Written by: Ralph K. Spencer, D’Evelyn Education Foundation Board of Directors
My previous three articles have centered on the where, how, and when as related to D’Evelyn’s 24 scholarships and three awards that will be presented to seniors at this year’s Senior Banquet. This week I will be discussing the what of these 24 scholarships. All the information I share here comes from the newly designed, and extremely valuable, Synopsis of D’Evelyn Education Foundation Scholarships and Awards (Synopsis). You may access this link by going to the D’Evelyn home page at develyn.jeffcopublicschools.org, then scroll down and click on the jaguar on the left side of the page. Once you get to the Scholarships & Awards page, click on the Scholarships and Awards Synopsis link and you will see 5 pages of clear, concise information. In less than 10 minutes, students can determine which of the 24 scholarships they are eligible to apply for, along with other critical information they must be aware of when completing their applications. Unless noted otherwise, each of the scholarships listed below requires a completed DEF Scholarship Application Cover Sheet with required essay and resume as well as one letter of recommendation from NAVIANCE (the latter provided by counseling office personnel).
What I have provided in this article is a brief summary of 14 of the 24 scholarships available to this year’s seniors. See the individual scholarship applications (available on the Internet at the same location as the Synopsis noted in my first paragraph, above) for additional details. I will cover the remaining 10 scholarship in next week’s article. Until then, GO JAGS! Written by: Ralph K. Spencer, D’Evelyn Education Foundation Board of Directors I owe my readers an explanation of both the scholarship and award selection process, which differ considerably. As a reminder, please note that this year DEF will honor 27 seniors with $23,750 in scholarships and $3,500 in awards. The total of the four awards is $6,500, with the remaining $3,000 award given each year to a non-student D’Evelyn community member, typically a D’Evelyn teacher (see the fourth paragraph, below). Over the last 13 years, over $50,000 has been awarded to 24 D’Evelyn teachers and three staff members! All scholarship/award recipients are selected by the DEF Scholarship/Award Selection Committee (Selection Committee), a group of 5 people who have had no connection to D’Evelyn for at least the last 10 years. Scholarship winners are determined by the Selection Committee based upon how well their applications compare with others applying for the same scholarship (the Letter of Recommendation from Naviance provided by the Counseling Office, the additional essay, if required, their cumulative GPA in some instances, their completed classes for some scholarships, and how well they address the Selection Criteria included on each individual scholarship application, etc. (see the hyperlink, or the jaguar icon, in the fourth paragraph, below, to view these applications). The LeAnne Hollemans Roscow Award and the Andrew Jenicek Memorial Award utilize two, separate 3-teacher panels who select the top 3 candidates for each of these two awards. The three teachers who comprise each of these two panels are looking for seniors who display similar qualities, characteristics, personality traits, and overall approach to life as the individuals for whom these two awards are named. Each panel member independently prepares a brief paragraph describing their individual nominee and why he/she is deserving of this cash award. The panel members then come together and rank the nominees 1, 2, and 3, and turn their recommendations and paragraphs over to Counseling Office personnel who in turn give them to each member of the Selection Committee, along with copies of all the scholarship application packets. The Selection Committee will always select the #1 choice unless that student is selected to receive another scholarship or award. In that case, the Selection Committee would go to the #2 (or #3) candidate. The third award, and the only one that does not go to a student, is the $3,000 Jamin B. Wilson Excellence in Education Award given to a D’Evelyn community member who satisfies the three specific criteria found in the nomination form. The Selection Committee determines the winner of this award from nominations submitted by anyone in the D’Evelyn community familiar with the nominee. Students may nominate but are not eligible for this award. Nomination forms can be found in the Counseling Office or online (go to the jaguar icon on the front page of the D’Evelyn website and click on it to go to the Scholarships and Awards page or use the following hyperlink): https://develyneducationfoundation.weebly.com/scholarships.html. The fourth award, and brand new this year, is the Rally Award funded by a D’Evelyn family who wants to honor a D’Evelyn Senior who has worked extremely hard throughout high school to improve his/her cumulative GPA. This $1,000 award will go to that senior who has made the most significant improvement in their cumulative GPA between the end of their Freshman year and the end of the first semester of their Senior year. In case of a tie, an essay may be necessary to help the Selection Committee select a winner. I also owe my readers a brief explanation of the likelihood of a senior winning a scholarship or an award in 2021. In past years, about 25% of D’Evelyn Seniors apply for scholarships. This percentage usually results in about 35 students submitting one or more scholarship applications. When you consider that 27 students will be honored with 24 scholarships and three awards, the odds become very good, namely, 1 in every 1.3 students who applied for a scholarship, and three who may not have, will be surprised at the Senior Banquet! Not bad, especially when compared with Power Ball or Mega Millions! Until next week’s article, good luck seniors, and parents, and GO JAGS!!! PS: Yet another interesting tidbit - as promised in my Feb 7 article: Students MUST enroll in a two or four-year college/university within one year following graduation to keep their scholarship. Written by: Ralph K. Spencer, D’Evelyn Education Foundation Board of Directors At the end of my Feb 7 article (found in the Jaguar Tracks at the DEF BOARD OF DIRECTORS link), I promised to “explain the difference between scholarships and awards, how the selection process works for both, and a few other tidbits that I believe you will find interesting.” Before I fulfill this promise, I thought I would include several bullets extracted from last week's article that parents and students alike MUST be aware of to assure a painless approach to completing scholarship application packets:
