that stands out to you that makes you say, wow, this would be a great Malesardi Arts & Sciences scholar, or the other two respective programs?

  [0:18:55] CP: Once we've identified that really top outstanding group of academically exceptional students, the qualitative pieces of the application really start to become important in helping us understand the student beyond the transcript. We're looking at their writing and their intellectual curiosity. How do they think? How do they communicate about themselves? But also, how are others communicating about them? And what might they be bringing to an academic community like Bucknell?

  We're also looking at their character and the ways that they've engaged with opportunities and people around them. So letters of recommendation can be really helpful because they give us the perspective of a teacher, or an employer, or a school counselor, or a coach who've actually worked with that student for a period of time and can speak to qualities that might not be immediately apparent from something like an academic transcript.

  There's also really no single essay topic or single activity that you need to have in your application in order to get that green light. It's really about the combination of all of those pieces and the picture that they create of the student that is helpful for us. We're ultimately asking ourselves, "Who is the student beyond the numbers, and what might they contribute to our community as a whole?" And for a scholarship as competitive as this, those qualitative pieces can help us distinguish amongst a top group of students who are already exceptional.

  So when you're thinking about your college application, my biggest piece of advice is to try to be as authentic as you can. It's probably something you've heard in your college search process already, and I hope you've at least heard that maybe once. The strongest applications really give us an authentic sense of who you are, what you're curious about, what your passions are, what matters to you, and how you've made the most of everything surrounding you — both in your school and your community throughout your respective journeys.

  [0:20:51] BT: And so once you have that top group that you've curated based on all of those holistic qualities, how are they notified that they received the scholarship, especially when they didn't apply for it?

  [0:21:01] CP: That's a great question. For our three scholarships we're talking about here at Bucknell, students find out about the scholarship at the same time that they find out that they've been admitted. When a student receives their admissions decision, they will receive a letter congratulating them on their acceptance to Bucknell, and that same letter will also let them know that they've been selected for one of these merit scholarships.

  We also make sure that the financial aid information is released at the same time as the admissions decision. So students can see the scholarship reflected directly on their financial aid award as well. We really want the financial aid picture to be clear as possible when students are making those college decisions.

  We've also added another personal touch to the process. Students have also received a printed letter from Elizabeth in their admissions packet, specifically congratulating them on being selected for the scholarship. It's a really nice opportunity to reinforce just how special the recognition is and how excited we are to welcome them to Bucknell.

  [0:21:57] BHA: I imagine that despite our best efforts, not every recipient of these types of awards knows about them prior to receiving them in their acceptance packet. So for a student who may be finding out about a program like this for the very first time, what are some good questions they should ask to get a good sense of what they've just been offered?

  [0:22:15] CP: It is an important question to consider. Because students, as you've noted, might not have even known that this particular scholarship or program even existed when they applied or before they applied. They may have opened their admissions letter and realized that they've been selected and they're like, "What is this? I've never seen this before." So I would recommend, of course, to reiterate what I mentioned in the beginning, to not just look at the respective dollar amount that is noted there or on the financial aid letter, but really take some time to understand the whole opportunity that's being presented to you.

  So a couple of questions that I would recommend you ask would be, "Is this scholarship renewable? And what do I need to maintain it? Is there a certain GPA requirement each semester? Do I need to maintain a certain course load? Or do I need to make satisfactory academic progress?" Every institution approaches that a little bit differently, so I would start there.

  I would also ask, "Is there any academic or experiential component to this respective scholarship? Does that mean that there's a specific course or seminar that I have to be a part of? Is there a cohort of students that I will be interacting with, or am I going to be doing this independently? Are there research, mentoring, leadership or service opportunities, or all of the above (like ours) that come with this respective scholarship? And then what do those requirements look like in practice? What can I envision as my day-to-day as X-scholarship, as X-scholar recipient? Is there a specific type of community that I'm going to be joining?" Sometimes that community or the experiences that come with it are just as valuable as a dollar amount, as Elizabeth has really shared in our process so far.

  Those are just a couple of the questions that I would say from the get-go could be really helpful to help you imagine what this respective experience would look like on the college campus that is awarding you the respective scholarship.

  [0:24:07] ED: If I could just jump in for a second, I just think that I want to reinforce and underline what Carrine just said. Some of the best conversations I had last year were the ones from students that didn't know that they were up for this award. They got the award and they're like, "Holy cow." And having the conversation with these students that were so excited to realize who did read the fine print. And it's like, wow, there's more than just the scholarship? There's all this built-in cohort, research support, research opportunity, which honestly really made Bucknell stand apart for them.

