Category Archives: Prestigious Scholarships

Georgia, North Carolina State Lead in 2012 Undergrad Awards

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With the recent announcement of the 2012 Udall Scholars, we can now report on the leading schools among the 50 in our review that have earned the most prestigious undergraduate awards–Udall and Goldwater scholarships.

The Udall Foundation “awards 80 scholarships of up to $5000 and 50 honorable mentions of $350 to sophomore and junior level college students. The majority of the Udall awards go to students “who have demonstrated commitment to careers related to the environment including policy, engineering, science, education, urban planning and renewal, business, health, justice, economics, and other related fields.”

Goldwater awards are given to encourage research and excellence in the STEM subjects–science, technology math, and engineering.

This year, the University of Georgia and the North Carolina State led the way in undergraduate awards.

Along with winning three Udalls, Georgia students also earned the maximum yearly award of four Goldwater scholarships. NC State students also earned the maximum of four Goldwater awards to go with two Udalls.

Undergraduate awards are one indicator of the undergraduate research opportunities that are available at universities.

Schools among the 50 to earn at least three total undergraduate awards are listed below:

Alabama–3 Goldwater
Arizona–3 Udall and 1 Goldwater
Arizona State–2 Udall and 1 Goldwater
Georgia–3 Udall and 4 Goldwater
Illinois–1 Udall and 2 Goldwater
Iowa–1 Udall and 2 Goldwater
Kansas–4 Goldwater
Maryland–1 Udall and 2 Goldwater
Massachusetts Amherst–3 Goldwater
Michigan–1 Udall and 2 Goldwater
Minnesota–1 Udall and 3 Goldwater
Nebraska–4 Goldwater
Ohio State–3 Goldwater
Oregon–3 Goldwater
Pitt–1 Udall and 3 Goldwater
South Carolina–3 Goldwater
UT Austin–3 Goldwater

Goldwater Awards for 2012 Announced!

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The 2012 Goldwater Scholarships for undergraduates to do research in science, technology, engineering, and math have been announced, and students from all but six of the 50 universities under review have won at least one award, with Georgia, Kansas, Nebraska, and North Carolina State leading the way with four awards each.

Universities among the fifty that have three Goldwater winners are Alabama, Massachusetts at Amherst, Minnesota, Ohio State, Oregon, Pitt, South Carolina, and UT Austin.

Winning two awards are Clemson, Colorado, Florida, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Rutgers, Penn State, Washington, Washington State, and Wisconsin.

Although the awards just announced will not be a part of the statistics for the current edition of A REVIEW OF FIFTY PUBLIC UNIVERSITY HONORS PROGRAMS, they will be included in the next, expanded issue.

Prestigious Scholarships and Unfair Competition

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No, this is not a post about scandals or outrageous behavior on the part of over-zealous or unethical promoters of prestigious scholarships, who sometimes surface in the intense competition to bring home major awards to campuses.

The unfair competition we detect has nothing to do with shady tactics; it is, rather, the heavy burden that public universities in the Northeast are forced to accept because of the overwhelming impact of the Ivies and elite liberal arts schools in the region. The presence of these academic powerhouses in the region led us to make a late change in the way we presented our data.

(Other parts of the country are similarly affected by the presence of elite private institutions or by the fact that some awards are given based on the state of residence of  the student rather than on the state in which their university is located.  A student with a residence in California who wins a Goldwater Scholarship while attending Harvard is listed as a California awardee.)

For example, the total number of Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships won by all 50 of the public universities we are reviewing over since the inception of both awards is 864. Now, this may seem like a high number, but consider this: the eight Ivy League universities plus MIT–a total of nine schools versus our 50–have garnered 1,609 Rhodes and Marshall awards. Throw in Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, and Wellesley, and the total rises to 1,845. Throw in West Point, and that’s another 120 awards, making the grand total 1,965 won by only 14 schools.

And they’re all within about 250 miles of nine of the schools among the 50 we are reviewing. The Universities of Binghamton, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Penn State, Rutgers, Stony Brook, SUNY Buffalo, and Vermont are the publics that have the greatest challenge when it comes to doing well in regional competitions for awards or when the Goldwater and Truman people look to some degree of state equity in making their decisions.

Although some programs may have, so to speak, said to hell with it, and decided it is a waste of resources to challenge the likes of Harvard, with 563 Rhodes and Marshall awards all by itself, others that may be trying as hard as they can still have a much tougher time than other public schools that do not have to deal with the Ivies, West Point, and the elite liberal arts institutions.

Delaware, Vermont, and Rutgers have done the best of all the public universities who operate near the famous private schools in winning the major postgraduate scholarships, while Penn State has the best overall record of awards, including Goldwater and Udall scholarships. One reason for this relative success is that the most intense pressure from the private elites hits Massachusetts and Connecticut the hardest.

So here is what we plan to do: We will now have an additional listing of the 50 programs, one that will show total scores without the prestigious awards points. This addition will also answer some critics who have, correctly, stressed that prestigious awards may or may not be earned by students in honors programs.

Now parents, prospective students, and honors staff will be able to have it both ways–with prestigious scholarships as part of the total, and without them, leaving only the honors-specific data as an indication of a program’s success.

Leaders in ‘All Scholars’ Awards

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The “All Scholars” term refers to the number of prestigious undergraduate and postgraduate awards won by students at the Fifty universities. Students at some of the Fifty excel in earning prestigious postgraduate scholarships (Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, Truman, Gates), while students at other universities are more successful in winning the best-known undergraduate scholarships (Goldwater, Udall). And some universities have students who do well in both categories, especially those at or near the top of the list below.

For this metric, all Rhodes awards are included; Marshall and Gates from 2001–2011; all Truman awards; all Churchill awards; and all Udall and Goldwater awards. Fulbright awards were adjusted for the size of undergraduate populations at each university.