The differences between scholarships and awards are significant. While all 27 winners will be introduced at the annual Senior Banquet, scholarship recipients do NOT receive their scholarship funds at this event. They will be given written instructions at the Banquet on what they must do to get their money sent to the college/university of their choice. Please DO NOT MISPLACE THESE INSTRUCTIONS! Award recipients DO receive their no-strings-attached award funds in the form of a check at the Banquet. Another significant difference is that students may NOT apply for awards. You may wonder why. The answer lies with the individual donor(s). They are the people who decide whether to honor a D’Evelyn senior with either a scholarship or an award. Other than taking as much time as necessary to explain the pros and cons of scholarships and awards to these potential donors, the school has no control over their decisions. Finally, the selection process is quite different for awards vs scholarships. In the interest of space, I will explain these two procedures in next week’s Jaguar Tracks article as well as address the likelihood of winning a scholarship or an award. The numbers may surprise you. HINT: The odds are much better than winning Power Ball or Mega Millions! Until then, GO JAGS! PS: An interesting tidbit - as promised in my Feb 7 article: It is the policy of the DEF Board of Directors that no senior, except in rare circumstances, will be selected for more than one scholarship/award in order to spread the $27,250 among as many seniors as possible. By Ralph K. Spencer, D’Evelyn Education Foundation Board of Directors On Thursday, February 4, 2021, at approximately 2:00 pm, it was my distinct pleasure to talk to 30 D’Evelyn Seniors (virtually, of course) about the upcoming scholarship/award season. This meeting was coordinated by Mr. Jon Watson, one of D’Evelyn’s two senior high counselors. All seniors were requested to participate in this presentation. I have no idea what happened to the remaining 100+ seniors but was none the less glad to pass on critical scholarship/award information to the students who chose to listen to both Mr. Watson and me during this 50-minute period. I am extremely proud to announce that 24 scholarships worth $23,750 and 3 awards worth $3,500 (a total of $27,250), will be presented to 27 deserving seniors this year. An additional $3,000 award is given each year to a non-student D’Evelyn community member (typically a D’Evelyn teacher), which equates to $30,250, the first time in D’Evelyn’s history that scholarships and awards have exceeded $30,000 in any given year! Please note that while students may NOT apply for the three awards totaling $3,500, rest assured that this money will end up in the hands of three fortunate students at this year’s Senior Banquet, where all scholarship and award winners will be introduced. It is imperative that students know where to go on the Internet to find the plethora of scholarship and award information that exists solely for the students’ benefit. While there are several options on how to retrieve this information, I shared the following two approaches with the seniors: 1) Go to the brand-new jaguar icon on the front page of the D’Evelyn website and click on it to go to the Scholarships and Awards page. 2) They can also use the following hyperlink to go directly to where this information resides: https://develyneducationfoundation.weebly.com/scholarships.html. Links for all 24 individual scholarship application forms (and 4 awards) are found on these two pages and are also available in the Counseling Office. The following additional links are also found on these two pages: 1) The DEF Scholarship Application Cover Sheet, 2) The Scholarship/Award Synopsis, and 3) The Student Scholarship Checklist! A link to my Feb 4 PowerPoint presentation will soon be available at this same location. 1) The one-page DEF Scholarship Application Cover Sheet (Cover Sheet) must be completed and signed by both the student and a parent/guardian. This Cover Sheet explains that a 1-page, typed resume and a typed essay (up to 500 words) must accompany this Cover Sheet. It also reminds the student that his/her name, the title “DEF Scholarship Main Essay,” and the essay prompt question must be printed at the top of the page. The good news is that only ONE Cover Sheet is required even if the student is applying for more than one scholarship. 2) The Scholarship/Award Synopsis is a 5-page summary of all 24 scholarships and 4 awards that will be presented at this year’s Senior Banquet. In less than 10 minutes, students can determine which scholarships they are eligible to apply for by simply reviewing the “Eligibility” column for each scholarship. 3) The one-page Student Scholarship Checklist is brand new this year and is designed to assure students that they have included all the various information required for each scholarship in their application packet prior to submitting it to the Counseling Office. In closing, I would like to add a few notes that I included in my Feb 4 presentation: Counseling Office personnel will attach an official transcript and a letter of recommendation from NAVIANCE (as written by a D’Evelyn staff member) to each scholarship application. If any of the scholarships you are applying for include a Teacher/Coach Ranking Form, please provide the appropriate teacher/coach with this form in plenty of time for him/her to return the completed form to the Counseling Office. I encouraged the students to not wait until the last day (Wednesday, April 7, 2021, by 3 pm) to submit their application packet to the Counseling Office. Give yourself time to correct any “hiccups” in the paperwork. Finally, you may submit your application packet on any school day, not just on the day you attend classes. Please coordinate with Mrs. McSwain if you are not attending in-person classes to arrange for a time to submit your application packet. Please see my article in next week’s Jaguar Tracks as I explain the difference between scholarships and awards, how the selection process works, and a few other tidbits that I believe you will find interesting. Until then, GO JAGS! |
The D'Evelyn Education Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable corporation. The Board of Directors oversees the finances, legal issues and long-term strategic plans of the organization Archives
May 2023
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