  One of the things that I would encourage students to do is ask questions. When you get the letter from the faculty director, they want to hear from you. And I would assume that that is the case for every college that they're considering. We want to speak to you. We're here to answer your questions and we're here to actually give you even more information that might not be available right in those letters.

  [0:24:57] BT: Yeah, I imagine there can be a real delight for a student in finding out that they've not only received this great sum of financial support in a scholarship, but also that they've been admitted into Bucknell's most prestigious scholarship program and receiving that validation from their future school.

  And Elizabeth, I'm curious in forming your own relationships with the students that come into this program, what would you say makes them particularly well suited for this kind of scholarship? How would a prospective student know if they'd possibly be a good match?

  [0:25:26] ED: I want to underscore everything that Carrine said. Obviously, these are the very best of the students or the very best of the pool, right? That you've done incredibly well at high school, but you've also made the most of high school. It's not just getting the grades. It's not just earning the APs. But it's really, I think, sucking the life out of that high school experience, really making the most of it, being deeply involved and really curious about the world around you. So I'm going to say students that would really particularly fit this program well are obviously ones that are highly motivated, right?

  And you're not even going to get this, I don't think, scholarship unless you are highly motivated, right? But then there's also the ones that are also really innately curious. I think that students that are deeply curious and are really committed to their academic trajectory, not only where they are and what they have accomplished, but where they want to go and what they want to explore. I think these are the students that are really well suited to this kind of program.

  [0:26:24] BHA: As far as tangible benefits to a scholarship like this, what kinds of skills are students building throughout their four years? And why should a student who's been awarded an opportunity like this one take it?

  [0:26:36] ED: I think that's a really great question. The structure of the program, it deeply embeds you into academic research. And I think, at first glance, makes it look like we're trying to produce future academics and future professors. And that really is not the case at all.

  I think that this type of program surely is going to cultivate strong academic research skills, right? But those research skills are incredibly transferable to other parts of your life, especially once you leave Bucknell. There are professional skills that are coming. You're going to be working on a team. You're going to be meeting deadlines. You're keeping records you're communicating with a supervisor, right? That goes beyond the classroom, that goes beyond the research lab, that goes beyond the library. Those are things that you can take with you.

  I think that undergraduate research isn't only useful for becoming a professor, or a scientist, or a future philosopher, right? Employers really value the problem solving, the analytical, the communication, the project management skills that you're gaining from doing research as an undergrad. I think that that's one thing.

  I think the other thing that students are getting…I'm going to go back to relationships. You're getting really strong faculty relationships that are going to translate into support, translate into guidance. But also I'm thinking about in this era of AI when there's all these things that are being produced that are coming from a machine. And I'm thinking about the letters of recommendation and endorsements that faculty are able to give students that they've known for four years. So I'm thinking about myself and I'm thinking about my colleagues. And when you know a student for two, three, four years and you've worked with them intimately, you are able to convey to future graduate schools, to future law schools, to future medical schools, to future employees, the skills that these students have. And I believe that being able to relate authentically the skills and the accomplishments that a student has, I really think makes an impact on where they're able to go next.

  [0:28:36] BHA: Our mission here on College Admissions Insider is to demystify the college process from start to finish. As evidenced by Carrine's work, supporting students throughout their high school journey as they get ready and move through the application process. As Elizabeth underscored, when she described these important and deep and meaningful relationships cultivated throughout four years with these scholars here at Bucknell and in other institutions. And then how that translates to outcomes and experiences beyond Bucknell and where that letter of recommendation or that experience and foundation that you've built here takes you after you leave this place and the skills that you've built along the way.

  Thank you so much for sharing your insights with our listeners. It was a pleasure to talk about the programs that you oversee.

  [0:29:21] BT: And thanks to everyone out there for listening. If you're a fan of the podcast, please take a moment to rate, subscribe and share this episode with the students and families in your life.

  [0:29:29] BHA: We'll be back with another new episode in a few weeks. In the meantime, send your questions, comments and episode ideas to podcast@bucknell.edu. We read every note you send.

  [0:29:38] BT: And finally, you're invited to follow Bucknell on your favorite social media apps. Just look for @BucknellU on Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube and TikTok. You can also follow our student-run Instagram account, which is @iamraybucknell.

  [0:29:51] BHA: Until next time, keep reaching for your dreams and your dream school.