On Tuesday, October 8, 2024, Kuhn Honors and Scholars House was all abuzz with excitement as current undergraduate students and recent alumni celebrated the completion of their fellowship applications with fall deadlines! This group of ambitious students had been diligently working on applications to programs like the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Rhodes Scholarship, Schwarzman Scholars, and many others.
The cohort of fall fellowship applicants come from all across campus, representing a wide array of student groups and scholarship programs, and with a diverse range of professional aspirations. On campus, they are Morrill Scholars, Stamps Eminence Scholars, Land Grant Opportunity Scholars, and Buckeye Leadership Fellows. They have previously been awarded competitive fellowships like the Truman, Goldwater, and Astronaut Scholarships. Applicants have majors in political science, international studies, Spanish, biomedical science, chemical engineering, mathematics, medical anthropology, early childhood education, neuroscience, Korean, chemistry, among many others. With career aspirations from medicine to education, global affairs to law, business to environmental justice, this cohort of students is sure to change the world, whether they win the fellowships or not.
Many applicants participated in one of our six week Fulbright writing workshops over the summer, hosted by Undergraduate Fellowship Office’s faculty fellow, Associate Professor of History, Thomas McDow. Rhodes and Marshall Scholarship applicants also began working on their applications in early summer. Working with UFO, they engaged in writing workshops and sought feedback on their materials. Once students returned to campus in the fall, they also joined UFO staff for writing circles—informal gatherings where students work on applications and receive guidance from fellowship advisors. Engaging in an iterative writing process over many months, students continually revised their materials to ultimately produce compelling application packets.
Based upon her work with applicants over the course of many months, fellowship advisor Louise Edwards noted, “I’ve enjoyed seeing how students’ writing develops and their perspectives shift as they reflect on their undergraduate experiences and what they want to do in the future. The process of writing these applications in and of itself is so meaningful.”
Staff from the fellowship office are not the only people supporting applicants. Over their years of undergraduate study, students have worked to cultivate significant relationships with mentors. And those mentors supported the applicants by providing guidance on application materials and by submitting letters of recommendation on their behalf.
Program manager of competitive fellowships, Janet Schroeder, notes “The majority of the applications due during this period are for post-grad opportunities. And I am always so impressed by the accomplishments our applicants have achieved at this point in their undergraduate experience and by their ambitious aspirations for the future.”
Please join the Undergraduate Fellowship Office staff in wishing the applicants well on the successful submission of their fall fellowship applications.