NSF Scholarship Program (Old Version)
Frequently Asked Questions
Old Page -- For Students Who Entered the Scholarship Program Before May 2004
What criteria were used in the selection of scholarship winners?
- For new freshman or transfer students the criteria were as follows.
- Must be full-time CIS majors at Saint Vincent College.
- Must be U.S. citizens, nationals, refugee aliens, or permanent resident aliens.
- Must be able to graduate by spring 2006 or fall of 2006.
- Good (but not necessarily outstanding) academic potential or ability. (To
be able to renew the scholarship from year to year the student was expected to
meet the GPA criteria shown in the next section below.)
- Workplace/career potential. (This was partly assessed from the answers to the scholarship
application questions and from the required letters of recommendation.)
- Demonstrated financial need. (Students' regular applications for financial aid
and FAFSA determined this.)
- For those who were already Saint Vincent College students (such as students who changed
major into CIS) the criteria were as follows:
- Must be full-time CIS majors at Saint Vincent College.
- Must be U.S. citizens, nationals, refugee aliens, or permanent resident aliens.
- Must be able to graduate by spring 2006 or fall of 2006.
- Good (but not necessarily outstanding) academic potential or ability. The usual
expectation was a GPA of 2.5 overall and a GPA of 2.8 in the CIS major.
- Workplace/career potential. (This was partly assessed from the answers to the scholarship
application questions and the responses in a required interview.)
- Demonstrated financial need. (Students' regular applications for financial aid
and FAFSA determined this.
What strings were attached?
There were a number of conditions, but these were not overly demanding. For example,
there was no requirement that a student work within the state after graduation (since this
was a federal grant project). In general, the scholarship winners were expected to
take part in a few activities that were designed to help them to be better prepared
for the work force and to have a better chance of success. Some of these activities were required,
perhaps in specific years. Others were encouraged, but optional. A summary
of the activities is listed below. The details of implementing these can be seen on the
NSF Scholarship Program Activities page.
- Freshmen were to meet at least 3 times per semester with junior or senior mentors.
- While there were freshmen and sophomores in the program, there were at least 4
annual career/mentoring meetings with speakers from industry, alumni,
etc. Freshmen and sophomores had to attend at least 2 of these per year.
Others were encouraged to attend.
- Freshmen and sophomores were sometimes required to see our tutors if we saw a need for
this type of help.
- Freshmen and sophomores were also sometimes required to attend review sessions if we saw a need.
- Sophomores were given an email mentor (from industry and/or alumni contacts) and were to briefly
review this experience with their faculty advisors.
- Awardees were asked to complete at least one internship (paid or unpaid) in a
technology field, probably around the junior or senior year.
- Juniors and seniors functioned as tutors and mentors for younger students,
sometimes ran review sessions for younger students, and occasionally functioned as mentors
for school students.
- Awardees were encouraged to apply for Palumbo grants for undergraduate student research.
- Since transfer and change of major students are something of a hybrid, often having
junior standing in terms of number of credits but sometimes more like freshmen or
sophomores in terms of CS courses completed, the activity requirements for these
students were typically a mixture taken from the various categories above. The exact requirements
for these students were worked out on an individual basis.
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Application Deadline
New students who appeared to be eligible were encouraged to apply
before they began their first semester as a CIS major.
Students already in the CIS major at Saint Vincent College were encouraged to apply as soon as possible.
This scholarship program was supported by the National Science Foundation's
Computer Science,
Engineering, and Mathematics Scholarships program under grant DUE-0122934.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of
the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Go to the main NSF-CIS Scholarship Program Page
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