As noted in previous posts, correlations of scholarships to U.S. News rankings are not strong for the whole data set of fifty universities. The list below includes universities above the median for the whole set. Note: Revised, February 22, 2012.

Virginia 1
North Carolina 2
Washington 3
Michigan 4
Wisconsin 5
Kansas 6
Illinois 7
Arizona State 8
Minnesota 9
Arizona 10
UT Austin 11
Penn State 12
Georgia 13
Michigan State 14
Iowa 15
Arkansas 16
Indiana 17
Pitt 18
Florida 19
South Carolina 20
Colorado 21
Delaware 22
NC State 23
Nebraska 24
Ohio State 25

Revised March 28, 2012.

USA Today Scholarships

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Although they don’t carry the same level of financial reward that Udall and Goldwater Scholarships provide, the USA Today College Academic Team scholarships receive significant attention from a wide audience because of their association with the Gannett Corporation. The 2011 awards have not been announced, but below are some statistics for the last twenty years, not including 1995 and 1999. If you have data for those years, please let us know. If the figures below do not agree with your own, please let us know.

Total awards, by university among the “Fifty”:

Arizona State, 12
North Carolina, 7
Virginia Tech, 6
Alabama, Delaware, Georgia Tech, 5
Minnesota, Rutgers, UCLA, 4
Auburn, Illinois, Iowa, UC Irvine, 3
Florida, Massachusetts, Ohio State, Penn State, UC Davis, 2

The seventeen universities among the fifty with one winner are the following:
Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa State, Kansas, Michigan State, Nebraska, Missouri, Pitt, South Carolina, University at Buffalo, UT-Austin, Virginia, Washington State, and Wisconsin.

Do Rhodes Awards Tilt More Now to Private Elites?

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The Rhodes Scholar list for 2012 includes what may appear to be a disproportionate number of awards to students in elite private institutions, especially Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. And this year, ten of the institutions with award winners are private, versus six that are public. Is this typical?

Most awards historically have gone to private institutions. But what are the recent stats, say, for the last ten years, and how do universities among the “Fifty” perform during this same period?

The year in which the public/private ratio of sponsoring institutions was most balanced was just last year, 2011, when the awards were distributed among ten public and ten private universities. (These figures do not include awards to national military academies.)

The recent year with the greatest imbalance was 2004, when nineteen private universities and only three pubic universities were listed.

Overall, during the past ten years, private universities are listed 130 times, while public universities are listed 64 times, a ratio of almost exactly 2 to 1. So 2012 is not that bad, at least when institutions rather than individual scholars are counted. When it comes to individual scholars per institution, the private universities have more than a 2 to 1 advantage.

Twenty-two universities among the Fifty in our survey account for 41 of the 64 public university sponsor listings during the past ten years:

North Carolina (6), Pitt (4), Washington (4), Georgia (3), Kansas (3), Minnesota (3), Virginia (3), Indiana (2), and UCLA (2) are the multiple winners. Those with one Rhodes scholar during the last ten years are Arizona, Auburn, Delaware, Georgia Tech, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio State, Texas, Texas A&M, and Wisconsin.

The Importance of Prestigious Scholarships

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Submitted on 2011/11/16 at 10:36 am

How important are prestigious post-graduate scholarships to the process of evaluating honors programs?

The purpose of a strong honors program is to give the brightest students the best possible education so that the students can achieve at a level commensurate with their high ability. The nation’s leading private universities excel at producing Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Fulbright, Gates, and Churchill scholars, and the academic world associates excellence in academic achievement with the attainment of these prestigious awards. If strong public honors programs hope to make good on the promise of an elite-level education within a large state university, then one measure should be the number of high-profile awards won by students at these universities.

The University of Illinois leads the universities listed among our fifty in awards for Gates Cambridge Scholars and Churchill Scholars. The 90 annual Gates Cambridge awards can be won by students in almost any field of study, but the majority appear to go to scholars in the STEM subjects, education, public health, and law or criminal justice. The Churchill Scholarships, also for study at Cambridge, are only for students in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics. The Churchill Scholarship is valued at $45,000 to $50,000. The Gates Scholarship has about the same value, but it can be granted for the length of time necessary for the degree sought, usually no more than three years (Ph.D).

The University of Virginia ranks first among the fifty in the extremely prestigious Rhodes Scholars category. The University of North Carolina ranks ahead of UT Austin and the University of Virginia in Truman Scholars. Truman scholarships have a value of up to $30,000. Recipients must be “change agents” who will work in government, non-profit, or educational organizations for at least three of the first seven years after completion of a Truman-funded degree. About 60 scholarships are awarded annually, and usually each state has at least one resident who is a recipient. The recipient does not have to be a student at the university within the state of residence, but most are. Seventeen of the fifty universities in our guidebook are Truman Scholarship Honor Institutions, and all over-perform in the scholarship rankings.

The ranking guide to be published in the Spring of 2012 also considers Fulbright awards, although the measure for that award is not in raw numbers but in a proportional figure based on the size of a given university’s undergraduate population. The University of Michigan, however, not only ranks first in the number of Fulbrights granted but also ranks first even after the university’s sizable undergraduate population is taken into account. UCLA and Wisconsin rank second and third, respectively, after raw numbers are adjusted for the size of the undergraduate population.

So does this mean that universities outside the orbit of public elites will not rank highly in the prestigious scholarship category? Actually, the category is most useful in assessing these other universities, especially the extent to which they “over-perform” in relation to their overall ranking in U.S. News or elsewhere. For example, there are universities among the fifty who rank 100 or lower in the U.S. News survey but rank in the top half of the fifty we are reviewing in the prestigious scholarship category. Kansas, Nebraska, Arizona, and Arizona State are examples.